“And now Louise is dead,” Flossie said triumphantly. “I can’t say I’m sorry. Nobody deserved death more than she. I knew she’d come to a bad end.”

Enid sighed. This was typical Flossie, completely illogical in her analyses. It came, Enid thought, from never having had to really apply herself.

“I would hardly call her death ‘just deserts,’ ” Enid said carefully. “She was ninety-nine. Everyone dies eventually. It’s not a punishment. From the moment we’re born, life only goes in one direction.”

“Why bring that up?” Flossie said.

“It’s important to face the truth,” Enid said.

“I never want to face the truth,” Flossie said. “What’s good about the truth? If everyone faced the truth, they would kill themselves.”

“That might be true,” Enid said.

“But not you, Enid,” Flossie said, pushing herself up on her elbows in preparation for a verbal attack. “You never married, never had children.

Most women would have killed themselves. But not you. You go on and on. I admire that. I could never be a spinster myself.”

“ ‘Single’ is the word they use now.”

“Well,” Flossie said brightly, “I suppose you can’t miss what you never had.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Enid said. “If that were true, there would be no envy in the world. No unhappiness.”

“I was not envious of Louise,” Flossie said. “Everyone says I was, but I wasn’t. Why would I be envious of her? She didn’t even have a good figure. No bosom.”

“Flossie,” Enid said patiently. “If you weren’t envious, then why did you accuse her of robbery?”

“Because I was right,” Flossie said. Her wheezing increased, and she reached for an inhaler on the coffee table. “The woman,” she said between gasps, “was a thief ! And worse.”

Enid got up and fetched Flossie a glass of water. When she returned, she said gently, “Drink your water. And forget about it.”

“Then where is it?” Flossie said. “Where is the Cross of Bloody Mary?”

“There’s no proof the cross ever existed,” Enid said firmly.

“No proof?” Flossie’s eyes bulged. “It’s right there. In the painting by Holbein. It’s hanging around her neck. And there are documents that talk about Pope Julius the Third’s gift to Queen Mary for her efforts to keep England Catholic.”

“There’s one document,” Enid said. “And that document has never been shown to be authentic.”

“What about the photograph?”

“Taken in 1910. About as real as the famous photograph of the Loch Ness Monster.”

“I don’t know why you don’t believe me,” Flossie said, looking at Enid with hurt eyes. “I saw it myself. In the basement of the Met. I shouldn’t have let it out of my sight, but I had the Pauline Trigère fashion show in the afternoon. And Louise did go to the Met that day.”

“Flossie dear,” Enid said firmly. “Don’t you understand? You might just as easily have taken the cross yourself. If it exists at all.”

“But I didn’t take it,” Flossie said stubbornly. “Louise did.”

Enid sighed. Flossie had been beating this rumor drum for fifty years.

It was her stubborn insistence that Louise had stolen this cross that had caused Flossie’s eventual removal from the board of the Metropolitan Museum in a charge led by Louise Houghton, who had subtly suggested that Flossie suffered from a slight mental impairment. As this was generally believed to be true, Louise had prevailed, and Flossie had never forgiven Louise not only her supposed crime but also her betrayal, which had led to Flossie’s permanent fall from grace in New York society.

Flossie could have worked her way back in, but she refused to let go of her crazy idea that Louise Houghton, a woman above reproach, had stolen the Cross of Bloody Mary and kept it hidden somewhere in her apartment. Even now Flossie pointed out the window and, with a wheeze, said, “I’m telling you, that cross is in her apartment right now.

It’s just sitting there, waiting to be discovered.”

“Why would Louise Houghton take it?” Enid asked patiently.

“Because she was a Catholic. And Catholics are like that,” Flossie said.

“You must give this up,” Enid said. “It’s time. Louise is dead. You must face the facts.”

“Why?”

“Think about your legacy,” Enid said. “Do you want to go to your grave with everyone thinking you were the crazy old woman who accused Louise Houghton?”

“I don’t care what people think,” Flossie said proudly. “I never have.

And I’ll never understand how my very own stepdaughter continued to be friends with Louise.”

“Ah, Flossie.” Enid shook her head. “If everyone in New York took sides over these petty, insignificant arguments, no one would have any friends at all.”

“I read something funny today,” the makeup artist said. “ ‘The Joys of Not Having It All.’ ”

“Not having it all?” Schiffer asked. “I’m living it.”

