The headwaiter drifted by and Kelli snagged him. “Hey, Geoffrey,” she said.

“Kelli, how you doing? You want a table?”

“No, I’m fine at the bar. Tell you what I do want, though: see those two kids over there in the booth?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s a hundred in it if you can find out the girl’s name and where she lives.”

“Would you like to pay now or later?” he asked.

“Payment is on delivery,” she said.

Bruce ambled over to where the young couple sat. “Good day, folks,” he said. “Is this your first visit to the Brasserie?”

Both shook their heads.

“Well, we’re very happy to have you as regulars. I’m Bruce, your mâitre d’.” He offered his hand to the boy, who shook it and replied, “Peter Barrington.”

He turned to the girl. “And you?”

“Hattie Patrick,” she replied, shaking his hand.

“I’m very pleased to meet you both. Do you live in the neighborhood?”

“I’m at Sixty-third and Park,” the girl said, “and Peter lives in Turtle Bay.”

“Great. I hope we’ll see both of you often.” He strolled away, spoke to a couple of other diners for cover, then went back to the bar.

“Hattie Patrick,” he said, “Sixty-third and Park.”

Kelli slipped him the hundred. “Bruce, you’re a dear, and very clever, too.”

He was nice,” Hattie said to Peter.

“Yes, he was. Maybe we’ll become regulars, like he said.”

“Are you a regular anywhere else?” she asked.

“Only at the Knickerbocker cafeteria,” Peter replied. “My dad hangs out at Elaine’s.”

“I’ve never been. Will you take me sometime?”

“Sure, I’d love to take you. We could ask my friend Ben along, but he’s headed back to Choate Monday.”

“Who are your friends at school?” Hattie asked.

“Just you. I haven’t been there long enough to make other friends.”

“I’m confused about something,” she said.

“What?”

“You did say you graduated from your last school in December.”

“That’s right.”

“How did that happen?”

“Well, I took a lot of courses and got ahead of the curriculum.”

“While shooting a movie at the same time?”

“Yeah, we only worked a couple of hours a day on the movie.”

“Are you just taking film courses at Knickerbocker?”

“I’m taking college-level French and American history, too.”

“Are you going to college in the fall?”

“Ben and I have both applied to the Yale School of Drama.”

“You want to be an actor?”

“I want to learn about acting. They have a directing program, too, and Ben wants to produce, and they have a program for that, even an MBA. When we get out of school we want to be partners in the making of films.”

“That sounds very ambitious,” she said. “I wish I had that kind of inner direction. I seem to just wander along, doing whatever seems like a good idea at the time.”