hey arrived at the ice hockey arena. The stage had been erected at one end of the rink, and hundreds of fans pushed against the wooden barricades. Ignoring the opening band, they called out for Barry and the group. Stu threw a clipboard at Fleur and told her to double-check everything. By the time she went backstage to watch the show, the crowd’s screams had grown deafening. Just as she put in the pink rubber earplugs the stage manager handed her, the rink went dark. A voice bellowed over the loudspeaker, introducing the band in German. The screams turned into a solid wall of sound, and four spotlights hit the stage like atomic blasts. The beams of light collided and Neon Lynx ran forward.

The crowd exploded. Barry leaped into the air, his hair flying. He thrust his hips so the red sequined star on his crotch caught fire. Frank LaPorte twirled his drumsticks, and Simon Kale slammed the keyboard. Fleur watched as a young girl, not more than twelve or thirteen, fainted over the barricade. The crowd pressed against her, and no one paid attention.

The music was raucous and visceral, blatantly sexual, and Barry Noy played the crowd for all he was worth. As the song ended, the crowd surged the barricades, and she could see that the guards were getting nervous. The spotlights flashed blue and red in crisscrossing swords of light, and the band went into its next number.

She was afraid somebody would get killed. One of the roadies came up to stand beside her. “Is it always like this?” she asked.

“Naw. Guess it’s because we’re used to the States. Freakin’ crowd’s dead tonight.”

After the show she stood with Stu in the underground garage that had been roped off by the Viennese police and counted limos. The band came out, all five of them soaked with sweat. Barry grabbed her by the arm. “Got to talk to you.”

As he pulled her toward the lead limo, she started to protest. Stu glared at her, and she remembered rule number one. Keep the band happy. Translated that meant keep Barry Noy happy.

She piled into the limousine, and he pulled her down on the seat beside him. She heard the clink of chains, and Simon Kale climbed in with them. She remembered how he’d twirled that dangerous machete on stage, and she regarded him warily. He lit a cigarillo and turned to stare out the window.

The limousine drove from the garage into a crowd of screaming fans. Suddenly a young girl broke through the police barricade and rushed toward the car, pulling up her shirt as she ran to expose bare pubescent breasts. A policeman caught her. Barry paid no attention.

“So how did you think I was tonight?” He took a slug from a can of Bud.

“You were great, Barry,” she replied, with all the sincerity she could muster. “Just great.”

“You didn’t think I was off tonight? Friggin’ crowd was dead.”

“Oh no. You weren’t off at all. You were terrific.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” He drained the beer and crumpled the can in his fist. “I wish Kissy could have been here. She wouldn’t come to Europe with me. What does that tell you about the kind of ditzy broad she is?”

“It tells me a lot, Barry.”

A snort came from the other side of the limo.

“What does Kissy do?” she asked.

“She says she’s an actress, but I’ve never seen her on television or anything. Shit, I’m getting depressed again.”

If there was anything she didn’t need, it was a depressed Barry Noy. “That’s probably it, then. Actresses trying to get work can’t afford to leave town whenever they want. They might miss their big break.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right. Hey, I’m sorry about your VD and everything.”

Simon Kale looked over at her, and she thought she saw a flicker of interest in his eyes.

“Thanks,” she said sadly. “I’m doing my best to cope.”

She should have been prepared for the pandemonium of the hotel lobby, but she wasn’t. The hotel had orders not to give out any information, but there were women everywhere. As the members of the band made their way toward the heavily guarded elevators, she saw Peter Zabel reach out and grab the arm of a buxom redhead. Frank LaPorte inspected a freckled blonde, then gestured toward both her and her bubble-gum-chewing companion. Only Simon Kale ignored the crowd of women.

“I can’t believe this,” she muttered.

Stu heard her. “We’re all hoping they don’t speak English. That way we won’t have to talk to them, too.”

“That’s disgusting!”

