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exactly?”
    She shrugged. “Rule things,” she said, and I didn’t even think she was being vague.
    This exchange between Floss and Nicholas, though, was the first time that I realized that we were now involved in a very different kind of Outlaw production. I thought back to the night of rain and pizza and wondered if Lucia’s comments had made a difference, after all. I glanced at Tonio, trying not to be obvious. He looked happy, maybe happier than I’d ever seen him. Max walked past me just then and, as if doing some mind-read thing said, “It’s good to see him this way. Lucia had a point.” Then he wenttoward Nicholas and threw him an extension cord that was wrapped in so many spirals, it must have been the length of the Amazon.
    It was probably the most relaxed few days of space rehearsal we’d ever had. It’s amazing what that proper home feel can do for you. When we started dress rehearsals, we already felt two weeks ahead.
    Then it was opening night, in only two days. While we hadn’t changed our flyers, word was already leaking out. People kept coming by, people we’d never seen, which was gratifying. While we loved our core of Outlaw regulars, new people meant we were doing something right. These new-to-the-Outlaw-experience folks peered through the windows, their fingers and breath making smoke whorls in the dust on the glass. They pushed open doors, and when we asked what they wanted they looked at Lucia’s feathers and Floss’s clouds and grinned.
    â€œJust checking,” they said, and still smiling, they disappeared like snuffed candle flames.

VI
“The reporter from Nighttimes is here.”
    O pening night. Jitters, jitters. I jumped at the slightest sound. I ignored Max’s divine lasagna, a big pan of which was sitting backstage on a plank supported by three milk crates, a pile of wood, and six old books. I ignored pretty much everything except for the vague, sick flutter in my stomach and the desert in my throat. I drank gallons of water, drank so much I was afraid my costume for act 1 (very beauty queen) wouldn’t fit, and I was still parched.
    Nicholas passed me at one point, stopped, took the pint glass out of my hand with gentle fingers, and said, “Persia. You know it’s going to be fine.”
    I grabbed the glass back like a drowning womangrabbing for her life preserver, gulped more water, and nodded. “Right. I know this. I just thought it’d be good if my throat didn’t close up. Because of dryness. I thought I should be able to speak.”
    There was wonder in his eyes. “I don’t think I’ve seen you like this before. You usually project calm and level. Sort of mellow, even.”
    â€œNicholas,” I said distinctly, “before I was never corseted into a prom dress and expected to be cute.”
    He looked at me, his eyes flowing up and down my dress like a confused river, then he leaned in and kissed me on the nose. “You’re always cute,” he said as he walked away.
    â€œHmm,” said Lucia. She stepped into my view frame and blocked Nicholas’s back. There was a wicked smile on her face. “Nicholas and Persia sitting in a tree…”
    â€œOh, for God’s sake, Lucia. Grow up,” I muttered. I stomped away, but I have to admit that in spite of my nervousness, and the shyness that seemed to be a product of Lucia’s rhyme, I was grinning.
    Costume pieces came together. Props weregathered. Floss, stevedore voice in full swing, ordered everyone around, even Tonio. He behaved exactly as she wanted and never said one word. The clock ticked on. Max disappeared to take tickets. Floss made last-minute cloud adjustments. Lucia put on her chicken feet. Nicholas pulled down on the bill of his baseball cap and looked tough. Tonio cleared his throat and tapped lightly on his backstage mike, then went to check the speakers out front. And I pretended I was