She picked up the divorce decree. Max had written it was a good thing to have finished with it, and after all that anguish, the time in court had been negligible, the procedures fraudulent, community property none, alimony none. She’d stepped down from the oak witness chair, glanced briefly at the judge and left the courtroom.

She put away her papers, threw a sweater over her shoulders and drove out to Sunset Strip, where in a small empty store, Heida was shouting at a group of young women who were wandering about the back room in various stages of undress. They would have to wear Band-Aids over their nipples, Heida was screeching. Her dresses were not made to be worn over those medieval siege weapons, American brassières! They rehearsed for a bit, then Annie and one of the girls who had an apartment nearby went there to have a sandwich before the show began at eight. The girl, Laura, was someone with whom Annie had a slight acquaintance. She was the girl of a screenwriter who’d been in and out of the party a number of times, and who referred to himself ponderously as a universal gadfly, épataying the comrades as well as the bourgeoisie. He was rich.

Laura was beautiful. Dark-haired, romantic eyes, perfect teeth. When she wrapped a silk scarf around her head, binding in her dark hair, she looked like the heiress of California. Her apartment was full of flowers, a piano stood in one corner, and there were pictures of herself on all the walls, Laura in riding breeches, her eyes sad, her smile gay, Laura on a sailboat, in a jersey, her eyes sad, her smile gay! Clumsily, she prepared them some sandwiches. When she sank into a chair, she was perfect. Doing anything at all, except being looked at, brought out a peculiar awkwardness. Annie watched her, fascinated. The girl’s total intelligence was directed toward her own person. In her own milieu, couches, soft chairs, on the makeshift runway in the shop for tonight’s show, she attained perfection.

Eating a lettuce and tomato sandwich, she spoke of proletarian revolution; she referred to the “little people.”

“Little people!”

She pushed back her glorious hair. “The little people,” she murmured, “the oppressed masses.”

Little people…

“Richard’s making a film in Mexico. Everyone’s against it. He doesn’t care…about the peons. I’m going with him…his own money.”

“Mexican dwarfs?”

Laura looked at her blankly. “Well, I don’t know about dwarfs.”

A woman got into the elevator with them. She seemed galvanized the moment Annie entered. It was a slow elevator.

“Why are you staring at me?”

“You’re so beautiful,” said the woman. Annie flushed, looking apologetically at Laura and then down at the Heida-designed black suit she was wearing. It was a beautiful suit, expensive, the kind of cut and fit and cloth that made all the difference.