“It’s a lie of omission,” Stevie said, now looking like she was trying hard not to laugh. “ ‘Lie’ is literally right there in its name!”

“Oh,” I said, momentarily stymied, and Stevie laughed, which made me laugh too. “I am sorry, you know. I just… really need this to all work out.”

“I know.” She gave me a smile. “I really hope it does, Kat.”

“It will,” I said, in case The Secret was an actual thing and the universe was listening. And to be on the safe side, I crossed my fingers and toes and leaned over Stevie to knock on the fake wood paneling by the window. “So, what is this internship? Besides being a terrible idea?”

“Hello.” We both looked over to see that the toddler was back, her whole head now above the seat, looking between the two of us. She extended a chubby fist and opened it to reveal a T. rex figurine. “I have a dino.”

This was such an objectively true statement that I smiled. “You sure do,” I said, leaning closer to look.

“Her name is Lulu.”

I saw Stevie’s mouth twitch in a smile. “Lulu the dinosaur,” she said, giving the kid a nod. “Very cool.”

The little girl dropped out of sight again—apparently this was what she’d wanted to tell us—and Stevie turned to me. “Look, nothing’s decided about the internship,” she said. “We’ve got lots of time to figure it out.”

“Right,” I said, nodding. It was true, after all, even if when Stevie said figure it out, what I meant was talk her out of this bananas idea. But she was right—we had lots of time to sort it through.

Twenty minutes later, we’d had three more dinosaur updates, we’d seen one of Erik’s Stories in which his whole search history was accidentally visible in the background and now we had lots of questions about Erik, and Stevie had gone though all potential casting possibilities with me, even when I knew I was repeating myself and just needing reassurance. Just as we were debating whether to message Erik and let him know, the train loudspeaker crackled. “We are approaching Grand Central Station, our final stop. Please collect all your belongings when exiting the train.”

I glanced out the window just in time to see the outside world disappear as we went into the tunnel that would take us into the heart of the city. I sat up straight against the leather seat as everything else began to fade away in importance. Tonight was about Lear, and making sure I would get my part, and Stevie would get her part, and celebrating Stevie’s birthday. And now that I knew she was thinking of doing something as crazy as not auditioning for our final musical, the whole night seemed to take on even more importance. We’d go to this play and it would be amazing and Stevie would realize she had been crazy to think about quitting.