Flora hadn’t paid any attention to Bill Parker except when they had to rehearse scenes together, and she’d give the politest of smiles and then disappear into her character. There were around thirty people in the class, and even though there were maybe two other girls Bill thought he could be crazy about (or three, okay, maybe three, but Rita didn’t always show up), he was always angling to be chosen for a scene with Flora.

In the years following the Depression, many in the New York City theater community had headed out west, looking for opportunity and dough in Hollywood, but some eager hopefuls still went to New York to try to make it big on the stage. Some of the Broadway theaters had dropped admission prices all the way down to a quarter to try to keep drawing crowds, and repertory productions were sprouting up all over the Theater District to try to keep actors and directors working. Bill and Flora faced each other, or at least watched each other, two mornings a week in class, and over time (twenty-four classes to be exact, Bill counted) they became friends.

Flora was, like him, from a small town, and had arrived in the city around the same time. “Are you also from Nebraska?” Bill had asked her. “Nebraska” was where Madame Ososki insisted every small-town student of hers was from. Her very first small-town student had been from Nebraska, possibly from Broken Bow, or maybe Wahoo or Ogallala, but Madame Ososki was far too busy and creative to trouble herself with the minute details, so he was simply “from Nebraska.” In the same way that students from Los Angeles or San Francisco were simply “from California.” But Nebraska held a special place in Madame Ososki’s heart because of that student, and she also loved to hear herself say, “Nebraska!” with the romantic rolling of the r, and the clean break of the ska! So, at any given time, Madame Ososki’s acting class was made up of students from New York, Chicago, California, or Nebraska, and no one dared argue with her about it.

Both Bill and Flora had had some hits and misses finding success on the stage in the year and a half they’d been there. Bill went to see Flora when she played the Cheshire cat in a small, out-of-the-way production of Alice in Wonderland, and she’d be in the audience watching Bill in the few dwindling vaudeville productions he snagged. He was a natural, with his easy, lanky physique and malleable face, and had been praised by some for his physical comedy. Not Madame Ososki. She loathed vaudeville. “Words, Mr. Parker!” she’d cry, raising a forearm in the air. “It’s the words that make a performance!” Bill disagreed with her, but stayed in the class anyway because Flora was there.

She let him treat her to meals at the Actor’s Dinner Club, because they were free. The club offered free meals to those who couldn’t afford to pay, and most of the time Bill couldn’t. It wasn’t high society, but the food was hot, and since it was free Flora didn’t feel obligated to him. They’d also share lunches together and walks through Central Park, and Bill eventually admitted to Flora he wasn’t too sure he’d done the right thing in moving to New York.