“It’s rock and roll, kid. Rockers are kings as long as they can stay on top.” Stu put his arm around a frizzy-haired blonde and headed toward the elevators. Before he got in, he called back to her. “Stick close to Barry. He told me he likes you. And check the IDs on those girls who went with Frank. They looked young to me, and I don’t want any more trouble with the police. Then get hold of that freakin’ Kissy and make sure she meets us in Munich tomorrow. Tell her we’ll pay her two fifty a week.”

“Hey, that’s fifty more than I’m getting!”

“You’re expendable, kid.” The elevator doors slid shut.

She slumped against a pillar. The world of rock and roll.

It was one o’clock in the morning, and she was exhausted. She was going to forget about Frank and his groupies. They probably deserved each other. She was going to forget about Barry and his stupid Kissy, and she was going to bed. In the morning she’d tell Parker he’d been right about her. She couldn’t handle the job.

But when the doors closed on the elevator, she found herself punching in the floor of Frank LaPorte’s suite.

The two girls with him checked out, so she said a polite good-night and left them. She took the elevator up another floor to Barry’s suite. As she dragged her body down the hallway, she thought of the beautiful hotel room waiting for her. Hot water, clean sheets, and heat.

The guard let her in, and she was relieved to see that everybody still had clothes on. The three girls, none of whom looked particularly happy, were playing cards. Barry was stretched out on the couch watching television. His face lit up when he saw her. “Hey, Fleur, I was just getting ready to call your room. I thought you forgot.” He grabbed his wallet from the coffee table and riffled through it for a scrap of paper he shoved toward her. “Here’s Kissy’s number. How ’bout calling her from your room. I gotta get some sleep. And take two of those bimbos with you when you leave.”

She clenched her teeth. “Any two in particular?”

“I don’t know. Whichever ones speak English, I guess.”

Fifteen minutes later, Fleur let herself into her own hotel room. She undressed and stared wistfully at her bed, then picked up the telephone. As she waited for the call to go through, she glanced at the scrap of paper in her hand. Kissy Sue Christie. Lord.

A voice answered on the fifth ring. It was distinctly Southern and very angry. “Barry, I swear to God…”

“It’s not Barry,” Fleur said quickly. “Miss Christie?”

“Yes.”

“This is Fleur, the new road secretary for Neon Lynx.”

“Did Barry get you to call me?”

“Actually…”

“Never mind. Just deliver a message.” In a soft, breathy voice that oozed generations of ladylike Southern breeding, Kissy Sue Christie reeled off a list of instructions, the majority of which concerned Barry Noy and his anatomy. The contrast between her voice and the obscene instructions was too much for Fleur, and she laughed. The sound echoed in her ears, rusty and unfamiliar, like a nearly forgotten song.

“Am I amusin’ you?” the voice asked with a Southern chill.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that it’s really late, and I’m so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open. And…you’re saying everything I’ve been thinking all day. The man is—”

“—toad spit,” Kissy Sue concluded.

Fleur laughed again, then got hold of herself. “I apologize for calling so late. I was under orders.”

“It’s okay. What’s Stu offering now to get me to come over? Last time it was two hundred a week.”

“It’s up to two fifty now.”

“No kidding. Shoot, I’d love to go to Europe, too. I even have some vacation time coming up. The only places I’ve seen outside South Carolina are New York and Atlantic City, but to tell you the truth, Fleur, I’d swear off men completely before I ever went to bed with Barry Noy again.”

Fleur settled back on the bed and thought it over. “You know, Kissy, there just might be a way…”

Fleur’s wake-up call came at six-thirty the next morning. She waited for the familiar heaviness to settle over her, but it didn’t come. She’d barely had four hours of sleep, but it had been deep and restful. No pitching and tossing. No sudden heart pounding. No dreams about the people she used to love. She felt…

Competent.

She settled back into the pillows and tried the idea on for size. She had a terrible job. The people were awful—spoiled, rude, and blatantly immoral—but she’d survived her first day and done a good job. Better than good. She’d done a great job. They hadn’t thrown anything at her she hadn’t been able to handle, including Barry Noy. She was going to show Parker Dayton…

She stopped herself. She didn’t care about Parker Dayton. She didn’t care about Alexi, or Belinda, or anybody. The only person’s opinion she cared about was her own.

