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hand."
    "It's not erotic."
    "Then what's the threat? What's behind all the doors? Why are the girls always looking out of the corner of their eyes?"
    "I'm not the one chasing them," I said. "I don't want to lift their long dresses."
    "You don't?" she asked. "How come?"
    "I hate this," I said gently. "I work six months on a book. I live in it, dream in it. I don't question it. I spend twelve hours a day going over and over the canvases. Then somebody wants to explain it all in five hundred words or five minutes." I reached out and took her hand. "I avoid this kind of discussion with people I don't know. People I do know never do it to me."
    "I wish you'd fall in love with me," she said.
    "Why?"
    "Because you're really someone worth falling in love with. And if we were in love, I wouldn't be drifting. I wouldn't be nobody. At least not while I was with you." Pause.
    "Where do you come from?" I asked.
    No answer.
    "I keep trying to place your voice."
    "You'll never do it."
    "One moment it's just California. Then something else creeps in-a trace of an accent."
    "You'll never guess it."
    She withdrew her hand.
    "You want me to sleep in the four-poster with you?" I asked.
    "Yes." She nodded.
    "Then do something for me."
    "What?"
    "Wash off all this glamour," I said. "And put on Charlotte's nightgown."
    "Charlotte's nightgown? You have that here?"
    I nodded. "Several upstairs. White flannel. One of them is bound to fit you."
    She laughed softly, delightedly. But there was more to it than delight. I was silent. I wasn't admitting anything.
    "Of course," she said finally. "I'd love to wear Charlotte's nightgown." So gracious. Flash of black fingernails as gracefully she ground out the cigarette.
    No wonder she had thought that the matchbook trick was such a comedy. She was old, polished and suave, and even a little angry. Then she was young and tender. She was shifting back and forth before my very eyes.
    And it was very disturbing to me. I wondered: Which did she want to be? "You're beautiful," I said.
    "You think so?" she asked. "You wouldn't prefer a darker, more mysterious older woman?"
    I smiled. "Been married to two of them. It was interesting. But you're something else."
    "In other words, you want me to know it's not always little girls."
    "Yes, I want you to know that. I want to remind myself too. But I can't figure you out. You've got to give me a clue on where you came from. A clue on the voice."
    "I grew up everywhere and nowhere. Madrid, LA, Paris, London, Dallas, Rome, you name it. That's why you'll never pin down the voice."
    "Sounds marvelous," I said.
    "You think so?" Little twist to her smile. "Someday I'll have to tell you the whole ugly story. And you think Bettina has it bad in that old house."
    "Why not start telling me now?"
    "'Cause it won't make a pretty picture book," she said. She was getting uneasy. She blotted her lips again carefully and put the napkin back in her lap. She drank the last of the bourbon. This girl definitely knew how to put it down.
    Ears with the tiniest lobes. Pierced lobes, but no earrings. just the hurtful little mark. And the skin very tight around her eyes so that there was only a tiny seam running around the lashes. This is the kind of tightness you see in the face of very little children. It usually goes away in the teenage years as the face becomes more modeled. The eyebrows were soft, unshaped, just brushed lightly with gray to darken them. In spite of the paint, her face still looked virginal, the way only a blond face can. And the nose was most decidedly upturned. She would most certainly hate it when she really grew up. But I would love it forever, and the poochy, delicious, puckered little mouth with it. I wanted to touch the loose hair that made fine question-mark curls near her ears.
    "Where are your parents? You do have them, don't you?"
    She looked startled. She didn't answer; then her face went blank. And it seemed she swallowed. She looked stunned actually, as if I'd