Without Taylor’s act, we worried that the show would be a bit short, so we’re each going to come back onstage to do a mini demonstration—Katherine will pull someone out of the audience to teach them a Hula-Hoop move, Nevaeh will demonstrate some tap dancing steps, and I was going to grab a nondancer from the audience to teach them the basic ballet positions. But Jack volunteered to let me teach him. And then he agreed to be the emcee, much to our surprise—it had started as a joke. I can’t imagine him doing it, honestly—he doesn’t seem like the performing type. But everyone is enthusiastic about the idea, and I’m sure it’ll be fine. I hope.

“Are you still sure?” Nevaeh says. Maybe she’s not sure either.

“He’ll show us tonight, right?” Katherine says. “Have my banana,” she says to him.

He clutches it awkwardly. “Right,” he says, pointing it at us. “It’s going to be great.”

I am sitting in the audience watching Nevaeh and Katherine work on raising the curtain when Jack arrives. We don’t have any decorations up, going all supersecret in between rehearsals. We’ve tested our ideas out, the fairy lights and swaths of fabric, richly embroidered cotton and silk and satins and velvets all sewn together, thrown over the scenery pieces leaning along the walls, paper lanterns and some battery candles scattered around the room. Fabric on the floor like picnic blankets, throw pillows thrown down—voilà, a performance space.

Jack pauses at the entrance and glances around at the very undecorated space.

“This isn’t what it’s going to look like,” Katherine calls over.

“It has a dystopian charm,” he tells her. Does he look nervous?

“Are you nervous?” I ask him.

“No,” he says. And then a slow smile.

He’s really not nervous at all.

“Are you drunk?”

That surprises him a bit, and I grin at him cheekily.

“No,” he says, mock scandalized.

Katherine shows him the musical setup, the remote control, the little Bluetooth microphone we have turned way down, because we just need a little boost to sound authoritative, but not much. She points out the ON and OFF switches very dramatically, because even low screeching when you put the mic down is terrible, and so is drowning out someone’s music.

“Are you ready?” Nevaeh says to him.

“Of course,” he says.

He’s wearing a dark gray suit, fitted perfectly slim. Green socks, though I can’t see the pattern, a very dark green shirt. Button opened at the throat. He sees me staring at him, and he gives me an upward nod with his chin.

“Go time,” Katherine says, throwing her arms in the air. She and Nevaeh plop down next to me. My stomach is made of surly bees, inexplicably nervous for him.

But he doesn’t even pull out index cards, like I expect.