From the alley outside the kitchen door, a man’s voice says, “Knock, knock.” The windows, fogged with the steam. The kitchen air feels humid and warm as the sauna of the Garden of Allah apartments. My hair hangs lank and plastered to my wet forehead, flat as a Louise Brooks spit curl.

The shadow of a head falls against the outside of the window, the pane where my Miss Kathie cut the shape of her heart. From behind the fogged glass, the voice says, “Katherine?” His knuckles knocking the glass, a man says, “This is an emergency.”

Unfolded, the letter reads: My Most Dear Katherine, True love is NOT out of your reach. I flatten the letter to the damp window glass, where it sticks, held secure as wallpaper, pasted there by the condensed steam. The sunlight streaming in from the alleyway, the light leaves the paper translucent, glowing white with the handwritten words hung framed by the heart etched in the glass. The letter still pasted to the window, I flip the dead bolt, slip the chain, turn the knob and open the door.

In the alleyway, a man stands holding a paper tablet fluttering with pages. Each page scribbled with names and arrows, what looks like the diagram for plays in a football game. Among the names one can read Eve Arden… Marlene Dietrich… Sidney Blackmer… In his opposite hand, the man holds a white paper sack. Next to him, the trash cans spill their roses and gardenias onto the paving stones. The gladiolas and orchids tumble out to lie in the fetid puddles of mud and rainwater which run down the center of the alley. The reek of honeysuckle and spoiled meat. Pale mock orange mingles with pink camellias and bloodred peonies.

“Hurry, quick, where’s Lady Katherine?” the man says, holding the tablet, shaking it so the pages flap. On some, the names radiate in every direction from a large rectangle which fills the center of the page. The names alternating gender: Lena Horne then William Wellman then Esther Williams. The man says, “I’m expecting twenty-four guests for dinner, and I have a placement emergency…”

The diagrams are seating charts. The rectangles are the dinner table. The names the guest list. “As added incentive,” the man says, “tell Her Majesty that I’ve brought her favorite candy… Jordan almonds.”

Her Majesty won’t eat a bite, I tell him.

This man, this same face smiles out from the frontline skirmishes on television, amid the Battle of Gettysburg-this is Terrence Terry, formerly Mr. Katherine Kenton, former dancer under contract at Lasky Studios, former paramour to Montgomery Clift, former catamite to James Whale and Don Ameche, former cosodomite to William Haines, former sexual invert, the fifth “was-band,” in crisis about whom to seat next to Celeste Holm at a dinner he’s hosting tonight.

“This is an entertainment emergency,” the Terrence specimen says, “I need Katherine to tell me: Does Jack Buchanan hate Dame May Whitty?”

I say that he should’ve gone to prison for wedding Miss Kathie. That it’s illegal for homosexuals to get married.

“Only to each other,” he says, stepping into the kitchen.

I close the alley door, lock the knob, slip the chain, flip the dead bolt.

Whatever the case, I say, a marriage isn’t something one undertakes simply to pad one’s résumé. Saying this, I’m retrieving a sheet of blank stationery from the kitchen table, then positioning this sheet on the damp window so that it aligns with the love letter already pasted to the glass.

“Her Majesty doesn’t have to come dine with us,” this Terrence Terry says. “Just tell me who to stick next to Jane Wyman.”

Using a pen, blue ink, I begin to trace the writing of the original letter as it glows through this new, blank sheet.

“Lady Katherine can tell me if John Agar is right- or left-handed,” says this Terrence specimen. “She knows if Rin Tin Tin is male or female.”

Lecturing, still tracing the old letter onto the new paper, I suggest he begin with a fresh page. An empty dinner table. Seat Desi Arnaz to the left of Hazel Court. Put Rosemary Clooney across from Lex Barker. Fatty Arbuckle always spits as he speaks, so place him opposite Billie Dove, who’s too blind to notice. Using my own pen, I elbow into Terry’s work, drawing arrows from Jean Harlow to Lon Chaney Sr. to Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Like Knute Rockne sketching football plays, I circle Gilda Gray and Hattie McDaniel, and I cross out June Haver.

“If she’s starving herself,” says Terrence Terry, watching me work, “she must be falling in love again.” Standing there, he unrolls the top of the white paper bag. Reaching into it, Terry lifts out a handful of almonds, pastel shades of pink and green and blue. He slips one into his mouth, chews.

Not only starving, I say, but she’s exercising as well. Loosely put, the physical trainers attach electric wires to whatever muscles they can find on her body and jolt her with shocks that simulate running a steeplechase while being repeatedly struck by bolts of lightning. I say, It’s very good for her body-terrible for her hair.

After that ordeal, my Miss Kathie is having her legs shaved, her teeth whitened, her cuticles pushed back.

Chewing, swallowing, Terrence Terry says, “Who’s the new romance? Do I know him?”

The telephone mounted on the kitchen wall beside the stove, it rings. I lift the receiver, saying, Hello? And wait.

The front doorbell rings.

Over the telephone, a man’s voice says, “Is Miss Katherine Kenton at home?”

Who, I ask, may I say is calling?

The front doorbell rings.

“Is this Hazie, the housekeeper?” the man on the telephone says. “My name is Webb Westward. We met a few days ago, at the mausoleum.”

I’m sorry, I say, but I’m afraid he has the wrong number. This, I say, is the State Residence for Criminally Reckless Females. I ask him to please not telephone again. And I hang up the receiver.

“I see you’re still,” the Terrence specimen says, “protecting Her Majesty.”

My pen follows the handwritten lines of the original letter, tracing every loop and dot of the words that bleed through, copying them onto this new sheet of stationery, the sentence: My Most Dear Katherine, True love is NOT out of your reach.

I trace the words, I’ll arrive to collect you for drinks at eight on Saturday.

Tracing the line, Wear something smashing.

My pen traces the signature, Webster Carlton Westward III.

We all, more or less, live in her shadow. No matter what else we do with our lives, our obituaries will lead with the clause “lifelong paid companion to movie star Katherine Kenton” or “fifth husband to film legend Katherine Kenton…”

I copy the original letter perfectly, only instead of Saturday I mimic the handwriting, that same slant and angle, to write Friday. Folding this new letter in half, tucking it back into the original envelope with Miss Katherine written on the back, licking the glue strip, my tongue tastes the mouth of this Webster specimen. The lingering flavor of Maxwell House coffee. The scent of thin Tiparillo cigars and bay rum cologne. The chemistry of Webb Westward’s saliva. The recipe for his kisses.

Terrence Terry sets the bag of candied almonds on the kitchen table. Still eating one, he watches the television. He asks, “Where’s that awful little mutt she picked up… what? Eight years ago?”

He’s an actor now, I say, nodding at the television set. And it was ten years ago.

“No,” says the Terrence specimen, “I meant the Pekingese.”

I shrug, flip the dead bolt, slip the chain and open the door. I tell him the dog’s still around. Probably upstairs napping. I say to leave the almonds, and I’ll be certain that Miss Kathie gets them. Standing with the door open, I say good-bye.

On the television, Paco pretends to kiss Vilma Bánky. The senator on the evening news kisses babies and shakes hands. On another channel, Terrence Terry catches a bullet fired from a Union musket and dies at the Siege of Atlanta. We’re all merely ghosts who continue to linger in Miss Kathie’s world. Phantoms like the scent of honeysuckle or almonds. Like vanishing steam. The front doorbell rings again.