“Engagement party at some hotel in the city,” my dad said. “For one of your mother’s colleagues’ daughters.”

“Are you going to go?”

“No,” my dad said, looking at my mom. “Right?”

My mother picked up her phone again and scrolled through it. “I would rather skip it,” she said. “I like Sarah, but I don’t know her well. I’ve never met her daughter… it feels like we would be encroaching.”

“That settles it,” my dad said, looking relieved. He nodded at my duffel. “You’re off to Teri’s?”

“Don’t stay up too late,” my mom said, smoothing my hair back, and I nodded, trying not to grin, aka Rule #4: Don’t look too happy when your parents believe your cover story. “And I’m sorry about the list—your dad told me.”

“At least this is the last time we’ll have to live through this,” my dad said.

“No—there’s still the musical.”

“Oh right,” my dad said. “The musical.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, mostly so I wouldn’t start yelling. Even though my parents had told me, from the time I could remember, that I could grow up to be anything I wanted, I knew they didn’t really take me seriously when I told them that what I wanted to do—all I wanted to do—was act.

And no matter how hard I’d tried, I couldn’t seem to get through to them that Lear wasn’t just any play. It wasn’t just some after-school activity. It might actually determine the course of the rest of my life. I was set on auditioning for colleges with conservatory acting programs, so I could get my BFA and start doing this for real. And what would it say to those schools—to those cream-of-the-crop, best-of-the-best acting programs—if I couldn’t even get the part I wanted in my high school play?

“You guys know this won’t be the last play I’ll ever audition for,” I said, wondering why we had to keep doing this. “You know that’s what I’m going to be doing at college.”

“We’re fine with that,” my mother said, but I noticed she was speaking carefully now, like when I’d heard her on work calls where she weighed every word for its potential repercussions. “At the liberal arts college of your choice, where you’ll get a BA—”