I pushed aside thoughts of Stevie. I didn’t want to think about her right now, or I’d get filled with rage all over again. Who cared that Stevie had left me alone? I was going to get to Tenth Avenue, and once I was there, if I didn’t see the theater, I’d just ask someone to google it for me. I’d hoped that this night could have been about the two of us—making sure we’d both get good parts, getting to celebrate Stevie’s birthday at Josephine’s. But if she was only thinking about herself, then so was I. I was going to look out for myself, just like the song in City of Angels told me to. I’d go see Mr. Campbell’s play and we’d talk afterward, and when he realized that I’d come all the way into the city to see it, he’d see how committed I was, and there was no way he couldn’t cast me as Cordelia. It was all going to work out.

I was walking faster than usual, picking up the rhythm of everyone around me. Since I was now alone, it was like I could take it all in a little more—the relentless thrum of the construction drills, the smoke rising up from the taped-off construction zones in the middle of the road. The cacophony of honking that soon became just like background noise, the distant wail of sirens a few streets over.

I had expected the next intersection to say Sixth Avenue, but instead, it said Madison. I hesitated for a moment, then crossed the street with everyone else as the light changed from the red hand to the white outlined figure of a guy. I knew that there were streets in Manhattan that weren’t numbered—and then when they were over, the numbers came back again. So I just had to get past these named streets and then I’d be back on track.

I stepped onto the curb just in time to avoid a Sea Food delivery guy on a bike zooming around the corner. Pedestrians and drivers yelled at him as one, then immediately moved on.