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films would probably each get more on any kind of black market than Anthony’s movie. In fact . . .” It had just struck me.
    Dutton opened his eyes. “In fact, what?” he asked.
    “The only person who would have considered that movie the most valuable thing in the room was . . .”
    “Mr. Freed!” Anthony was standing in the doorway, leaning on his arms, which were propped up on ninety-degree angles on the jambs. “What did you do?”
    I knit my brow, because I didn’t know anything else I could do with my brow. “What did I do? What do you mean, what did I do?”
    “I know you didn’t like my film,” he said, breathing hard. “But that’s no reason to stand in my way. Why did you steal it?”

3
    FRIDAY
    My Man Godfrey (1936) and Butt-ler (this week)
    “SO Anthony thinks you stole his movie?” my father asked.
    Driving through the unfamiliar streets of Englewood, New Jersey, Arthur Freed (home redecoration expert—that is, paint and wallpaper retailer—retired) still knew exactly how to cut to the chase and make me feel uncomfortable, even as he scanned street signs for a clue to our location. It was a good hour from my New Brunswick town house and another forty minutes from Dad’s door, in a part of the state I don’t know like the back of my hand.
    “He knows I didn’t think it was the next Dr. Strange-love , and he knows I’m the only other person with a key to the projection booth,” I said. “Anthony thinks I’m trying to sabotage his budding directorial career because I need him to run my projector.”
    “Well, are you?” Dad asked. Parents always think so highly of their children.
    It was my own fault that I had to put up with this abuse. I am the last New Jerseyan over the age of seventeen who doesn’t own a car, because I believe in decreasing our use of oil (foreign and domestic) and cutting back on greenhouse gases (except after I have a heavy lunch). So my usual mode of transportation is a bicycle.
    Unfortunately, the state of New Jersey is constructed specifically to deter anyone who doesn’t want to drive a car from living here, and there is precious little public transportation between New Brunswick to Englewood that wouldn’t take about a day and a half in the journey. So, as I often do on such occasions, I had prevailed upon one of the many drivers I know to give me a ride.
    Sharon was busy with her practice (as if keeping the populace healthy were more important than driving her ex-husband around; really!), so I’d called Dad. When he heard where we were going, and whom we’d be meeting, I’d barely had time to hang up the phone before he showed up at my door. I didn’t come by my love of classic comedians by chance; it’s a genetic thing.
    “No, I’m not trying to sabotage Anthony’s career,” I answered him. “I don’t even think Anthony’s going to have a career if he drops out of school, but I wouldn’t stand in his way. I’m not his father.”
    “I’ve noticed we don’t have grandchildren,” Dad said.
    I exhaled. “Let’s stick to one neurosis at a time, okay? Take a right here.”
    He pulled the car into the driveway of the Lillian Booth (no relation to John Wilkes, we’re pretty sure) Actors’ Home, set on a hill overlooking a wooded area and seeming quite serene indeed. Dad parked the car at the top of the hill, about ten yards from the front door of the Home.
    I’d called the Actors Fund and arranged the visit through the administrator, an astonishingly young man named Walter Lee. Walt, as we’d been instructed to address him, looked to be about twelve on a good day, but assured me he was in his late twenties.
    He took us through the Ed Herlihy Foyer (Ed had done a lot of commercials for Kraft Foods in the 1960s, and apparently they paid well), and inside, explaining that there were actually two homes on the premises: “One is an assisted living facility, for residents who don’t have health issues that demand more extensive care, and the