IT IS THE FINAL THURSDAY NIGHT, AND THE PLAY FLIES. IT IS the freest she has ever felt on a stage—the lines rise in her as though they are her own.

You have mermaid’s blood in your veins, Vanya tells her, so be a mermaid. Run wild for once in your life.

As she comes off stage after her final exit, she realizes she has been unaware of the audience, entirely focused on the other actors, out of her skin. She has not thought about Nathan for an hour and a half. As they take their curtain, Johnny turns his face towards her, saluting her with a small nod. Then in the wings, in a gesture of old-fashioned courtesy, he takes her hand. “Magnificent,” he says.

“You too.”

He inclines his head. “We should drink to it,” he says. “You and I.” He still has her hand in his.

She hurries to the dressing room, aware she is happy, that something has been completed tonight, that a question she asked herself as a young woman has been answered. That she can do this, that it is worth doing. That she has not been deluded or stupid or wrong.

As she is unbuttoning her costume, her phone vibrates and she sees a message from Nathan.

I’m here.

She stares at it, then up at herself in the mirror. She sees her outline there—Yelena’s dress for the final act: a long dark coat, the buttons fastening all the way to the neck, her hair pinned up. She sees the way her lips are swollen, the slant of her eyes, her chest moving up and down with her breath. She does not reply to the message; she knows he will wait.

She finishes unbuttoning her costume and slips out of it, hanging it up on the rail, then goes to the sink and splashes water on her neck. She pulls on her jeans and her top. Her makeup she leaves as it is—slightly smudged around her eyes. When she takes her hair out of its clips, it falls in waves down her back.

Mermaid’s blood in your veins.

She picks up her bag and makes her way out into the bar. Nathan is alone at a table in the corner. She approaches him slowly. He stands before she can speak. His face is a mixture of nervousness and awe.

He is wearing a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She notices this. She notices his forearms. The way his hand moves to his chest as he speaks, referencing his heart. The way his shirt is open at the neck.