“We could have just sold tickets to this,” Taylor says. “No, please, keep going,” he tells her when she starts to slow down.

She kicks the hoop into the air and catches it with one hand.

“I can hula-hoop,” she says. “But can I hula-hoop and take my clothes off?”

“Yes,” I assure her. She is very dexterous.

“I guess we’re going to find out,” Nevaeh says.

They’re almost done with their costumes, since they’ve been working on them longer, but they’re still tweaking. We’ll probably keep messing with them until opening night. We’ve all been sifting through the dresses we have from Nevvie’s mom, the stuff we’ve dug out of our own wardrobes, the thrift-store things, the things they’ve already ordered online, like wigs and gloves and rolls of Velcro tape. Watching YouTube videos about how to make costumes that are easy to take off—that’s where the Velcro comes in. I whacked the skirt off the wedding dress with a big pair of scissors, feeling almost a little sad about it, but I have a bustier now. And a whole lot of satin skirt. I just have to add some of that fabric as a panel behind the laces, so it fits me a little better. But from the front, it already looks ravishing. I didn’t bring it tonight—it’s not as ready as everyone else’s costume pieces, so I have something else to be worried about, for picture taking.

The door isn’t quite closed, and when Jack appears, my heart stutters, as if I had a crush on him, which I don’t.

“Jack!” Katherine cries. She pulls him into the room.

Katherine might not like him that way, but the way he looks at her—if I wasn’t sure he was smitten with her before, I’d be wondering now. Why wouldn’t he be? She’s beautiful and kind and smart, and didn’t he say they have a lot in common? And they had a lot to talk about. And she’s skinny, and—no. Not going there.

Anyway, I am too smart to have a thing for someone who will never like me back.

When he leans down to kiss Katherine on the cheek, she grabs his hand, animatedly telling him about all the costume stuff we have, how excited we are, how much we appreciate him, and he’s gazing down at her with the sweetest smile, hair mussed, and I sigh.

Or at least try not to have a thing.

Performance smile, activate.

“I expected you all to be naked,” Jack says, setting his bags down, propping a white plastic tube against the wall and observing us.

“Disappointed?” Taylor says. He crosses his arms over his chest. He has such nice shoulders. You can see that even in his warm-ups.

Jack blushes.

“Well, there’s still time,” he tells Taylor.