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  Sophie leaned back until she touched his shoulder. “I should warn you, she gave me a mother test which I tried to flunk. I passed.”

  “You pass all my tests, too,” Phin said, and she turned her head just as he dropped a kiss in the curve of her neck.

  “Hey,” she said, alarmed. “Dillie.”

  “She just went around the house,” Phin said in her ear. “Look at me.”

  She turned to him and he kissed her thoroughly. “I’ll be back tonight,” he said against her mouth. “Bed check. And you’d better be here.”

  “I thought your mother told you not to come here anymore.”

  “She’s being unreasonable,” Phin said. “You’re probably the only Dempsey I’ll ever get to play with in my whole life. Ever.”

  “Lucky for you,” Sophie said, and he kissed her again, and she put her hand on his arm and felt safe and fine. “Is this what we’re going to do tonight?” she said, her eyes still closed.

  “No, we’re going to wax my car,” Phin said.

  Sophie opened her eyes. “What?”

  “Then I’m going to fuck you on the hood,” Phin said, and took her mouth again.

  “That was a really rude thing to say,” she said a few moments later, trying to get her breath back.

  “Yeah, but it turns you on every time,” Phin said. “I go with what works.”

  “We have to stop necking on this dock,” she said a minute later. “Stephen Garvey’s probably taking Polaroids right now.”

  “See if you can get copies.” Phin leaned toward her again, and then Lassie barked and they both jerked around to see Dillie coining down the hill, elaborately unconcerned with them. “Remind me to stay away from you,” Phin said as he stood up.

  “What did I do?” Sophie pulled her feet out of the water and drew them up under her.

  “It’s not what you do, it’s what you are.” Phin raised his voice and called, “Say good-bye to the dog, Dill. We have to get going.”

  “I could go out in front again,” Dillie bargained, as she came up to the dock. “You could kiss Sophie some more.”

  “I had something in my eye,” Sophie said. “We weren’t—”

  “I’m finished kissing Sophie,” Phin said. “Say goodbye.”

  “Good-bye,” Dillie said, the orphan child once more. “I had such a nice time, but it was too, too short.”

  “That’s the good times for you,” Sophie said. “They never last.”

  Leo came back Monday afternoon, splashing through the front yard and talking about arks and Labor Day traffic, and Rachel was so glad to see him she couldn’t stand it. Her life was so awful, so out of control, but now Leo was back. She could tell him about the Mace and he’d tell her what to do. She’d wait until he was done at the farm and then—

  He showed them his cut of Cherished.

  “I changed the title, of course,” he said as the video began to play. A cartoon lion in a smoking jacket appeared and the words Leo Films scrolled across him, and Rachel thought, This is so cool, he’s got to make me his assistant if I don’t go to jail for giving Zone a heart attack. But then the credits started.

  Gone was Amy’s carefully filmed approach to Temptation, panning up to the water tower. Instead two curvaceous-to-the-point-of-chunky legs straddled the words Leo Kingsley Presents which dissolved to flaming letters that read, Hot Fleshy Thighs.

  “What?” Clea shrieked, “ ‘Thighs’!”

  But the title change was the least of it. Leo had kept most of the film, but he’d added some of the raunchiest sex scenes Rachel had ever seen, not that she’d seen many.

  “I’m going to be ill,” Amy said, when they’d hit the second one. “Look at that grain. It’s not even the same film quality,” and Rachel and Sophie looked at her in disbelief.

  “Film quality?” Sophie said, her voice going up an octave. “The fact that this is pornography doesn’t bother you? My dog shouldn’t be watching this.”

  “Leo, this is disgusting,” Clea said. “Did you do this all the way through?”

  “Of course,” Leo said, not the least insulted. “This is what I sell. This is what makes money. This—”

  Oh, Leo, Rachel thought, torn between anger and disillusionment. This is so wrong.

  “I don’t care about the money—” Sophie began.

  “You ruined my film—” Amy began.

  “Leo, you pervert—” Clea began.

  He wasn’t a pervert, Rachel knew, growing calmer even as the bodies flailed on the screen. He was a darling. He just wasn’t thinking, that was all. Sometimes you had to point things out to Leo. The big sweet dummy.

  “Now, look,” Leo was saying. “You knew I wasn’t Disney. And I told you it needed—”

  Rachel turned off the television and popped the cassette out of the player. She took a red magic marker and wrote Smut, Smut, Smut, on it in big letters and handed it to Leo.

  “Rachel, honey, be—” Leo said.

  “This is not going to happen, Leo,” Rachel said firmly. “We had a deal. You were going to try vanilla porn. You were going to be classy this time.”

  “Rachel, baby,” Leo said, very avuncular. “You don’t understand—”

  Rachel pointed her finger at him. “Don’t you ‘baby’ me. A deal’s a deal. You don’t put garbage like that in a quality film.” She put her hands on her hips and stared down into his eyes, making him pay attention. “That’s just wrong, Leo. You should be ashamed.”

  The silence stretched out until Amy said, “Yeah.”

  Leo sighed. “Look, you girls did a fine job, but you have to be practical. I couldn’t sell what you made to high-school kids, it was that tame.”

  “So we’ll make it hotter,” Rachel said, making him meet her eyes again. “This is not a problem. But we make it hotter, not you. Jeez, Leo, what did you think? That we’d say, ‘Oh, good, Leo put in some cheesy sex scenes for us?’ ”

  “I thought you’d be reasonable,” Leo said.

  “You thought wrong,” Rachel said. “Give us a week.”

  “Rachel—”

  “A week. That’s not too much to ask, Leo. Not after what you just did.” Rachel stared him down, implacable, and Leo sighed again and said, “Okay, a week. But I need skin and I need sex. And if you don’t give it to me, I’ll cut it in myself.”

  “Deal,” Rachel said, and then stepped back as she realized what she’d just done. “Uh, if that’s okay with Amy and—”

  “It’s okay with me,” Amy said.

  “You can make all our deals,” Sophie said.

  “Especially with Leo,” Clea said, looking at her appraisingly.

  “Come on,” Rachel said to Leo, feeling magnanimous now that she’d gotten her way. “I’ll take you out to the motel and you can drop off your stuff. And then we’ll go get something to eat, and you can tell me what this movie needs.”

  “I am not going to talk dirty to you in a restaurant,” Leo said.

  Rachel shrugged. “Then we’ll go to Dairy Queen and eat in the car.”

  “Fabulous,” Leo said, but he followed her out when she opened the screen door and gestured, just like she knew he would. He was a good man, really. He just needed to be managed.

  Rachel got in the driver’s seat. “Dairy Queen or the diner?” she asked, and Leo sighed and said, “You choose.”

  “Dairy Queen,” Rachel said, putting the car in gear. “You like their ice cream. And tonight we’ll go watch the Labor Day fireworks, and you’ll feel better. I’ll take care of everything.”

  Beside her, Leo groaned, and Rachel thought, Not a good time to tell him about the Mace.

  She’d just tell him later, then.

  When they were gone, Sophie said. “I’d give her a raise but we’re not paying her anything.”

  “Forget Rachel,” Clea said. “She’s bought us another week, but it’s up to us to come through. We need sex scenes. And we’re going to have to film them fast.”

  Sophie shook her head. “We sig