Even if a miracle happened and the empty shelves of their store suddenly sprouted with bologna and cheese, if their half of the house stretched and doubled in size, whom would her mother ask to come to dinner? Would she invite anyone at all? Certainly not the three families on the other side of the wall, who bark at each other every morning because they can’t figure out the order of the outhouse trips, and not Andrei’s mother, because she is a janitor who sweeps the yard.

And what if the actresses who play the sisters are not pretending at all? What if they have stopped being themselves and turned into the Chekhov sisters? Sasha is so fascinated by this possibility—the possibility of becoming someone else—that her cheeks burn as hot as the sides of the stove. The possibility of becoming Irina and living a noble life so different from theirs, a life of guests and servants and longing for Moscow. She can relate to longing to live in Moscow better than she can relate to guests and servants. She has always wanted to go to the May Day parade in Red Square, and her mother said that she may even take her there one day, on an overnight train that whistles before it pulls into their platform, immersing the station in clouds of smoke and soot. It feels gratifying to find similarities between Chekhov’s Irina and herself; it makes Sasha feel sophisticated and almost grown-up. Maybe she can be like Irina, dreaming and hopeful and giving orders about what she wants for dinner. Maybe she can become an actress.

She stands under the radio, struck by the simple realization of what her future is going to be. She is going to be an actress and live a thousand lives. Lives that her mother, or Grandpa, or even Grandma have never even heard about, lives they will never know.

Sasha stands under the radio, pitying her old self, who only yesterday wanted to be an ice cream vendor and the week before a streetcar driver—such small, pathetic dreams. She feels sorry for her previous self, who only three hours earlier didn’t know anything about Theater. It’s a frightening thought that had Grandma not discovered the oily newspaper on the porch, she would never have had a chance to hear this radio play and find out what she was meant to be.