Denise let Willa stand in the wing until the next person needed to pass. Then she touched her elbow and moved her six inches toward the wall.
No one had to stop the show.
Onstage, Jo took the second microphone from its stand and put it on the stool.
“Too many of these. You give a family two microphones and they start thinking they're separate acts.”
The laugh was immediate. Willa looked at her mother's face from the side. She could see the work in it now, the thought arriving, being judged, being offered.
“I had a different finish,” Jo said. “I've had a different finish planned for most of my life. At twenty-five I thought I'd own a house in the country with two dogs. Never thought about walking them. That's how you know it was a young woman's dream. Two dogs, no weather.”
The room eased toward her. Jo let it.
“At thirty I thought I'd have children. Then I did. I've revised some positions.”
A good laugh. She didn't look toward the wing.
“At forty I thought I'd be established. Established is a wonderful word. You think it means safe. It means you've been there long enough for people to complain about the furniture.”
Willa put a hand against the wall, not to steady herself so much as to have a thing in the dark that stayed where it was.
Her mother moved away from the stool.
“I kept thinking I'd get to the part where I knew what I was doing. It turns out you just get better shoes.”
She looked down at the black shoes, the soft lining hidden inside.
“These are new. You can't tell, can you? Sensible shoes have no public ambition.”
People laughed. Willa could see the man in the front row bend to look at his wife's feet. The wife gave him a small shove, smiling. Their evening would contain that movement, and this set, and perhaps an argument on the way home that had nothing to do with the Harkers.
Jo talked about Frank's silver trousers. The way he had dressed to take her somewhere, as if he too expected to be introduced.
“He thought they were stylish. I thought they were visible from space. We agreed not to discuss it because one of us had to drive.”
Willa smiled. She knew where the line was going now. Jo had found a different route to the man they both remembered.
“He'd stand in the back with my coat. Forty years of a man holding a woman's coat. People thought he was waiting for somebody. He was. A woman who always said she was nearly done.”
The room became quiet.
“He believed me, too. That was love. Or very poor time management.”
The laugh came softly, then grew. Jo let it take the weight without making it erase what she'd said.
Willa looked down at the floor. Her mother's voice had reached the place in the house where Frank's chair stood with a lamp on it. She could hear him and still want to be angry with Jo. There was no clean choice between those things.
“I am nearly done,” Jo said. “With touring. Not with all the rest. Don't go selling my things. My daughters have had their eye on a table for years. It's the only thing they agree on.”
She paused.
“I'll go home. I'll put a cup down in the same place two days running. A shocking experience. I may call someone to complain.”
The room laughed again. Jo waited with one hand resting on the microphone stand.
“Thank you for coming out,” Jo said. “For years, some of you. In weather. With babysitters and parking and the person you promised you wouldn't be late home to. I've had a very good time.”
She looked up at the balcony.
“I hope you've had enough of one to make the journey worth it.”
Somebody called, “We love you, Jo.”
“I should think so,” she said. “Look what I've worn.”
A great warm laugh. She touched the beaded front of the dress, opened one hand toward them, and bowed.
Willa listened to the applause. It kept going. Her mother took it once, then again, pleased and a little embarrassed by the length, though she knew what to do with it. People stood in the front rows, then farther back where Willa could no longer see their faces.
Denise said something into her headset. A man went past carrying a towel. Willa moved farther out of the way.
Mae found her by the dressing-room passage. She had taken her headset off and held it in one hand.
“Are you all right?”
Willa nodded.
“Words,” Mae said, not unkindly.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
For a moment they stood listening to the applause as if waiting for it to tell them what to say.
“I can't make that series,” Mae said at last.
Willa looked at her.
“Not the thing we've been building.”
“I know.”
“I don't think you do yet.”
Willa felt a small flare of anger, useful because it was easier than the rest.
“You can cut it.”
“I can cut a recording. I can't make the two of you want the same job.”
Willa looked down the passage. Jo's dressing-room door was open. Someone had put the plant just inside, leaf reaching toward the mirror.
“I wanted it.”
“I know you did.”
“I'm not taking the series forward with you,” she said. “Not as the partnership we discussed.”
