Just before Brick and I said good-bye, he turned to me and smiled. “Gonna be a lot of rumors about you and me tomorrow,” he said. “Sure are.” “Let me know if you want to make ’em true.” I should have kept quiet. I should have just smiled nicely. But instead, I said, “Don’t hold your breath.” Brick looked at me and laughed and then waved good-bye, as if I hadn’t just insulted him. “Can you believe that guy?” I said. Harry had already opened my door and was waiting for me to get into the car. “That guy makes us a lot of money,” he said as I sat down. Harry got in on the other side and turned the key in the ignition but didn’t start driving. Instead, he looked at me. “I’m not saying you should be dallying around too much with these actors you don’t like,” he said. “But it would do you some good, if you liked one, if things progressed past a photo op or two. The studio would like it. The fans would like it.” Naively, I had thought I was done pretending to like the attention of every man I came across. “OK,” I said, rather petulantly. “Ill try.” And while I knew it was the best thing to do for my career, I grinned through my teeth on dates with Pete Greer and Bobby Donovan. But then Harry set me up on a date with Don Adler, and I forgot why I would ever have resented the idea in the first place. kk * DON ADLER INVITED me out to Mocambo, without a doubt the hottest club in town, and he picked me up at my apartment. I opened the door to see him in a nice suit, with a bouquet of lilies. He was just a few inches taller than me in my heels. Light brown hair, hazel eyes, square jaw, the kind of smile that, the moment you saw it, made you smile. It was the smile his mother had been famous for, now on a handsomer face. “For you,” he said, just a bit shyly. “Wow,” I said, taking them from him. “They’re gorgeous. Come in. Come in. I'll put them in some water.”