The band’s arrival in Munich was hectic beyond belief, and Stu coped by yelling at her. This time she yelled back, which made him pout and say he didn’t know what she was getting so mad about. The next two nights’ concerts were a repeat of the concert in Vienna, with girls fainting over the barricades and a crowd of groupies waiting in the hotel lobby.

Right before the last concert, Fleur sent a limousine to the airport to pick up the long-awaited Miss Christie, but to her dismay, it came back empty. She told Barry the plane had been delayed and then spent the next two hours while the band performed trying fruitlessly to track Kissy down. Finally she had to tell Stu, who yelled at her and said that she could personally explain the screw-up to Barry. After the concert.

Barry took it just about as she expected.

She calmed him down with some half-baked promises she probably couldn’t keep and dragged herself to her hotel room. On the way, she passed Simon Kale in the hallway. He wore gray slacks and an open-collared black silk shirt with a single gold chain at the neck. It was the most conservative outfit she’d seen on anyone other than Parker since she’d joined the Neon Lynx circus, but she suspected he had a switchblade tucked in one of his pockets.

She fell asleep within seconds of hitting the pillow, only to be awakened an hour later by a phone call from the hotel manager telling her the guests were complaining about the noise coming from the fifteenth floor. “I have not been able to reach Herr Stu Kaplan, madam, so you must put a stop to it.”

She had a fairly good idea of what was in store for her when she stepped into the elevator and found Herr Stu Kaplan passed out with an empty V.O. bottle and half his Fu Manchu shaved off.

It took thirty minutes of begging and cajoling for her to get the party crowd in the suite thinned down to twenty-five, which was, she decided, the best she could do. She stepped over Frank LaPorte as she carried the telephone into a closet to call the lobby and tell them to put guards back on the elevators. When she came out, she saw that Barry had left with some of the women, and she decided it was safe to return to her room. But she was wide-awake now, tomorrow was a layover day, and she deserved a little fun—or at least a drink before she turned in.

After a short struggle with a cork, she poured several inches of champagne into a glass. Peter called her over to talk about OPEC, much to the disgust of the girls who were clamoring for his attention. Just as she began her second glass of champagne, she heard a furious pounding on the door. Groaning, she set down her glass and walked across the suite. “Party’s over,” she called through the door crack.

“Let me in!” The voice was female and vaguely desperate.

“I can’t,” Fleur told the crack. “Fire regulations.”

“Fleur, is that you?”

“How did you—” Fleur suddenly realized the voice had a strong Southern accent. She released the lock and pulled open the door.

Kissy Sue Christie tumbled into the room.

She looked like a rumpled sugarplum. She had short licorice curls, a candy apple mouth, and big gumdrop eyes. She wore black leather pants and an electric pink camisole with a broken strap. Except for a generous spill of breasts, everything about her was tiny. It was also vaguely lopsided, since she was missing one high-heeled shoe, but even lopsided, Kissy Sue Christie looked exactly the way Fleur had always wanted to look.

Kissy threw the bolt on the door and began her own inspection. “Fleur Savagar,” she said. “I had the strangest feeling over the telephone it was you, even though you didn’t tell me your last name. I’m mildly psychic.” She checked the lock. “There’s this Lufthansa pilot I’m trying desperately to avoid. I would have been here earlier, but I was unexpectedly delayed.” She gazed around the suite. “Tell me I’m a lucky girl and Barry’s not here.”

“You’re a lucky girl.”

“I suppose it’s too much to hope that he was electrocuted tonight or otherwise stricken?”

“Neither of us could be that lucky.” Fleur suddenly remembered her duties. “Where’s your luggage? I’ll phone down and have somebody take you to your room.”

“Actually,” Kissy said, “my room is already occupied.” She tugged on the broken pink camisole strap. “Is there someplace we could talk? And I wouldn’t look unfavorably on the offer of a drink.”

Fleur scooped up her champagne bottle, two glasses, and Kissy. She had an urge to tuck Kissy in her pocket.

