tail of a mystified glance laid upon her, but these were from amateurs at the game. To 
the true professionals- which is to say most of the people in this assembly-she was 
simply a non-presence. She could have been standing right in their line of vision and 
somehow their gaze would have slid off her and around her; anything to avoid seeing her.
  	She caught tight hold of Todd's hand. So much for the Cinderella fantasy. It was 
a nightmare.
  	Much to her delight Todd clutched her hand in return. His palm was pouring sweat.
  	"They're all looking at me," he said, leaning close to her.
  	"No, they're not."
  	"Hi, Todd."
  	"Hi, Jodie. Good to-see that? They say hi then they move on. She's gone already. 
Hi, Steven! When are you-? Too late. He's off. It's fucking uncanny."
  	"Where's Maxine?"
  	"I haven't seen her yet. She's probably out back. She likes to sit and hold court 
at these things. She says only hostesses circulate."
  	"And she's not the hostess?"
  	"Fuck, no. These aren't her guests. They're her supplicants." Tammy had seen some 
attractive-looking hors d'oeuvres sailing by.
  	"I'll have one of those," she said, tapping the waiter on the shoulder, "if you 
don't ask in this place," she explained, as she took three, "you don't get."
  	"Are they good?"
  	"What do I know? They're filling a hole. Very slowly. Doesn't anybody have any 
appetite around here?"
  	"Not publicly."
  	To get to the back of the house he had led her into a larger room-which, despite 
the fact that it was packed with guests-was almost as hushed as a library. A few people 
looked round at Todd-a few even attempted tentative smiles-but nobody made any move to 
break off their whispered exchanges and approach him, for which Tammy was grateful. The 
density of famous faces was much the same in here as it had been next door. This really 
was the creme de la creme: the people who could get a studio to spend several million 
dollars developing a script by simply hinting that they might be in it when it was 
finished; the names above the tide that audiences knew so well they only used an actor's 
given name when they were talking about the show: Bruce and Demi and Brad and Tom and all 
the rest. Next year, some portion of the crowd would have slipped onto the B-list, after 
a dud or two. But tonight they were at the top of their game; famous amongst the famous. 
Tonight there wasn't an agency in the city that wouldn't have signed them on the spot; or 
a late-night talk-show that wouldn't have bumped Einstein, Van Gogh and the Pope to have 
them on. They were American royalty, the way that Pickford and Fairbanks had been royalty 
in the early years. Yes, there were more crowns now; more thrones. But there were also 
more fans, in every corner of the world, men and women ready to fawn and obsess. In 
short, none of these were people who hurt for want of admiration. They had a surfeit of 
it, the way the rest of the world had a surfeit of credit-card debt.
  	It was harder, in this more densely-populated space, for people not to concede 
the presence of Todd, who took hold of several unoffered hands and grabbed a couple of 
shoulders as he crossed the room, determined that nobody get away with pretending they 
hadn't seen him. And when a fragment of conversation did spring up, as it occasionally 
did, Todd very rapidly (and rather gallantly) made certain that Tammy was introduced into 
the exchange.
  	"You don't need to do that," Tammy said, after the third such occasion.
  	"Yes, I do," Todd replied. "These sonsabitches think they can look the other way 
and pretend you don't exist. Well fuck 'em. I've starred in movies with some of these 
assholes. Movies you paid your seven bucks to see. And they were mostly shit pictures. So 
I figure they owe you a seven-buck-handshake."
  	She laughed out loud, thoroughly entertained by his heretical talk. Whatever 
happened after this, she thought, (and no fairy-tale lasted forever) she'd at least have 
this extraordinary memory to treasure: walking arm-in-arm with the only man she'd ever 
really loved through a crowd of fools, knowing that even if they didn't look at her they 
still knew she was there. And when she'd gone she'd be somebody they'd never be able to 
figure out, which suited her just fine. Let them wonder. It would give them something to 
do when they were studying their reflections in the morning.
  	"There's Maxine," Todd said. "Didn't I say she'd be holding court?"
  	It was a couple of years since Tammy had seen Maxine Frizelle in the flesh. In 
that time she had projected upon the woman an aura of power which in truth she didn't 
possess. She was smaller and more fretful-looking than Tammy Remembered: the way she was 
perched in a high-backed chair, her bare feet off the ground, was presumably designed to 
give off the aura of childlike vulnerability, but in fact suggested just its opposite. 
The pose looked awkward and artificial; her gaze was woozy rather than happy, and her 
smile completely false.
  	Todd let go of Tammy's hand.
  	"Are you doing this on your own from here?" she said to him.
  	"I think I ought to."
  	Tammy shrugged. "Whatever you want."
  	"I mean, it's going to be difficult."
  	"Yeah..." she said, the observation given credence by the frigid stare they were 
getting from the patio.
  	"She's seen you," Tammy said.
  	She smiled in Maxine's direction. The woman was getting up off her chair, her 
expression more bemused than angry. She leaned over and whispered something to the young 
man at her side. He nodded in response, and left the patio, heading indoors and weaving 
his way through the party-goers towards Tammy and Todd.

  	Tammy grabbed hold of Todd's hand again. "You know what?" she said.
  	"What?"
  	"I was wrong. We're going to do this together."
  
  NINE
  	Out on the street, Katya let the valet open the car door for her, her eyes fixed 
on the house into which she was about to make an entrance. A hundred thoughts were 
crowding into her head at the same time, all demanding attention. Would anybody recognize 
her? Jerry had told her many times her films remained widely seen and appreciated, so it 
was inevitable somebody was going to figure out who she was. On the other hand it had 
been the style in those days to slather your face in makeup, so perhaps nobody would 
think to associate her with the high style of those movies. Nor, of course, would anybody 
assume that the Katya Lupi of The Sorrows of Frederick or Nefertiti could possibly 
resemble the young woman she still seemed to be. So again, perhaps her fears were 
groundless. And if somebody did recognize her, against all the odds, then she'd swiftly 
find some witty riposte about the brilliance of modern science, and let them wonder. If 
she sent a few admirers off shaking their heads, mystified by her untouched beauty, would 
that be such a bad thing?
  	She had nothing to fear from these people.