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impressed.
    "Some evening, you know? It's
like--alluring?" Sophia asked when she drew near, smiling.
    Leah wanted to say that she loved that smile,
and the words were on the tip of her tongue. Sophia, though, was
looking at her oddly, so she licked her lips instead and asked,
"How's Macbeth ?"
    "I don't want to talk about Mac ,"
Sophia said.
    Leah nodded. "I hate my co-star."
    "Ward?"
    "You know him?"
    "I've seen him around."
    "Oh." Leah exhaled.
    "So, how's your book?" Sophia asked.
    Leah warmed at Sophia's remembering. "Oh.
Demetrius, that's the prince, fell off his horse and into a pond,
and that's how he met Brenda, who has no idea he's a prince, she
just thinks he's a stupid rider."
    Sophia chuckled. Then silence overtook them.
Leah knew she should go, that it was polite to mingle, that they'd
had their shot at conversation and had been reduced to the romance
novel. But Adam came up to them and, as Sophia laughed at something
he said, her bare arm brushed Leah's, and a charge went through
her, a heat she hadn't felt since the first time she'd worked with
Grace. She swallowed hard, unwilling to give up just yet.
    Adam went on his way to talk to the director
of South Pacific , and Leah turned to Sophia. "Where are you
from? I don't think we ever got that far."
    "Jacksonville," Sophia said. "My mother's
Haitian and never quite got out of Florida. I was in Charlotte,
doing post-graduate work in theater for a year, that's how I met
Elaine."
    "I never knew there was so much going on in
North Carolina."
    "I've been trying to break into the national
tours. Without much success. But I'm making enough to eat. If I
don't think about the student loans," Sophia said, and looked
resigned. She spoke with a seriousness that belied her age, and
Leah could already imagine her onstage, intense, with presence.
    "God, how old are you?" Leah cringed.
"Sorry."
    Sophia bumped shoulders with Leah, which made
Leah nearly faint, and said, "Twenty-five."
    "And still trying to break in?"
    "Trying. You?"
    "It's the same in New York. Instead of tours,
just Broadway. And us, 'Off.'" Leah said. She noticed she was
talking in sentences twice as long as Sophia's, and tried to rein
in her chattiness. If Sophia preferred the stillness she herself
exuded, Leah's chances were hopeless.
    "Adam seems so talented," Sophia said.
    "He really, really is. But it's business. And
hey, aren't you?"
    Sophia pirouetted. "Yes, I am."
    "We get enough work to keep going."
    "So we'll keep going. It's nice to meet
someone from New York. Everyone here is leading a different life
than what I want."
    Ward was across the room, schmoozing the
producers, and Leah thought about his dreams. She understood,
finally, homesickness. "To goals, then," she said. She offered up
her glass.
    Sophia clinked it with hers. "And to not
having anything to fall back on."
    "Well, except family."
    "Except family." Sophia took a sip of her
drink.
    "I guess nothing makes me want to succeed
more than that," Leah said. She made a face, and finished off her
drink, and Sophia laughed and leaned into her arm.
    They stood together, chatting about far-off
places, as people came up to them to introduce themselves.
    Later, walking home with Adam, Leah realized
that Macbeth opened in two days, and Poe tech
rehearsals started tomorrow, and there would be no way she'd have
time with Sophia again. The words to "Some Enchanted Evening"
stayed stuck in her head until she fell asleep.
     
    * * *
     
    "You're brooding," Adam said at
breakfast.
    "I'm hung over."
    "You had one glass of fruit punch last
night."
    "Fine. I have a crush on someone," Leah said.
She wanted to talk about it, to make herself feel less crazy. This
wasn't why she had come to North Carolina. Some people wrote it all
out--like Adam, she supposed--some people brooded. She talked. To
anyone who would listen, and Adam had been stupid enough to make
breakfast.
    "On who?"
    Leah glared at him. He folded his arms. She
stabbed her fork into the eggs. The