"Gosh!" Kitty said, looking up from the magazine. "Gee!"
But Fleetwood didn't hear her. Suddenly a lot of things were falling into place and it was like deciphering a coded letter only to find out that the message you'd been working so hard to unsnarl was one telling you you'd never been born, that you were just a figment of your own imagination. He remembered the face in the firelight—and the negligee—and all the rest of it. But it wasn't a real memory. It was only the shadow of something that hadn't really happened at all, merely the phantom remembrance of a reverie or a dream.
Suddenly a dazed, trance-like expression clouded his eyes. He shoved himself away from the stool, turned and started toward the door.
"Hey!" Kitty yelled. "Hey, just a minute! You owe me ten cents!"
But Fleetwood continued to the door, stepped out to the sidewalk, and glanced purposefully down the row of parked cars....
"Just imagine!" Kitty breathed. "Just feature you being real!"
"No," Fleetwood murmured. "No." He looked up at her, beyond her, his eyes filled with a shocking realization. "No, I'm not real. I...."
The grey coupe ground to a stop in the drive and Fleetwood got out. As he rounded the shrubs he could see that there were lights on in the house. That was good; Evelyn was home. It was a nice lay-out, swank and beautiful but very refined, like Evelyn herself. He could hear the wash and roll of the ocean from somewhere beyond and below. He patted his pocket, felt the box, and legged it up the steps.