“A friend e-mailed it to me. I can e-mail it to you if you want.”

“Sure,” Schiffer said. “I’d love that.”

The makeup artist stepped back to look at Schiffer in the long mirror.

“What do you think?”

“It’s perfect. We want it natural. I don’t think a mother superior would wear much makeup.”

“And after she has sex for the first time, we can make it more glamorous.”

The red-haired PA, Alan, stuck his head into the makeup room.

“They’re ready for you,” he said to Schiffer.

“I’m ready,” she said, getting out of the chair.

“Schiffer Diamond is on her way,” Alan said into a headset.

They walked down a short corridor, then went through the construction department. Two tall metal doors led to one of the six sets.

Inside, behind a maze of gray plywood walls, was a white backdrop.

Several director’s chairs were set up a few feet away, clustered in front of a monitor. The director, Asa Williams, introduced himself. He was a brooding, gaunt man with a shaved head and a tattoo on his left wrist.

He’d directed lots of TV and, recently, two hit movies. Milling around was the usual crowd of crew and executives, all wondering, no doubt, what Schiffer was going to be like. Difficult or professional? Schiffer was friendly but removed.

“You know the drill, right?” Asa said. She was led onto the set. Told to walk toward the camera. Turn to the right. Turn to the left. The bat-tery in the camera died. There was a four-minute break while someone replaced it. She walked away and stood behind the director’s chairs. The executive producers were in a conversation with the network executives.

“She still looks good.”

“Yes, she looks great.”

“But too pale, maybe.”

She was sent back to the makeup room for an adjustment. Sitting in the chair, she recalled the afternoon when Philip had knocked on the door of her trailer. He was still put out that she’d called his movie lousy.

“If you think my movie sucks, why are you in it?” he’d asked.

“I didn’t say it sucked. I said it was lousy. There’s a big difference. You’re going to need much thicker skin if you’re going to survive in Hollywood,” she’d said.

“Who said I want to survive in Hollywood? And what makes you think I don’t have thick skin?”

“And what do you know, anyway?” he asked later, when they were having drinks at the outdoor tiki bar in the hotel. “It’s only your second movie.”

“I’m a fast learner,” she said. “How about you?”

He ordered two shots of tequila, then two more. There was a pool table in the back of the bar, and they used every excuse to accidentally touch each other. The first kiss happened outside the bathroom, located in a little hut. When she came out, he was waiting for her. “I was thinking about what you said, about how Hollywood corrupts.”

She leaned back against the rough wood of the hut and laughed. “You don’t have to take everything I say at face value. Sometimes I say things just to hear how they sound. Any crime in that?”

“No,” he said, putting his hand on the wall above her shoulder. “But it means I’m never going to know when you’re serious.” Her head was tilted back to look at him, although he wasn’t so much taller than she was — maybe six inches. But then his arm was around her back, and they were kissing, and his mouth was so soft. They were both startled and broke away, then went back to the bar and had another tequila shot, but the line had been crossed, and soon they were kissing at the bar and putting their hands on each other’s faces and backs until the bartender said,

“Get a room.”

She laughed. “Oh, we have one.”

Back in her room, they engaged in the long, delicious process of getting to know each other’s bodies. When they took off their shirts and pressed together, the sensation of skin on skin was a revelation. They lay together for a while, like high school kids who have all the time in the world and don’t need to go too far too fast; then they took off their pants and pantomimed sex — his penis touching her vagina through their undergarments. All through the night, they touched and kissed, dozing off and waking to the joy of finding the other in the bed, and then the kissing started again, and finally, in the early morning when it was right, he entered her. There was nothing like that first push, and it so overwhelmed them that he stopped, just let his penis be inside her, while they absorbed the miracle of two pieces that fit perfectly together.

She had a seven A.M. call, but at ten A.M., during a break in shooting, he was in her trailer and they were doing it on the small bed in the back with the polyester sheets. They did it three more times that day, and during dinner with the crew, she sat with her leg over his, and he kept putting his hand under her shirt to touch her waist. By then the whole crew knew, but set romances were a given in the intimacy and stress of getting a movie made. Though they usually ended when the movie wrapped, Philip came to L.A. and moved into her bungalow. They played house like any other young couple discovering the wonders of companionship, when the mundane was new and even a trip to the supermarket could be an adventure. Their anonymous bliss lasted only a short while, however, because then the movie came out, and it was huge.