The only unoccupied space was the bathroom, so she locked them both in and took a seat on the floor. While she poured the champagne, Kissy kicked off her remaining shoe. “To tell you God’s honest truth, I think I made a mistake letting him escort me to my room.”

Fleur took a wild stab. “The Lufthansa pilot?”

Kissy nodded. “It started as a mild flirtation, but I guess it got a little out of hand.” She sipped delicately at her champagne, then licked her top lip with the tip of her pink tongue. “I know this is going to sound strange to you, but like I said, I’m mildly psychic, and I have this strong feeling we’re going to be friends. I might as well tell you from the start—I have a little bitty problem with promiscuity.”

This had all the earmarks of an interesting conversation, and Fleur settled herself more comfortably against the side of the tub. “How little bitty?”

“Depends on your viewpoint.” Kissy tucked her feet beneath her and leaned against the door. “Do you like hunks?”

Fleur refilled her cup and thought about it. “I guess I’m sort of off men right now. Kind of neutral, you know what I mean?”

Kissy’s gumdrop eyes widened. “Gosh, no. I’m sorry.”

Fleur giggled. Whether it was from the champagne or Kissy or the lateness of the hour, she didn’t know, but she was fed up with self-hatred. It felt good to laugh again.

“Sometimes I think hunks have just about ruined my life,” Kissy said mournfully. “I tell myself I’m going to reform, but the next thing I know, I look up and there’s this piece of gorgeous male flesh standin’ right in my path with big, broad shoulders and those little bitty hips, and I can’t find it in my heart to pass him by.”

“Like Lufthansa?”

Kissy almost smacked her lips. “He had this dimple—right here.” She pointed to a spot on her chin. “That dimple, it did something to me, even though the rest of him wasn’t much. See, that’s my problem, Fleur—I can always find something. It’s cost me a lot.”

“What do you mean?”

“The pageant, for one thing.”

“Pageant?”

“Uhmm. Miss America. My mommy and daddy raised me from the cradle to go to Atlantic City.”

“And you didn’t make it?”

“Oh, I made it all right. I won Miss South Carolina without any trouble. But the night before the Miss America pageant, I committed an indiscretion.”

“Hunks?” Fleur suggested.

“Two of them. Both judges. Not at the same time, of course. Well, not exactly. One was a United States senator and the other was a tight end for the Dallas Cowboys.” Her eyelids drifted shut at the memory. “And oh my, Fleur, did he ever have one.”

“You were caught?”

“In the act. I tell you, to this very day it annoys me. I got kicked out, but they both stayed on. Now does that seem proper to you? Men like that being judges in the greatest beauty pageant in the world?”

It seemed grossly unfair to Fleur, and she said so.

“I suppose it all worked out, though. I was on my way back to Charleston when I met this truck driver who looked like John Travolta. He helped me get to New York and find a place to stay where I wouldn’t have to worry about being mutilated on my doorstep. I got a job working at an art gallery while I waited for my big break, but I have to tell you, it’s been slow in coming.”

“The competition’s tough.” Fleur refilled Kissy’s glass.

“It’s not the competition,” Kissy said indignantly. “I’m exceptionally talented. Among other things, I was born to do Tennessee Williams. Sometimes I think he wrote those crazy women just for me.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Trying to get the auditions in the first place. Directors take one look at me and won’t even let me try out. They say I’m not the right physical type, which is another way of saying that I’m too short and my boobies are too big and I look altogether frivolous. That’s the one that really annoys me. I’d have been Phi Beta Kappa if I’d stayed in college for my senior year. I’m tellin’ you, Fleur, beautiful women like you with legs and cheekbones and all the other blessings of God can’t imagine what it’s like.”

Fleur hadn’t been beautiful in a long time, and she nearly choked. “You’re the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen. All my life I’ve wanted to be little and pretty like you.”

This struck them both as being terrifically funny, and they dissolved in giggles. Fleur noticed their bottle was empty so she went on a scouting mission. When she returned with a fresh bottle, the bathroom was empty.

“Kissy?”

