We stare out our respective windows. I don’t know why I didn’t tell her about what happened with me and Mike. I meant to. I mean, for her own sake, I should tell her that he intended to—I don’t even know what he intended, to settle some old score, maybe—then what would have happened? But the Over Easy was so weird—I ran the whole way there, and when I walked through the door, there was a girl that at first I thought was Grimshaw in a wig, up in a little fenced-off stage wearing nothing but high heels and a big smile. The place wasn’t what I expected: lots of chairs upholstered in green velvet, little Frisbee-sized tables, a few men sitting alone close to the stage staring intently at the girl, and a couple more men not really looking at anything. I’d been in bus stations with more atmosphere than that. But I didn’t stop to stare. I strode through the place like I knew exactly where I was going. Down the length of the room, according to her drawing in my upward mobility notebook, through a door to the left of the stage, down the stairs, take a right, down four more stairs, walk toward the light and through a beaded curtain. Grimshaw had told me where the dressing rooms were. Sure enough, she was in there, alone, wearing a bathrobe, sitting in front of a mirror, putting the finishing touches on her makeup. When I walked through the door, she jumped up with another big hug for me. Before I could tell her what happened with Mike, she started telling me how motivating it was that I came. She still had the same dreams, she said, and she was feeling settled enough in her new life that she was going to start looking for studios and a teacher. It was her private dream, she said, apart from Mike, so—she stopped talking and got this faraway look in her eyes. “I still have to figure that part out.” She started putting on this tiny gladiator outfit, with straps and rivets, and tiny patches of sheer camo material in all the places you’d expect.

“That’s not what the girl upstairs is wearing,” I said.