When people did recognize a trace of her mother, of Chandler, in Dani-in her full, generous mouth or her occasional displays of graciousness-it was commented on with surprise, as if they must have imagined it. Even as a little girl, before her mother had disappeared, a New York gossip columnist had said, “Danielle Chandler Pembroke is not a child meant to have been born rich.”
But she’d taken care of that.
Inside the theater she found a seat in the front near an exit. She’d seen both movies before, but never on the big screen. Never in public.
Sitting through The Gamblers was relatively easy. It was fun, romantic, like watching someone she didn’t know, although she’d visited her grandmother in Greenwich Village just a few days ago. Mattie Witt was eighty-two now and still beautiful, still fiercely independent.
The film’s rendition of Ulysses Pembroke’s life-the murdered grandfather Nick had never known-painted him as a lovable rogue, a well-meaning scoundrel. It skipped his tragic end.
Dani almost left before Casino started.
She’d seen it just twice, both times on television at one o’clock in the morning. When it was released in the spring after her mother’s disappearance, the adults around her all had agreed she should be spared. Nonetheless, Dani had felt the tension between the two sides of her family. Caught in the middle, her father had tried to mediate. Yes, his young wife should have-could have-told her family that she’d taken the role in Casino. But no, his father hadn’t been wrong to offer it to her, to let her be reckless this once, to let her put this one dream into action.