“Is he gone?” A loud whisper came from behind the shower curtain.

“Who?”

Kissy pushed back the curtain and climbed out. “Somebody had to use the facility. I think it was Frank, who is a base pig, in my opinion.”

They resettled in their old spots. Kissy tucked several wayward licorice curls behind her ear and looked at Fleur thoughtfully. “You ready to talk yet?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not exactly blind to the fact that I’m sharin’ this bathroom with a woman who used to be one of the most famous models in the world, as well as a promising new actress. A woman who disappeared off the face of God’s earth after some interesting rumors about her association with one of our great country’s truly outstanding hunks. I’m not obtuse.”

“I didn’t think you were.” Fleur picked at the edge of the bathmat with her fingernail.

“Well? Are we friends or not? I’ve told you some of the very best parts of my life story, and you haven’t told me one thing about yours.”

“We’ve just met.” As soon as she said it, Fleur knew that it was wrong and hurtful, even though she wasn’t exactly sure why.

Kissy’s eyes filled with tears, which made them look melty and soft, like blue gumdrops left too long in the sun. “Do you think that makes a difference? This is a lifelong friendship being formed right now. There’s got to be trust.” She brushed her tears away, picked up the champagne, and took a swig directly from the bottle. Then she looked Fleur straight in the eye and held the bottle out to her.

Fleur thought about all the secrets locked inside her for so long. She saw her loneliness, her fear, and the self-respect she’d lost along the way. All she had to show for the past three years—nearly three and a half—was an eclectic university education. Kissy was offering her a way out. But honesty was dangerous, and Fleur hadn’t let herself take a risk for a very long time.

Slowly she reached for the bottle and took a long swallow. “It’s sort of a complicated story,” she said finally. “I guess it started before I was born…”

It took Fleur nearly two hours to tell it all. Sometime between her trip to Greece with Belinda and her first modeling assignment, she and Kissy escaped the pounding on the bathroom door by moving to Fleur’s hotel room. Kissy curled up on one of the double beds while Fleur propped herself against the headboard of the other. She kept the champagne bottle that was helping her through the story balanced on her chest. Kissy occasionally interrupted with pithy, one-word character assassinations of the people involved, but Fleur remained almost detached. Champagne definitely helped, she decided, when you were spilling your sordid secrets.

“That’s heartbreaking!” Kissy exclaimed, when Fleur finally finished. “I don’t know how you can tell that story without falling apart.”

“I’m cried out, Kissy. If you live with it long enough, even high tragedy gets to be mundane.”

“Like Oedipus Rex.” Kissy dabbed at her eyes. “I was in the chorus when I was in college. We must have performed that play for every high school in the state.” She flipped onto her back. “There’s a master’s thesis in here somewhere.”

“How do you figure?”

“Do you remember the characteristics of a tragic hero? He’s a person of high stature brought down by a tragic flaw, like hubris, the sin of pride. He loses everything. Then he achieves a catharsis, a cleansing through his suffering. Or her suffering,” she said pointedly.

“Me?”

“Why not? You had high stature, and you sure have been brought down.”

“What’s my tragic flaw?” Fleur asked.

Kissy thought for a moment. “Shitty parents.”

Late the next morning, after showers, aspirin, and room-service coffee, they heard a knock at the door. Kissy opened it and emitted a loud squeal. Fleur looked up just in time to see the Belle of the Confederacy hurl herself into Simon Kale’s forbidding arms.

The three of them had breakfast in the revolving dining room on top of Munich’s Olympia Tower, where they could gaze out over the Alps, sixty-five miles away. As they ate, Fleur heard the story of Kissy and Simon’s long-standing friendship. They’d been introduced not long after Kissy’s arrival in New York by one of Simon’s classmates at Juilliard. Simon Kale, Fleur discovered, was a classically trained musician and as menacing as Santa Claus.

He laughed as he wiped one corner of his mouth with his napkin. “You should have seen Fleur taming King Barry with her story about having a venereal disease. She was magnificent.”

