"To be honest, he hasn't told me when he'll be back." Which was a pity, because Roxie very much wanted to talk things over with him, given how they'd left things.

"I tend to make the local news rags a lot, actually," she added. "Perks of being a supersocialite, I suppose."

Roxie, for her part, kept her expression neutral.

"You know, Tommy, if you really wanted to help out, you could tell me where you'd disappeared off to," she said. "Joe was awfully worried, from what he told me. He looked for you, but it seemed as though you'd dropped off the face of the planet."

Beat around the bushes? Roxie? Only when it concerned her feelings for Joe.