Madame Dunbar’s place wasn’t actually in the city of Los Angeles. Rather, it was located in a foothill community called Altadena, which was north of Pasadena, which Mari’d never heard of either, so it didn’t make any difference. Altadena and Pasadena were both gorgeous places, full of grand homes and magnificent vistas. Orange groves and poppy fields abounded, and the San Gabriel Mountains loomed over them all as if keeping a kindly watch on things. Madame Dunbar’s studio consisted of a suite of rooms in the upstairs of her magnificent home on the corner of Foothill Boulevard and Maiden Lane. The house was a palace to Mari’s eyes. She suspected it would seem so to anyone who’d lived her life in a one-room cabin. It took all her strength of will not to tiptoe around the edges of the carpeting for fear of doing something hick-like. She was very ill at ease. Also, it was embarrassing to have Tony staring critically at her every time she walked out of the dressing room into the fitting parlor, clad in another costume she was supposed to wear in Lucky Strike.
