“It’s a very interesting play,” said Sophie. “And Rhys is really nice and awesomely creative, so it’ll be an amazing experience. And you needn’t worry, Mom, they’re both very happily married skateboards, although not to each other, they’re more sort of colleagues.”

“Colleagues,” repeated Emma, fascinated. Then, “Did you say it’s in Coventry? What would you do if the St. Luke’s people wanted you?”

“St. Luke’s?” Sophie sighed, and shook her head. “You don’t understand, Emma. Television is all very well for getting my name and my face out there, but it isn’t really anything much like acting, which is what I really do.”

“They never called,” said Lulu.

“And in many ways it’s a relief,” said Sophie. “Just imagine if I’d been committed to do something with St. Luke’s right now. I’d never have been able to take up this opportunity, which would be tragic, really, because it’ll never come along again.”

“They’re paying her less than the coffee shop,” said Lulu. “And she and Jamie are sleeping on Rhys’s floor.”

“Jamie’s sleeping on Rhys’s floor,” Sophie corrected her. “I’m sleeping on his girlfriend’s futon, they’re supposed to be very good for the posture. It’s only for three weeks, but it should be an awesome experience.”

“But, just out of curiosity,” said Emma. “Just supposing, only hypothetically of course, that all of a sudden you got a call from St. Luke’s offering you more work. You would take it, wouldn’t you?”

“Well, of course I’d take it,” said Sophie. “I’m not completely mad, whatever you and Lulu seem to think. And that’s the good thing about going to Coventry, I can always come back for a day. It’s not like I’m going to Khartoum, or Kathmandu, or the Sahara Desert. Or North Dakota,” she added, reaching across Emma for the scrambled eggs.

“You’d hate America,” said Rosie at work the next day. “It’s full of Americans. They’re always smiling, they say things like tom-ay-toes and bay-sil, and they keep ordering you to have a nice day.”

“Actually, my mother’s American,” said Emma.

“Oh, God, yes,” said Rosie. “Sorry. I was only joking.”

She had been: Rosie had not a malicious bone in her body. But then, thought Emma, there were jokes and there were jokes. There were jokes like Sophie’s about seducing married men, which had no connection whatsoever to reality and about which Fee had so inexplicably jumped down her throat; and then there were jokes that were sidelong ways of expressing a genuine opinion. Rosie did not, on the whole, like Americans. Just as Emma did not, in any sense, want to go to North Dakota.

“It might be an adventure,” she said now. “I’ve only ever lived in London, after all. This might be a chance to experience living somewhere else.”

“If you want an adventure,” said Rosie, “you should do something exotic. Go trekking in the Andes or take the Silk Road through China. Don’t go to bloody North Dakota.”

“Well, the problem with that,” said Emma, “is that Matthew hasn’t been asked to go to work in the Andes or in China. He’s been asked to go to work in North Dakota.”