Page 87 of ClickBack

A girl in costume appears at the door, sees Di with us, and starts to retreat. Di catches her eye.

“What’s wrong?”

“My earring broke.”

Di checks the girl’s hand, then removes her own earrings. “Wear these. Bring them back when we’re done.”

The girl takes them carefully. Di sends her to find a mirror, then turns back to us.

“I have to go.”

“Go,” I tell her. “We have tickets.”

She squeezes my hand once more and disappears through the door. I watch it close, thinking of all the rehearsal calls she ended by saying it was just something to do.

Our seats are close enough to see the paint on the set and far enough back that Trina cannot reasonably believe the landlord is delivering his lines to her. That doesn’t stop her. When he enters, she adjusts in her seat. Rae puts a hand on her knee.

“Behave.”

“I’m seated.”

The sticking door earns an unexpected laugh in the second act when the girl wearing Di’s earrings gives it a hard shove and mutters that the rent ought to include a working entrance. For a second, I don’t know whether it is in the script. Then I see Di at the back, her hand over her mouth.

The girl keeps going. So does the play.

At the curtain call, I stand with everybody else. Di stays by the rear doors until one of the actors points her out. She shakes her head at him, which he ignores. When she finally comes forward, she is still carrying the tape.

We wait while people thank her, ask about the next production, and return borrowed things. She gets her earrings back from a girl who can hardly stop talking now that she has finished. Di listens to every word. I take a photograph of them together and keep it to show her later.

Dinner is late enough that Rae orders for the table while Di finishes one last call outside. Trina has three notes on the landlord’s performance, none of which he has requested.

“You called that pause sensual,” Rae says.

“It was the only one that worked.”

“It was about a rent increase.”

“And he made me consider paying it.”

Di returns in time to hear that and reaches for the bread. “He’s married.”

Trina sets down her menu. “You could have told me before I developed an interest in the arts.”

Rae laughs, and I hear the girl she used to be before every decision had to account for somebody else. She catches me looking and lifts her eyebrows.

“What?”

“Nothing. Pass the butter.”

Later, she moves the candle away from Trina’s sleeve without interrupting their argument about dessert. Trina slides the last forkful of cake onto Rae’s plate. Neither acknowledges it.

Di leans toward me. “Remember when you said we were too old to split a dessert?”

“We were twenty-three. I was wrong about several things.”

“You ordered your own and ate half of mine.”

I push my plate toward her. “There. Interest included.”