“Hal’s a big boy, Gracie. He can take care of himself.”

“I suppose so,” Grace sighed, “but he had a lot of that brandy.”

“Don’t worry. He’ll come down if he needs anything, and if we hear any loud crashes, we’ll run upstairs.”

“Moira? Could I ask you a question?”

Moira studied Grace’s anxious expression. “What is it, Grace?”

“Did you mean what you said at Laureen’s?”

“I said a lot of things at Laureen’s. Did I mean what?”

“That you knew what Vanessa was doing all the time. And that you’d never look at anyone but me.”

Moira turned to face her lover, who looked very beautiful in lavender baby-doll pajamas, an effect thoroughly sabotaged by the old blue and red flannel shirt draped over her shoulders. “I meant it then. Right now, I’m not so sure.”

“What do you mean?” There was a quaver in Grace’s voice.

“Oh, you know how it is, Grace. You live with someone for years and they start taking you for granted. When bedtime rolls around, they wear ugly flannel shirts over absolutely scrumptious baby-doll pajamas.”

Grace let out a relieved sigh and began to grin. Moira loved to tease her about her flannel shirts.

“I know what you mean. I was in love with a woman who went to bed in an old college sweatshirt. Can you imagine that?”

Moira smiled. She was wearing her college sweatshirt, so old that the red was now a washed-out pink and the mascot was totally unrecognizable. “Must have been grim, Grace. Did you love this woman a lot?”

Grace sighed. “Oh, yes, much more than she deserved. One night when I couldn’t stand seeing her like that any longer, I ripped that sweatshirt right off her body and covered her all over with kisses.”

“You did?” Moira flicked off the lights in the dressing room and took Grace’s hand. “Come on, Gracie, tell me more.”

Betty glanced at her secret friend and smiled. At last she knew who he was, and she felt proud that such an important actor had come to visit her. She wished she could find the words to ask him why he only made scary movies, but perhaps he’d take that as an insult. Sir Laurence Olivier had refused certain movies when he hadn’t approved of the scripts, but her secret friend might not have that kind of bargaining power.

There was something she’d meant to tell him, something about his appearance in the undertaker movies. Betty frowned and searched her mind, but her head felt light and empty, almost as if she were dreaming. Even the forbidden channels showed people sleeping, except for channel three where the funny animal man did nothing but sit on the floor and look through big piles of papers. Letting random images pop into her mind was much more interesting.

Her secret friend had brought the candy again. Someone must have told him what she liked. As she reached for her second piece, an image popped into Betty’s mind and she smiled. A boy was handing her a box of this very same candy, wrapped in silver paper. There was a little green and red bow on top so it must have been Christmas. The card had a reindeer with a very red nose and the boy’s name was Rudolph. No, that was the reindeer’s name. The boy’s name was Charles, Charles G., and he’d drawn her name from the basket at school. No present over four dollars. No exchanging names if you got someone you didn’t like. Miss Parker was very strict about that. She could see Miss Parker now, playing the old upright piano in their classroom. They were all sitting at their desks, five rows across, seven in each row, hers second from the front in the middle row. Amy C. sat in front of her and Doug S. behind.

She heard Miss Parker playing the Christmas songs as everyone sang.

We three Kings of Orient are. Smoking on a big fat cigar. It was loaded, and exploded. Blam!

But only Charles had sung it that way. And never when Miss Parker could hear him.

Then they were opening their presents and Charles was watching her out of the corner of his eye, every freckle on his face standing out because he was blushing. Chocolate-covered cherries. She’d never liked them that much before, but she thanked Charles and told him they were her favorites. And every Christmas after that, even after Charles was grown up and had an important job with the government, he had given her a big box of chocolate-covered cherries.

Betty frowned in concentration. There was a word for what Charles had done, a bad word. It started with a T and ended with an R and it had been in one of the crossword puzzles she’d loved before she’d gotten so sick. The clue was “one who informs or betrays.” And the word was . . . traitor! Betty shivered a little, even though the room was nice and warm. Charles, the traitor, was dead and he hadn’t loved her after all. He’d just used her to try to hurt Daddy. Still . . . sometimes she missed him, and she missed Daddy, too. She was almost sure that Daddy hadn’t come to see her since she’d moved into this lovely mountain chateau. Was Daddy dead like Charles?

“What’s the matter, Betty?” The image vanished as her secret friend reached over to wipe a tear from her cheek. He was so kind, she couldn’t help but smile.

“That’s better. I like to see you happy. Have another piece.” He was holding out the box, so she took one, just to please him, even though the candy didn’t taste like it used to. She put it into her mouth before she remembered that she had to tell him about her undertaker collection, but it wasn’t polite to speak with your mouth full. She chewed, and swallowed, and, as her eyelids closed, her message for him turned into a shimmering butterfly with gossamer wings and drifted away.

Hal sat on the floor of his office, surrounded by stacks of his discarded work. He figured he must really be drunk, or he’d never have dragged out all his old portfolios. These drawings were his slush pile, the stuff he hadn’t used for one reason or another.

He picked up an early drawing and examined it critically. This was a stripped-down version of Chiquita Chicken without her lace mantilla and red high-heeled shoes. Probably no one would recognize her.

Hal frowned as he noticed the date on the bottom. This drawing had won the local cartoon contest. He had been seventeen that year, a senior at Jefferson High and wildly in love with a stunning blond cheerleader named Marcie Wilson, who didn’t seem to know that he existed even though her locker was right across the hall from his. Hal still remembered the morning that his winning cartoon had appeared in the paper, and Marcie Wilson, the lovely subject of every one of his adolescent fantasies, had actually stopped him in the hall to congratulate him. “That was a great chicken you drew, Hal. Are you going to the dance tonight after the game?”

Hal had shifted from foot to foot. He hadn’t even planned on going to the game. “I don’t know. I might drop in for a couple of minutes.”

“Oh, I hope so!” Marcie had reached out to squeeze his arm. “Shall I save you the last dance? And then maybe you could drive me home.”

Hal had walked away in a daze, right past the room where his European history class was meeting. He’d turned around and run back, sliding into his seat just as the final bell rang. Mr. Harmon had given a rousing lecture on the battle of Waterloo, but Hal hadn’t heard a word.

Just as soon as they’d parked up on the overlook, Marcie shrugged out of her blouse and turned that dazzling smile on him. “Everyone says you’re going to be famous, Hal. Isn’t that just wonderful?”

“Yeah.” Hal wasn’t thinking about fame and fortune. He was too busy staring at Marcie’s lovely white breasts in the moonlight. “They’re wonderful, all right!”