"I'm not," Nelson said. "What's so funny, anyway?" His forehead wrinkled. "Quit laughing. It's serious."

"I can't help it," Reece grinned.

Nelson poked with his straw among the melting ice chips in the bottom of his glass. "I was right. I shouldn't have told you.'

"Aw, don't be a square," Reece said. "You've got to admit it has its funny side. I know how you feel but-”

“You don't act like it." Nelson dug change out of his pocket and peeled the wet check off the table top. "Christ, I feel awful."

"Oh, come on," Reece said. "Nothing to get regressive about." With a faint leer he asked, "What did you do?"

Nelson colored and knocked over his glass. Righting it, trying to pick up the spilled ice chips, he watched his finger. He shrugged.

"Do? Well, what do you do when something like that happens?"

"You say, 'Why Nickerson darling, I didn't know you cared." " Reece smirked. "You stink," Nelson said.

"Well, for God's sake what did you do: lecture him on the virtues of he-ing and she-ing?"

"I just changed the subject," Nelson said. "Come on, let's get out of here."

Zoe Kemper's apartment was a partitioned-off segment of what had once been a family residence-large, frame, porched. The parlor contained many different colors, all of them slightly soiled. The woodwork was lavender, the walls yellow, the valances peach, the draperies all three colors, with a big leaf pattern in green besides. The frilled chintz that covered sofa and chairs matched none of this. Neither did the braided rugs on the floor.

On a coffee table was a dented metal tray piled with potato chips and a cracked pottery bowl full of avocado dip. Irving Zimmerman, hairy in a gay Hawaiian shirt, was scooping the pale green stuff up on the chips and handing them to Maxine Gamble and Phyllis Smith who sat side by side on the sofa, scripts in their laps. Zoe, in slacks, went in and out of the little room through drapes that hid the kitchen, bringing soft drinks. Cigarettes of hers, with scarlet stained tips, burned in all the tiny porcelain ashtrays, forgotten. Nelson poked thoughtfully at the chipped piano keys, smoke from the cigarette at the corner of his mouth stinging his eyes, making him squint. Bob Nickerson stood at the end of the piano, trying to look out the window, but always finding himself watching Nelson instead.

The front door stood open because the day was hot, and Reece appeared at it. He held his hands like blinders to his eyes and put his face against the screen. "Hi," he said.

"Well better late than never."

Zoe opened the screen door and found that there was another boy with Reece. He looked unreal, a Greek statue, the color of marble.

"Well, hi there, young fellow," she said, "come on in. What's your name?" She held out her small hand with its garish nails. The hand he placed in it was cool and powerless.

"Prince," he said. "Damien Prince."

The voice was handsome and there followed a smile that caused Zoe a momentary weakness of the knees. She regretted having slipped rum into her several cokes.

"Damien's a pro," Reece said. "He was in pictures"

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