Page 42 of ClickBack

“How’s the show?” I ask.

“The lead knows everybody’s lines except his own. One parent thinks buying six tickets entitled her child to a solo. And the boy playing the father just told me his character wouldn’t wear the shoes we gave him.”

“Would his character like to purchase another pair?”

“His director would like him to stop growing until opening night.”

We laugh. Then she tells me about a girl who had hardly spoken at auditions and stayed after rehearsal yesterday to ask whether they would do another production in the fall. Di had been making a list of things she could no longer afford to fix. She put it away long enough to show the girl where they kept the scripts.

“You’re doing the fall show,” I say.

“I haven’t decided.”

“You showed her the scripts.”

Di looks at me over the phone. “You know too much.”

I miss her suddenly. Not the version I can reach between errands, but my friend in the room with me, taking off her shoes, finishing a story while I look for something for us to eat. We speak regularly enough to believe we are caught up. There are whole pieces of her life I now learn through whatever happens to be behind her on a screen.

“Send me the opening dates,” I say.

“You’d come?”

“I’d like to.”

She starts to smile, then tries to contain it. “Don’t say that if you’re going to put a baseball schedule between us.”

“Send the dates, Di.”

She does it while we are talking. Then she studies me more closely.

“You look good.”

“I’ve showered.”

“That wasn’t it, but I appreciate the update.”

I lean back against the pillows. “I met somebody yesterday.”

Her eyebrows lift. “At the party?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And I got home this morning.”

She makes a sound that brings one of the teenagers into the aisle. “Everything okay, Ms. Di?”

“Wonderful. Find Mr. Lewis.”

I cover my face, laughing. She waits until he has gone, then lowers her voice.

“Tell me something you liked.”

I expect to talk about the way Jarrett looks, or the way he held me. What comes out is, “He asked me about work. Then he asked another question.”

Di watches me.