“And you didn’t try to help her out, did you?” Kissy gave him a none-too-gentle punch in the arm. “Instead you gave her that I-eat-white-girls-for-breakfast look, just to amuse yourself.”

Simon acted wounded. “I haven’t eaten a white girl in years, Kissy, and I’m hurt that you would suggest such a perversion.”

“Simon’s discreetly gay,” Kissy informed Fleur. And then, in a loud whisper, “I don’t know about you, Fleurinda, but I regard homosexuality as a personal insult.”

By the time breakfast was over, Fleur decided she liked Simon Kale. Beneath his threatening facade lay a kind and gentle man. As she watched his delicate gestures and finicky mannerisms, she’d have bet every penny of her meager income that he would have been more comfortable in the body of a ninety-pound weakling. Maybe that was why she liked him. They both lived in bodies that didn’t feel like home.

When they got back to the hotel, Simon excused himself, and Kissy and Fleur set out for Barry’s suite. It had been cleaned up since last night’s party, and Barry was once again in residence, nervously pacing the carpet as they entered. He was so glad to see Kissy that he barely listened to her breathlessly convoluted lie about why she was late, and several minutes elapsed before he even noticed Fleur. He made it obvious with a less than subtle glance toward the door that her presence was no longer required. Fleur pretended not to notice.

Kissy leaned forward and whispered something in his ear. As Barry listened, his expression grew increasingly horrified. When Kissy finished, she gazed down at the floor like a naughty child.

Barry looked at Fleur. He looked at Kissy. Then he looked at Fleur again. “What is this?” he cried. “A friggin’ epidemic?”

Kissy’s two weeks of vacation from the gallery ended, and she and Fleur said a tearful good-bye at Heathrow, with Fleur promising to telephone that evening at Parker Dayton’s expense. When she returned to the hotel, she was depressed for the first time since she’d started her job. She already missed Kissy’s quirky sense of humor and even quirkier view of life.

A few days later Parker called with a job offer. He wanted her to work for him in New York at nearly double her current salary. Panic-stricken, she hung up the telephone and called Kissy at the gallery.

“I don’t know why you’re so surprised, Fleurinda,” Kissy said. “You’re on the phone with him two or three times a day, and he’s as impressed with your work as everybody else. He may be slime mold, but he’s not stupid.”

“I—I’m not ready to go back to New York. It’s too soon.”

The distinct sound of a snort traveled through three thousand miles of ocean cable. “You’re not going to start whining again, are you? Self-pity kills your sex drive.”

“My sex drive is nonexistent.”

“See. What did I tell you?”

Fleur twisted the phone cord. “It’s not that simple, Kissy.”

“Do you want to be back where you were a month ago? Ostrich time is over, Fleurinda. It’s time to return to the real world.”

Kissy made it sound so easy, but how long could Fleur stay in New York before the press discovered her? And she still didn’t like Parker. What if her job with him didn’t work out? What would she do then?

Her stomach rumbled, and she realized she hadn’t had anything to eat since the night before. Another change this job had made in her life. Her jeans were already too loose, and her hair had grown down over her ears. Everything was changing.

She hung up the telephone and walked over to the hotel window where she pushed back the drapery to gaze down on the wet Glasgow street. A jogger dodged a taxi in the rain. She remembered when she’d been a dedicated runner like that, going out regardless of weather. The bravest, the fastest, the strongest…Now she doubted she could run a city block without stopping to catch her breath.

“Hey, Fleur, you seen Kyle?” It was Frank, a can of Budweiser already opened at nine o’clock in the morning. Fleur grabbed her parka and brushed past him. She rushed out into the hallway, into the elevator, through the well-dressed crowd of businessmen in the lobby.

The rain was an icy January drizzle, and by the time she reached the corner, it had trickled off the stubby ends of her hair and under the neck of her parka. As she crossed the street, her feet squished in her cheap wet sneakers. They had no cushioning, no thick padding to support her arches and protect the balls of her feet.

She pulled her hands out of her pockets and gazed up at the steel-gray sky. One long block stretched before her. Just one block. Could she make it that far?

She began to run.