Willa nodded. She wanted to ask whether there was another version. Something darker, a show about what had happened, a way to turn even the refusal into work. The question formed so quickly she had to press her lips together before it came out.
Mae watched her.
“The pilot's good,” she said.
“Yes.”
“That doesn't stop being true.”
“No.”
“But it doesn't give me the next six.”
Willa stood with her bag strap folded in one hand. Her mother had sewn through the thick cloth very neatly. The new thread was darker than the old.
“What about the special?” she asked.
“I don't know. We haven't looked at tonight.”
“Will you—”
“I'll tell you what we're doing when there's something to tell.”
Willa nodded.
“Your opener fee's the same,” Mae said. “The pilot's completed work. I'm not taking that away from you.”
“I wasn't asking.”
“I know. I'm telling you.”
Willa looked up. Mae rubbed a finger across the red place the headset had left above her ear.
“I thought you were very good at this,” Mae said.
“I am.”
The answer came out before she could soften it. Mae nodded.
“Yes. You are.”
From the theater came a last burst of applause, then the sound of people beginning to leave. The show had ended. Doors were opening. Coats were being found. Her mother's night continued beyond the set.
“I need to go,” Mae said. “To Jo.”
“Of course.”
She put her headset back on and went past. Willa didn't call her back.
In her dressing room she sat on the chair for a few minutes. The tissues were still unopened. She hadn't needed the second bottle of water. Her notes lay on the table, the opener in a clean pile, the duet cards inside the chocolate box.
She took out the last card. The planned answer was there in her own handwriting. Beth's color-coded it for us. Under it, the last line: You keep getting renewed.
She put the card back and closed the box.
In the passage somebody laughed, loudly. Jo's laugh followed, lower. Willa sat with her hand on the box until the voices moved away.
Willa changed her shirt. The stage one was damp at the back. She folded it loosely so it wouldn't crease around the sweat. In the mirror she looked like herself, a little older than she'd looked when the bulbs first came on.
She packed the notebook and the cards. Left the water for whoever wanted it.
“Willa.”
Jo stood in her own doorway, one hand at the back of her neck.
“Can you get this?”
Willa went in and put her bag on the chair beside the table. The lamp was on, yellow against the mirror bulbs. She stood behind her mother and found the necklace clasp between two fingernails.
“Don't pull.”
“I'm not.”
Her fingers slipped. Jo lowered her chin, waiting. On the table, a glass of wine stood among the flowers, untouched.
The clasp opened. The cool chain ran into Willa's hand. Jo put the little case beneath it, and Willa lowered the necklace into the lining.
“You were wonderful,” she said.
Her mother looked at her in the mirror.
“I had to finish.”
Willa closed the case. The lid clicked too loudly.
“The middle held,” she said.
Jo took a tissue and wiped beneath one eye. A dark streak came away on it.
“Yes.”
Willa waited for the next thing they could do to the line. She could almost hear her mother say it. Jo put the tissue down.
“You looked happy last night.”
“I was.”
Her mother's eyes met hers again, briefly. Then she reached for the wine and put it farther from the dress.
Willa lifted the nearest bouquet. The wrapping crackled between them.
“I can take these.”
“Leave them.”
She set it back. One stem had caught in her bag strap; she freed it carefully.
“I've got a car coming,” Jo said.
“Okay.”
Her mother looked at the dress in the mirror, then down at the beaded front.
“I'm going to change.”
Willa picked up her bag.
“Good night, Mom.”
“Good night.”
She went out. At her own door she took down the paper with her printed name and folded it into the outside pocket of her bag.
Denise was by the stage door.
“Leaving?”
“Yes.”
“Got everything?”
Willa checked the bag without opening it.
“Yes.”
Denise held the door. Cold air came in, carrying the smell of rain that hadn't begun yet.
“Good night, Willa.”
“Good night.”
She stepped outside and let the door close behind her.
In the street people were still coming around from the front. A couple passed her arguing gently about which train. One of them looked at Willa, recognized something, and turned back for another glance.
Willa kept walking.
At the bus stop she stood under the shelter with three other people. Nobody asked her what had happened. A man held a large bunch of flowers wrapped in clear plastic, almost as large as the ones she'd left behind.
When the bus came, he had to lift them sideways to get through the door.
Willa moved her bag so he could sit.