“I did a few off-off-Broadway productions. A couple commercials,” Tonya said.

Imani’s dark eyelashes fluttered. “Anything I’d know?”

Her voice was friendly, but Tonya detected notes of strain. “One of the commercials was to advertise a gym. I was running on a treadmill. In another, I’m stressing about a college loan. I think my line was, ‘How am I ever going to pay for this?’”

Tonya delivered the question using the same ingenue inflections she’d employed during the actual shoot. The reenactment made Imani flinch. Was she surprised how quickly her tenant could get into character? Tonya wondered. Or had the query simply hit a nerve? No doubt Imani was wondering the exact thing: How would a waitress ever pay them for anything?

“Did you ever audition for films?” Imani asked. “Or was it mostly theater?”

Philip’s wife asked as though she was making casual conversation, but Tonya knew not to trust the tone. Imani wasn’t needling. She was digging.

“Mostly theater,” Tonya responded. “I auditioned for Nate Walker once or twice. I didn’t know him the way you and Philip did, so I didn’t think it worth mentioning. Philip said that you’d found the recommendation that he wrote for Layla, and the scholarship info.”

Imani sat back in her chair. For a moment, she reminded Tonya of a kid who’d been caught stealing sweets. “He seemed very impressed by both you and Layla,” Imani quipped.

Tonya felt her own polite smile press into a pout. “It’s hard not to be impressed by Layla.”

“She seems like a bright young lady.”

Tonya didn’t like the addition of “seems,” as if Imani were simply waiting for the curtain to fall, revealing the intellectual dullard she probably expected a woman without a sophisticated career would raise. People like Imani and Philip—the progeny of middle-class if not wealthy parents—didn’t understand what it was like to chase a dream living check to check. They didn’t get that poor people didn’t abandon bad jobs for the possibility of better ones, that they picked up double shifts in dead-end careers rather than took time off for interviews or extra classes or even auditions. Tonya’s lack of success wasn’t due to some deficiency of brains or talent. She’d suffered a string of bad luck and was still paying for a few poor choices. For people without generational money, a few poor choices were enough to become permanently stuck.

“She is a wonderful kid,” Tonya corrected.

“Nate definitely thought so. She made quite an impression.”