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Lina hunches down in her seat. Usually the parts without her aren't interesting, but the woman on the screen - the one with the short hair - is dancing with Don, and it makes Lina mad. The woman's dress was green, she remembers. Green is the color of envy. She remembers hearing that somewhere, but she's not sure what it means, so it must not be important.
* * *
Sydney can't remember when she learned the power of money. It seems like she's always known that it means the difference between hunger and not-hunger, between warm clothes and tattered rags, between a roof and cold rain dripping down your neck.
She does know how old she was when she discovered the power of sex. She was thirteen. Money is something she wants. Sex is something men want.
It isn't a very complicated equation, really.
* * *
The lot is dark. Lina wanders aimlessly across the empty sets, from jungle to schoolroom to palace. She comes to the set of "The Dancing Cavalier". There is the staircase she ran down to meet Don. There is where she sat when Don kissed her.
She hears footsteps and hides beneath the curve of the staircase before the lights switch on.
"There you are!" For a moment she thinks Kathy means *her*, but no, Kathy is looking at a spot just off the set, just out of Lina's vision. "We've been looking all over for you!" Kathy's crossing to the other person, out of Lina's line of sight. She peeks around the stairs and bites back a gasp.
Kathy is kissing Cosmo Brown. *Kathy Selden* is kissing *Cosmo Brown*. Sharp delight fills Lina from her toes to the top of her head. This is perfect! She always knew that hussy was only after Don for his money and his looks and his fame. Now she's kissing his *best friend*.
Lina can't wait to call the tabloids.
* * *
Vic is being...inattentive again. He hasn't given her anything new in almost a week. So when the kid wanders into the bar, Sydney smiles.
"Buy you a drink?" she asks, and he stammers and blushes. She laughs, but not cruelly.
The next night she takes him to dinner - her treat. He frowns at that. "But...I should pay," he says helplessly. She laughs, this time a little cruelly. He cannot afford it. Spending money is never easy for her, but he is...an investment.
The following night they go dancing. It takes time for her to get him to relax. He is tense, beautiful in his confusion. Finally, he begins to move with more confidence, his self-consciousness falling away. He takes the lead, spinning her and moving her, steering her through every turn and step until she is breathless.
"You have talent," she says, and his eyes widen.
"Do you really think so?" he asks.
"Yes," she tells him. It's easy to tell men what they want to hear.
She doesn't tell him that talent is rarely, rarely enough in this town.
The next night they make love.
He shudders and gasps, his eyes wide, catching the streetlights through the window as he looks up at her.
"I think I...I love you," he says.
She just smiles at him in the darkness.
The next day Vic gives her a diamond bracelet. "Oh, Vic," she coos breathlessly. "For me?"
Vic smiles at her, his mouth a sharp curve in his scarred face. He wraps the bracelet around her wrist and lifts her hand and kisses it. His lips are dry against her skin. "For you," he says.
* * *
Fantasies race through Lina's head. She wants to be the one to tell Don. She imagines his face when he looks at the two of them, betrayed and hurt, with no one left to turn to but Lina herself. Maybe she'll even take him back. Oh, this is too perfect.
"Kathy?" comes another voice.
Lina pouts. *She* wanted to be the one to tell him. Well, seeing him discover them together will be almost as good. She settles herself to watch.
"Kathy, did you find--"
"In here, Don!" calls Kathy, not even stepping away from Cosmo.
"Oh, good, I--" he stops. Lina leans forward a little.
"We couldn't find you," he says quietly.
Cosmo looks up at him. "I thought you two would want to be alone," he says. "Now that..."
"Cosmo," says Don, and Lina can't see his face, but his voice is warm. Why isn't he angry? He should be shouting right now. "Cos," he says, even softer, and steps forward, leans down a little, and...
And...
Lina doesn't understand.
* * *
It's three years before Sydney sees the boy again, now no longer a boy. There's still something soft in his eyes, though, something young and eager, and he brushes away his the crowd of debutantes surrounding him and hurries across to meet her, reaching out for her, his hand on her arm. He says her name.
For a moment, she is surprised. Then she understands.
He's mocking her.
If only she'd stayed with him, she could be on his arm now, the toast of the town. The belle of the ball. And, more to the point, he's going to be even richer than her husband, if he's not already.
But she made her choice, all those years ago, and she does not regret it. The diamonds encircling her hair are a comfortable weight against her scalp. She gives the man a cool nod, tosses him a coin, and passes on.
She is...content.
* * *
He's *kissing* him. Don's *kissing* him, one hand cupping his face, the other around his waist, and Cosmo laughs against his mouth and then buries his head against his shoulder as Kathy presses forward from the other side, wrapping her arms around him and tilting her head up so Don can kiss her, Cosmo locked between them.
What? Lina's brain reels. What are they *doing*?
Cosmo laughs again, shakily. Kathy and Don smile at each other.
"Come home, Cosmo," says Kathy.
Don nods. "Yes. Come home." It's a request and a command, a plea and an order. They all pull apart a little, and Lina sees the way Kathy and Cosmo look to Don, circling him like planets around a star.
"Okay," says Cosmo. This time the sound he makes is choked enough to be hardly recognizable *as* a laugh.
The three of them leave. Together. They shut off the lights as they go, and Lina stands for a long time in the darkness, thinking.
It's too big. It's too much, too huge a scandal. People might believe that Kathy was cheating on Don with Cosmo, but *this*...they'd say that this was a product of Lina Lamont's crazy imagination, the same as the press releases she'd sent out before "The Dancing Cavalier". They'd never believe her.
And even if they did...Don would still be with them. He wouldn't leave them.
Lina shifts discontentedly. Why does he want *them* when he could have *her*?