“It’s going to be so sad when he goes to Boston,” Spencer said, watching them. “But it is exciting to know that, somewhere, there’s a school with a major in Alphabet Studies.”

“School,” Scarlett said, suddenly. “That’s it.”

“What? What’s it?”

“Eric goes to NYU, right? Are a lot of people in your cast from NYU?”

“NYU, Juilliard. I’m the only one who’s not, I think. Why?”

“Clearly,” she said, “this is a joint NYU-Juilliard production. Maybe not officially. Who would make you leave a production run by two of the top theater schools?”

Spencer struggled with the idea.

“Look,” she said, “they just want you to have some kind of degree in something—some kind of security. It’s kind of a showcase. Professors from these places will come to the show, right?”

“Probably,” he said. “Maybe.”

“This will give them hope. That’s all they want. And you do get paid. Just try not to tell them how much.”

“It’s better than anything I could have come up with,” he said. “I was just going to resort to crying a lot and banging my head against the wall. It’ll take some work to sell it, though…”

He got up from the sidewalk and grasped her by the shoulders.

“This may be the last time I see you as an actor,” he said. “Also, I’m about to become very, very unclean. I have a bad feeling.”

Lola came up behind them and politely excused herself to get past.

“I’ll meet you upstairs,” she said to both of them. “And good luck.”

“Luck?” Spencer repeated, stepping toward the door. “What’s luck got to do with it? Skill, baby. Nothing but.”

He did the walking into the door trick for good measure, probably just to amuse himself, and then headed off to meet his fate. Unlike Scarlett, who always smiled, the gag only seemed to perplex and sadden Lola.

“Is he ever going to stop doing that?” she asked.

“Hopefully not,” Scarlett said.

It was a long, painful wait in the Orchid Suite.

Lola was on her bed, her foot balanced on a book, carefully removing her toenail polish. Scarlett went to her mirror and took one last look at herself in the dress. Maybe it was the Dior dress that had caused Eric to smile at her, the production staff to pull her down to the stage floor, Mrs. Amberson to invite her to lunch. Maybe that was all it took in life—some really good dresses.

“Sounds like everything went well this morning,” Lola ventured carefully.

“Except for the part where Marlene wanted to kill me,” Scarlett said, sitting up on her bureau. This probably wasn’t a safe move, as it wobbled under her, but it kept her distracted from what was going on a few doors down.

“I think she’s all right. And Mrs. Amberson bought lunch for the two of you. That was nice. She’s very…”

Lola didn’t know how to finish that. Come to think of it, neither did Scarlett.