Lu nodded; she knew she wasn't the only one who kept pieces of her life secret from her family. But she also knew that wasn't the only reason Ricky wasn't going with her. Their golden summer was almost over; in a few weeks he'd be eighteen and he'd be joining the army. And she was looking to the future too. If all went well at her audition, she'd be going to New York to start her new life. She'd miss Ricky, but since their romance had to end sometime, it seemed to her that this was the best possible way for it to happen. Especially if her audition panned out.

It wasn't until Lu was on her way back to New Haven with the time and place of the audition written out on a piece of paper in her hand that she thought about Mama. The round trip to New York, plus the audition, would take most of the day; it wasn't the same thing as vanishing for a couple of hours to be with Ricky in West Haven. No matter how distracted Mama was, she'd notice an absence that lasted all day. There was no way to keep this from Mama; Lu just had to pray she wouldn't find out about the audition until after it was over.

THE NIGHT BEFORE her audition, Lu gathered up everything she would need to get herself dolled up for her big day: her brand-new suit, best shoes, a card of bobby pins, a hand mirror, a tube of lipstick, an eyeliner pencil, and a bottle of leg makeup, which girls used to make their legs look less bare because nylon was rationed and no one could buy stockings. She put it all in a pillowcase and hid the bundle in the laundry off the kitchen. The bedrooms were on the second floor of the house, and Mama was a light sleeper who still heard every sound her kids made. Getting dressed downstairs on the first floor was safer.

The next morning, Lu woke up while it was still dark out and tiptoed down the back stairs to the laundry room, where she pinned up her hair and dressed in her brand new suit. It was going to get wrinkled sitting on the train, but she couldn't help that; there was no place in New York where she could change her clothes. She put on her lipstick—Mama didn't know she owned the contraband tube, but she always wore it when she performed—and then propped first one foot and then the other on the washing machine to smear on the leg makeup, praying it wasn't streaking.

She was slipping into her shoes when she heard a noise in the kitchen. Her heart started to race. Hoping against hope that it was Paulie who had awakened early, she walked out of the laundry room.