“Oh, I think the teacups are worse than that thing. I honestly thought I was using good judgment not telling you about the ride.” She is speaking softly, close to Cate’s ear, and the smell of her breath—clove and smoke—is arousing. Cate has noticed this aroma during other intimate moments with Maureen, but only just now does she realize what it means. Maureen is a secret smoker. Or tobacco chewer, although that definitely seems less likely. She employs some clovey cover-up. She stands in the alley behind the Lyric exhaling plumes of smoke, in the company of her cohort, her shrinking demographic. Cate can see her so clearly, having a conversation in the alley with the theater janitor and a nerved-up soprano who’s one of the townspeople in the second act.

Something about her breath and the soft brush of her mouth against Cate’s cheek and the emptiness of the café and Frances being outside in the snow prompts Cate to turn to kiss Maureen, and then kiss her again. Maureen is a world-class kisser. Put that in the plus column.

Cate tells her, “I could probably kiss you all afternoon. Make a little spectacle in here. But instead I’m going home. I need to reflect.”

“Oh, don’t do that.”

As they stand on the sidewalk outside Kopi, Cate looks down and notices the purple of Frances’s shoes bleeding into the turquoise of the laces. Chicago is tough on whimsy. A small van speeds by, splashing them as it goes. The van is from Toaster, a diner quite a ways down on Lincoln (way out of this neighborhood) owned and operated by Dana, who is supposed to not be contacting Cate. This little bit of stalking is interesting, and should be annoying. Discouragingly, Cate is more flattered than annoyed, but then she doesn’t have time to be either, as the van keeps heading north up Clark and her phone starts ringing in her parka pocket. A 212 area code. Cate assumes it’s Love Salvage, a Manhattan prop house. They have the real 1950s venetian blinds Cate is scouting for the drill sergeant’s office, and they’re cheap. Of course the fat kind are being made again, but they look historically phony. The old ones are yellowed from all the smoking done in the offices where they once hung, their tapes nice and grimy. It’s a look that’s hard to create retroactively.

“Work call,” she tells Maureen and Frances as she gives them fist bumps, as a jokey good-bye to avoid hugging. “I’m going to have to take it.”

“Hey, Cate.” Not the salvage place. It’s Ty Boyd, artistic director of Ropes and Pulleys, a very good off-Broadway company. She’s met him a couple of times in her previous life as Graham’s wife. He tells her they’re putting up a play about Vita Sackville-West. “Do you know who she is?”