Nora cleared her throat, the sound too loud over the mic. “Whoops,” she said, and a few people snapped in encouragement.

“Say pass,” Will muttered under his breath, then looked over at Jonah to make sure the old man hadn’t heard him.

Nora looked up, and because he’d been watching her smile all night in this petty little game they’d been playing, he could tell something different about this one. He could tell it was brittle, a little wobbly at the edges. Say pass, he thought again, almost desperately, because he hated that smile on her face.

“My poem is by Mary Oliver,” she said finally. “It’s called ‘The Summer Day.’”

She started reading after taking a deep breath, and Will felt like he was holding his own. He may not have made a lick of sense of his own poem while he was up there, but when Nora read, he paid attention to every word; he listened to her read about watching a grasshopper, about kneeling in the grass and being idle, about everything dying at last, and too soon.

When she finished, she gave that brittle smile again, did a funny little curtsy that made a few people laugh amid their snapping, and Will blew out a breath. She seemed fine, ushering Marian back to the mic, patting Emily’s shoulder, taking something from a tray Mrs. Salas handed to her.

But she also didn’t go back to her seat.

She stood off to the side for a few seconds, but she kept that same tense, fragile smile on her face. She seemed to be waiting for something, and when Marian started speaking again, announcing the changeover to the evening’s original compositions, he could tell what it was.

She was waiting for everyone to have their attention diverted. She was waiting for the right moment to leave. When Marian called up the first poet for the night, Nora found her opportunity.

And Will barely waited a minute before following her.

She hadn’t gone far.

He found her in the vestibule at the front of the building, where the small, silver mailboxes were dotted with glinting light from the too-low chandelier, where the wallpaper—he had to give it credit—looked more metallic than mustard at this time of night. She was looking out the front door, her back to him, her bare shoulders slightly slumped, and her flower crown off her head, held loosely at her side. But even in a posture that looked a little defeated, there was still something so vivid about her standing there—her dress summer green in this dull, old-fashioned vestibule, the flowers at her side an antidote to the musty smell.

“Hey,” he said softly, not wanting to startle her.

Her shoulders straightened immediately, one of her hands lifting, and he shifted his gaze to her reflection in the glass door, saw the dimmer, smaller version of her swipe gently beneath her eye.