Walter watched Victoria head toward the foyer.
“She has seats at the performance,” he told Celia.
“I’ll refund them.”
“Don’t,” Walter said.
Everyone looked at him.
“I would like her to stay, if Emily is comfortable with that.”
Emily stared at him.
“Why?”
“Because the show is about choices,” he answered. “I want her to make one without an audience pretending the answer is already settled.”
Emily considered the woman who had just humiliated her.
“She can stay in a seat,” she said. “She can’t touch me again.”
Celia nodded.
“That condition is not negotiable.”
Mara asked Emily to come backstage with her.
The backstage area turned out to be a narrow passage between the kitchen and a storage room stacked with extra chairs.
The company members were unpacking aprons, microphones, small lamps, and a battered wooden table whose top bore the marks of years of meals.
A young actor named Jae was warming up his voice while a musician tuned a cello behind a stack of clean napkins.
Emily suddenly felt less like a disgraced waitress and more like someone who had wandered into a place where people were actually preparing to do something.
“Walter usually begins by sitting alone,” Mara explained.
“He eats whatever the house offers. Then he watches for an ordinary exchange that might shape the evening.”
“So he was testing us.”
“He was listening. That’s not the same thing.”
“It feels similar when you’re the person being watched.”
Mara considered that.
“You’re right,” she said. “He should tell you that himself.”
Nina entered carrying three trays of sandwiches for the cast.
She set them down and pulled Emily aside.
“I heard Celia reinstated you.”
“She did.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to work tonight.”
“If I leave, Conrad gets exactly what he wanted.”
“If you stay just to prove something to Conrad, he still gets to decide how you spend your evening.”
Emily looked toward the dining room, where servers were clearing tables around Victoria’s unfinished meal.
“I don’t know what I want yet,” she admitted.
Nina handed her a sandwich.
“Then eat first. Decisions are worse when you’re hungry.”
Mara returned with a copy of the original script.
“Walter asked me to offer you something,” she said.
“A job?”
“A place in the performance. You wouldn’t have to memorize anything. You would be invited to speak as yourself.”
Emily stared at the pages.
“I’m a waitress.”
“That’s what the piece needs.”
“People paid a lot of money to be entertained.”
“Then perhaps they should hear something they didn’t expect.”
Emily was still deciding when a voice from the doorway interrupted them.
“Don’t do it,” Luis said.
He looked frightened enough that Nina set down the sandwich she had been eating.
“Conrad has been asking who spoke to Celia,” he said. “He says there will be consequences after tonight.”
