“Yeah,” Val says, like she gets it. She swallows a bite of her ham and cheese. “It’s like you can play with the flames and not get burned.”

And that’s it, exactly. Really being in the moment onstage feels like being lit on fire. Only you know, when it’s all over, you won’t have any scars to show.

No blisters. Or scorched places.

We finish our lunch, and when we’re dumping our trays, I ask Lex about his tour with Jude. “Did he show you what you wanted to see?”

“Not yet,” Lex says with a sly little grin. “But he will. What’d you do this morning?”

“Not much.” I shrug and push Cole’s face out of my mind, because I’m still not sure what to make of him. Or the way he makes me feel. “Just studied the script.”

After lunch we head to the first day of our work assignments, and Glory offers me another peppermint when I show up at her desk. “I hope you’re a hard worker,” she says, and she pats down her frizzy curls with one hand. “This is the only month of the year I have an assistant, so I have to make the most of it.”

The first thing she teaches me is how to make the coffee. “Job number one,” she calls it. Then she hands me a thick stack of folders and shows me how to sort them into her overstuffed filing cabinet. After that, we go over the copy machine and the phone system. “Brody gets a lot of calls,” she warns me from behind those huge glasses of hers. “Especially as we get closer to the big professional shows coming in next month.” She gives me a little smile. “That’s one of the reasons I’m so thrilled to have an assistant.”

We’re almost finished for the afternoon when Glory sends me upstairs to drop some files off for Brody. He isn’t in his office, so I leave them on his desk. But as I’m walking out, I notice rows of framed photographs neatly hung on one wall. Each one is almost identical to the others. A big group of people arranged on the wide back steps of the sea porch. That green-striped awning overhead. A year is scrawled at the bottom of every photo, and they’re all in chronological order.

Something catches my eye, and I take a quick glance around before I go over to sneak a closer look, because I know I shouldn’t be messing around in Brody Culver’s office.

There she is, though. Third row. Second photograph from the left. My mother. Green eyes and white-blonde hair, like mine. Except hers is longer.

We could almost be twins. If I didn’t have my dad’s nose.