"I've had it! Had it… you hear, Shirley? Right up to the top of my head I've had it!" Frank had replied, never looking in her direction, never really raising his voice in emphasis as he walked around their… her… bedroom finding the clothes he wanted. "Rivers wants Douglas Electronics. He sits on a fortune left to him by his grandfather. He's young, vigorous, full of hopes and ideas! I like that… because he reminds me of myself… but I'm too old to do the things I want for the company. He shows his money and he's in, Shirley… top man! I… we, if you want to, we'll go to Europe… play in the sun-lands… anything, I don't care! But… I've had it! I want to get away from Los Angeles and the Valley altogether!"

Shirley hadn't pressed. There'd been much more in the tone of his voice than what he'd actually said. She knew he felt uselessly old and incapable, but perhaps more than he, Shirley realized why. At that moment, she could have cried for him, for both of them, because she did love him in her own way… she did! But the company was his, all his to do with however he pleased. Not once in their six month marriage had there been anything but the indulgent husband offering security and the kindness he had proposed to her. Drunk? Yes, most of the time lately, until it had become nearly unbearable between Lisa and herself, and without any way Shirley could conceive of easing that building tension…

The distraught young wife could hear her husband's daughter splashing in the swimming pool as she finished with the canapes. The girl's boy friend, Paul Fulton, had not come by as he'd promised earlier that morning on the telephone. Shirley had overheard part of Lisa's conversation and the teenager's mention of a two o'clock swim date. It was now nearly four and the blonde girl imagined her stepdaughter to be as razor-sharp angry as the jagged edge of a tin can, the way she usually found her.