“That’s what’s going to get people excited?” asked Gabri. “Your brilliant marketing plan? He’s hardly a household name.”

“But he is,” said Armand. “Everyone in Canada knows him. In North America. He’s famous. Infamous.”

They looked perplexed, genuinely baffled by Armand’s behavior and insistence. But then Myrna sank down. Had the sofa not been there, she might have gone all the way to the floor. Brian took the cup and saucer from her just before it spilled.

“That John Fleming?” Myrna whispered.

Gabri, far from buckling, looked as though he’d been turned to granite as he stared at Antoinette. A Medusa in their midst.

“You didn’t,” he said. “Tell me you didn’t.”

*   *   *

Once home, Ruth turned the key in the lock and leaned against the door, her heart pounding, her breathing rapid and shallow. She held Rosa to her chest and pressed against the thin wood of the door. All that stood between her and Rosa and an alien world that had produced a John Fleming.

Then she drew the curtains and pulled from her string bag the script she’d stolen.

Making herself a cup of tea, Ruth opened the play and started to read.

*   *   *

The party broke up and Armand went into the kitchen. Reine-Marie could hear the tap water and the clinking of dishes and cutlery.

Then the clinking stopped and she heard only the steady stream of water. Going into the kitchen, she stopped at the door. Armand was leaning over the sink, his large hands clutching the counter, as though he was about to be sick.

*   *   *

“Are you still going to rehearsal tomorrow?” Gabri asked, as he and Myrna walked home.

“I guess. I don’t know. I … I…”

“I know, me too.”

Gabri kissed her good night on both cheeks, then went into the bistro to help Olivier with the last of the evening service. Myrna climbed the stairs to her loft apartment above the bookstore and got into her pajamas, then realized she was both tired and wide awake. Looking out the window, she saw a light at Clara’s home.

It was eleven o’clock.

Putting a shawl around her shoulders, and slipping on rubber boots, she clumped around the edge of the village green and knocked on the door. Then she let herself in.

“Clara?”

“In here.”

Myrna found her in her studio, sitting in front of the unfinished canvas. Peter Morrow stared back, ghostly. Half-finished. A demi-man in an unfinished life.

Clara was wearing sweats and held a paintbrush in her mouth, like a female FDR. Her hair stuck out at odd angles from running her hands through it.

“Pizza for dinner?” asked Myrna, picking a mushroom out of Clara’s hair.

“Yes. Reine-Marie invited me over but I wasn’t really in the mood.”