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shouldn’t have come to New York, being a kid from the sticks and all—Odessa, Texas, to be exact.
    She was a painter, for God’s sake. She was a painter and this was the last of the ’40s and New York City was the place to be. A whir of excitement. Christ, she couldn’t let it pass her by.
    And with that kind of talent, it was only a matter of time, she had her finger on the pulse. Her teacher, Mr. Kaufman, told her he’d seen nothing like her paintings. They spoke of landscapes of the mind. Dreamscapes, he called them. And often, he pointed her out in class. “Let’s look at Dorothy’s interpretation.” No, it wasn’t work. It was interpretation. That’s how far ahead of them she already was. Her classmates would mutter under their breaths, but it was true, wasn’t it? Anyway, it seemed to come easy to her, a fearless kind of talent, almost chance.
    At first, walking into a bar, restaurant, club, it had been frightening for Dorothy, all the attention. The venal undressing. The outright staring, goddammit. But, met with a shy cowering, however real, somehow made it worse. No, she couldn’t let herselfcower. She learned, instead, take a step in, stop, give ’em a second, then eyes to the ground and sideways to the bar. Make bashful coy.
    By the time she would reach the bar, there would already be at least three of them, swarming, scowling, vying, chest to her, hearts to her, plotting to get in there.
    She was not pretty, nor sweet, nor cute. She was, quite simply, a drop-dead, stop-traffic gorgeous, ink-haired, green-eyed beauty with alabaster skin and bone structure Veronica Lake would envy. And those lips, almost obscene. Sweetheart lips. Kill-you lips. That girl knew how to pout.
    She, in fact, knew all the tricks. She was a quick study. Sure, she was just some hick from Odessa, Texas, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t open a magazine and copy a picture, a hairstyle, a sigh. That didn’t mean she couldn’t look at Rita Hayworth in a too-tight sweater and say, yes, I see, I see how you do that. And, all of these things, her calmed-down but sometimes disarming small-town-girl accent, her rarely used but sometimes essential provincial ways, in combination with her kill-yourself good looks, made her, instantly, agonizingly, unforgettable, and, ultimately, irreplaceable.
    The painting just made it worse. That she was talented . . . a final blow.
    And so it would’ve been, would’ve gone, until she’d end up celebrated in the Met or cherished on Park Avenue or possibly both . … . until she met Edward.
    Edward.
    For years after, the name alone could make her gulp and grab the nearest cocktail.
    It was funny how she met him. How he saw her across the bar. Make no mistake, she liked to drink. Dotsy was out, every night, a drink in one hand, a cigarette in the other, from the day she got to New York to the day she left. She burned it down. Dotsy was not going to let life get away without her. She wasn’t going to miss the party. She was the party.
    Seeing her across the bar, surrounded by admirers, he could only smile, that first time. A knowing sort of smile. I’ll get you. Don’t you worry. I’ll get you, my pretty.
    And then, weeks later, at a party downtown, there she was again. This time in red. Well, why not, it was Christmas season, why not wear red? And wasn’t she radiant. A red felt dress. A crimson ribbon bow. Was the dress the present or was she? A wink of a dress, a siren number.
    It was that night they would consider their first night. Not that it amounted to much. No sleeping, or even leaving, together. But it was that night they both knew. It was obvious.
    This was trouble.
    How horribly and blissfully and careeningly they fell in love. Catapulting themselves to a world far, far above and away from the everyday dross. They might as well have been part of the sky-line. The moon. The stratosphere. That