“What are you going to tell Mom and Dad?” she asked.

“That I’m going to Boston to do a weekend intensive on skin care for one of the product lines. You don’t have to worry about a cover story. You don’t have to lie.”

“Fine,” Scarlett said. “But just this time.”

Scarlett tried to sleep, but Lola was still sitting there, palpably fretting and talking to Chip on the phone. She went down the hall to Spencer’s room to sleep on his bed, but he returned soon after.

“You’re going to see someone named Billy Whitehouse,” she mumbled. “Can you call everyone and tell them?”

“Don’t mess with my head,” he said, dropping his bag on the floor. “I’m still nervous after last night.”

“I’m not messing with you,” she said. “You’re going to see some guy named Billy Whitehouse.”

“The Billy Whitehouse?”

“Well, it was a Billy Whitehouse,” she said. “He was in a theater on Broadway.”

Spencer got very agitated and started pacing in the three empty feet of floor space.

“You’re not messing with me?” he asked seriously.

“Why would I make this up? Do you know him?”

“Billy Whitehouse, founder of the Whitehouse Method?” he said. “The guy who almost single-handedly changed the way live theater was performed in America? Former director of The Simply Shakespeare Company, pretty much the most famous Shakespeare group of the eighties? Former Juilliard professor? The person the best celebrity actors go to for guidance when they can’t nail a part? This guy?”

He whipped a book from one of his lopsided bookshelves called You Are the Voice and flipped to the back, revealing a picture of the same man she had met a few hours before. He was looking coolly at an actor writhing on the floor.

“So…that’s a yes?” Scarlett said.

Billy’s studio was in a large and nondescript building, the kind that grow all over the middle of the city, like dandelions, and can be used for seemingly any purpose. They passed a nonresponsive guard on their way to the elevator, which creaked and groaned its way up to the eleventh floor. The hall they emerged on was fairly bleak, with a series of blue industrial-strength doors. Mrs. Amberson strode along to the very end of the hall with great purpose. Billy opened it in greeting before she could even knock.

“You have a distinctive walk,” he said. “Hello, O’Hara! Come inside.”

The room was massive, with a hardwood floor and a mirrored wall. There was a piano in the corner, blanketed by a quilted cover. Over by the mirrors were dozens of thick blue tumble mats, along with exercise balls, hoops, straps, beach balls, and jump ropes.

“Let’s get rid of this,” Billy said, switching off the overhead light. “Nothing kills the soul quite like fluorescent light.”

He walked around and switched on a number of standing lamps around the room, giving it a cozy glow.

All the actors looked as dazed as Spencer as they arrived. Billy was known to them all. They obeyed his every word, though he was extremely soft-spoken. He had everyone sit on the floor in a tight circle.