Finally, she said, “Being out here has got me thinking.”

“About?”

“Giving it another try.”

“Giving what another try?”

“Acting!”

The word was like a blow to the pit of my stomach, and I probably sounded winded, echoing, “Acting?”

“You knew that was always my dream.”

“I thought we’d kinda thrown in together on a mutual dream, Peg-the white-cottage-white-picket-fence variety?”

“Nate, you don’t expect me to be just another drab little housewife, do you?”

Now I felt a black cloud settling over my head, like that shrimpy guy in L’il Abner, the one trouble followed.

Trying to be gentle, I said, “Baby, don’t be fooled by this mink-lined hellhole.”

The violet eyes glittered, looking as lovely-and as hard-as precious gems. “I know it’s a tough town. I know sooner or later I have to check out of the Beverly Hills Hotel and back into reality. But I have talent, Nate-you remember how good I was, in Winterset, at the Playhouse? Don’t you see? This could be my last chance to make something of myself.”

And here I thought she’d made something of herself becoming Mrs. Nathan Heller.

“Baby,” I said, “thousands of pretty young things flock out here to knock Lana Turner off the screen, and the only roles they get, on or off the screen, are as waitresses, salesgirls, and car hops.”

Her eyes tightened. “Are you saying I’m too old?”

“No! Hell, no, baby-”

Her whole face seemed to harden. “That I can’t compete, just because I’m almost thirty?”

I felt like a kid who’d peeked in the oven at cookies baking and got his face scorched.

“You’re the most beautiful woman in this town,” I told her, grasping her hand. And it wasn’t a lie. First of all, she was my bride and we were on our honeymoon and I loved her; and second of all, the former Peggy Hogan was a knockout. But knockouts approaching thirty were, in fact, long in the tooth for this sleazy trash heap of a town.