On learning that Chris and Ansel can???t come up with the advance, he reconsiders his ???no exceptions rules,??? and offers instead to take it out in trade: the ambiguously virginal Dottie will be ???the retainer.??? Deprived of oxygen post-birth (by a smothering episode with her mother), it???s difficult to know how much of her dog and pony show is an act, and how much of her character is written