But she also knows that Sergey Vladimirovich has been mindful of the difference in their ages, and his courtship since November has been considerate and kind. Just last week, in one of their late-night conversations, Lara told her that she is lucky her suitor is courteous and gentle, that she is not the object of interest of their school’s assistant dean, as Lara was when they started school. “He didn’t bother to invite me anywhere,” she says, trying to keep her voice from clotting. “He didn’t even bother to pour me a glass of water. He just pointed to my clothes when he was through and said I could leave. He treated me like I wasn’t even human. Like a dog.”

They all know that the assistant dean, a balding man with a paunch, who used to be a decent actor before he found teaching more rewarding, is known for summoning female students to read for him in his office. When his secretary sent for Sasha a few months ago with an audition call, she scribbled a note full of the medical jargon she’d heard at her mother’s hospital that certified she had promptly come down with a bad case of strep throat. To make it look official, she stamped the phony paper with a doctor’s stamp she had long ago stolen from her mother’s anatomy department. Had Sasha known the assistant dean had set his eyes on Lara first, she would have used that pilfered stamp to produce a fake note for her, too. The only thing she could do now was to sit and listen and try not to show how sorry she felt for her friend. She hoped Lara would find the strength to rip the memory out of her mind and fling it to the mental garbage pile where it belonged.

In the director’s apartment, Sasha finds herself sinking into the plush upholstery as he pours her a glass of golden wine from a bottle that she has never seen in the stores. She knows she is fortunate that the director is patient, but she can sense that his patience is wearing thin.

He sits next to her and hands her a filled glass. “To the end of our work together,” he says and clinks his glass against hers. “And the beginning of something brand-new.”