His wife had been right all along; he should have let the girls study Korean. What was Spanish going to do for them? It was bad enough they already thought in English. He sensed trouble farther down the road. Already they questioned him and disrespected him at every turn—this would mutate into hate and shame. Oh, the way they looked at him sometimes. As if he were the stupidest person in the world, put on this earth by God just to annoy and embarrass them. Clever as they were, his girls were raised wrong and there was no one to blame now but himself.

In Mr. Z’s car, a kind of off-key, weird old song played.

Trumpet and piano. Then someone singing off-tempo defiantly about “sudden cheese” and “strange foot.” And blood.

Rosemary felt Mr. Z watching her from the corner of his eye.

“Like it?” he asked.

“Um . . . yeah.”

“It’s called ‘Strange Fruit.’ Know it?”

She shrugged.

“Billie Holiday.”

“Oh, yeah! I’ve heard of him.”

“Her.”

Oh, hah. It was southern breeze, not sudden cheese . . .  And it’s strange fruit hanging, not strange foot . . . Duh.

“It’s probably one of the most powerful songs of the twentieth century, and one of my personal favorites.” He looked at her. “I might use it in our play. What do you think?”

“It’s a cool song.”

“I’ll burn you a CD of it if you like.”

She nodded: of freaking course, I like.

He stopped the car on a quiet, sloping street called Mount Curve. Rosemary and her sister often pedaled up it on their bikes, panting like dogs, then spun around and sped down without braking.

The day was overcast. Used cotton balls sequestered the shy blue sky.

“Think it’s going to rain?” He pulled up the handbrake.

“It’s been grey and muggy like this for days. Nice and moody. I like it.”

He cleared his throat. “So, I think workshop today went great.”

Funny he should have mentioned that. She was dying to ask him what the session had been all about. There was still no script and no one was part of the workshop other than the so-called male lead Arik and herself. Mr. Z spent the whole time talking about French movies and making the two of them hold hands. They were supposed to work at seeming like “a convincing couple,” which she at first misheard as “a conceiving couple.” She hobbled around the rehearsal room like a pregnant lady until Mr. Z asked her why she was walking so strangely.

“What do you think of Arik?” Mr. Z asked.

“He’s okay.” Tall, wavy brown hair, shadow ’stache, dimply like an Armenian-American Josh Hartnett. She wondered what it’d be like to lie in his fuzzy arms.

“Just okay? I know for a fact he thinks you’re foxy.”

Rosemary made a face. Foxy? What a word.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Don’t believe me?”