“It would be easier if you just said porn,” Scarlett said.

“No idea what you’re talking about. But knock first if you need me.”

When he had gone off, and the room was quiet at last, Scarlett went over and picked up the black dress and held it up to herself. It was hers now. And she had Eric. And Lola was single.

She went to the window and pulled it open. The windows of the Hopewell were old, made of thin glass, and largely uncared for wood frames that coughed up paint and pigeon feathers when you touched them. But the night air was warm and sweet, and didn’t smell too heavily of garbage from the alley below. There was a white full moon hanging over Naked Lady’s building.

She read the message on her phone again.

You’ve made a country boy very happy, city girl.

She was the city girl. This was her city. And for the first time that summer, maybe ever, Scarlett felt so full of contentment that she would even have been happy to see Naked Lady and wish her well.

CELEBRATION

The cast was fading in the heat the next day. They lounged on one another across the big, empty floor, treating each other like pieces of furniture. Scarlett had always noticed, when dealing with her brother’s friends, that actors were touchy. She now appreciated this fact completely. She smiled benevolently as she watched Ophelia share her bottle of water with Spencer.

She didn’t sit next to Eric. It was too soon for that. She took her place over by the wall, next to where Mrs. Amberson had planted herself during the actors’ warm-ups. She had now taken the low stage.

“Trevor and I have been talking,” she announced to the group. “And we think…”

Unless she was seriously imagining things, and she might have been, Scarlett detected a very slight, very fake British accent creeping into Mrs. Amberson’s voice. It wasn’t constant—it would just twang Scarlett’s ear from time to time, sharp as a flick of the finger. No one else seemed to register it. Or, if they did, they weren’t letting on. They were a bunch of actors, so they could have been acting like they didn’t hear it.

“…that we need to push the dramatic stakes a bit. We need to give this performance a real sense of style, so we’re going to take what you’ve been doing and extend it a bit. Think classic film. Think silent movie. Hamlet and Ophelia, you’re going to be like classic screen legends. Think Bogart and Bacall. Valentino and Garbo. Spencer and Eric, you’ll be our Keystone Cops, our Marx Brothers.”

There was a warm reception to this idea.

“I have one other piece of news,” she said. “Tonight, to celebrate all the work we’ve done, I want to have a little party.”

This was a surprise to Scarlett. She glanced over to Eric, who beamed widely at her.

“I’ll supply all the food and drink,” she went on. “So, we break at five and reconvene at eight.”