Cate takes a sip of her martini: it’s vaguely but not unpleasantly medicinal. She thinks for a few beats. “Gladys is straight. It might be simply that she’s not a good enough actor to imagine herself into the role and doesn’t have a model for the kind of seduction Vita was wielding. Assertive but not aggressive. Maybe you could ask her to think about removing testosterone from the equation. Also to think about sex between two people who already know what’s in the offing, who don’t have a gender wall they can hide tricks behind. They have the rabbit and the hat, not the rabbit in the hat.”

“That’s good. That’s very good. That might be a path. All this reading I’ve been doing, I’m starting to think Vita was more concerned with flowers and houses than humans. That fucking country house. Three hundred sixty-five rooms and a deer park. Why did her ancestors need all that space? Maybe they had a lot of company?”

Cate says, “They didn’t want to have to haul out the blow-up bed in the family room.”

“The house was her true obsession, but it went to her cousin Eddy. First male in the line. But really, couldn’t he have given her maybe fifty rooms and her own entrance? She could have mowed the lawn in exchange? Okay. So. Gladys. Tomorrow after rehearsal you should take Gladys out for drinks. I’ll tell her it’s going to be the three of us, then I won’t show up. I’ll text you that my thumb is sore, or my dog is puking. Then you’ll be alone with her and roll into your argument about the difference with same-sex seduction—”

“My argument is definitely brilliant, but I think you’re the one who’s going to have to make it. I’m the set designer. I can order a longer sofa because Gladys’s legs are overhanging the chaise. But you’re the director. So I’m afraid you’re the one who has to direct her out of her misery.” Cate loves that she can talk to Molly like this. “Just tell her she can lean back a little. Her Vita will still get the girls.”