“Why is she coming?” Mrs. Amberson asked quietly.

“To get herself ready for a final audition on Sunday.”

“Final audition for what?”

“A new musical. She’s up for the lead,” Billy said. “I’m just getting her ready. I wouldn’t normally, but the producer is a friend. It’s purely professional. I plan on not helping her very much.”

“You should do what you have to,” Mrs. Amberson said.

“I’ll do the minimum. Was I right to tell you?”

She did not reply.

The full cast was coming out now, and everyone stopped to thank or hug Billy. Scarlett stayed in her spot, trying to figure out what she had just seen. It was a moment before Mrs. Amberson noticed her standing there.

“Is everything okay?” Scarlett asked.

Mrs. Amberson fumbled around inside of her bag for her cigarette case.

“Change of plan,” she said. “I was supposed to see some potential rehearsal sites tonight. I’ll call and reschedule. Just tell the others—Trevor and Eric. They’re still inside. They were going to come with me.”

With that, she left. Scarlett went inside to tell Eric and Trevor the news. They were lingering with Billy a few more moments as he locked up the room. When Scarlett told them the message, Trevor left, but Eric walked with her.

“Nothing to do now,” he said. “I canceled my plans for tonight because of this. Are you doing anything?”

Was this really happening? Was Eric actually asking her out? And could she really not go because she was taking Marlene to yet another of her many social commitments, because Lola was in Boston lying her face off about being at a skin care seminar?

Yes, Scarlett, she said to herself. That really is what’s happening. Which meant that there was only one option.

“Do you want to…come?” she asked. “It’s free food. And you can be the first of your friends to have a Hard Rock T-shirt! They’re really rare.”

To her enduring amazement, he said yes.

There are a few places you don’t go to if you live in New York. Everyone who visits you will expect that you have gone to them—that you in fact go to them all the time, spend every possible free second at them. They include: the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, F.A.O. Schwartz, the skating rink at Rockefeller Plaza, Times Square (unless you have to change subways there, but then you never go above ground), and any theme restaurant. It was a source of constant bafflement to Scarlett as to why the Powerkids always seemed to end up at these places. It wasn’t like cancer turned you into a tourist.

Eric, as an outsider, hadn’t gotten any of these memos. He was delighted to be at the Hard Rock. His enthusiasm made Scarlett view it in a more charitable light, as they negotiated their way through the huge gift shop with its 20,000 varieties of T-shirts.

“Do you come here a lot?” he asked.

If any of her friends had asked her that, she could have smacked them with impunity…but there would be no smacking of Eric.