In her room Nora took off the shoes. Her left heel had a red mark, not a blister. She pressed it once with her thumb, then left it alone.
She had put the phone faceup on the table. It kept waking. There were messages she would have liked to be the only messages. There were messages which made her want to type with both thumbs until her hands hurt. She turned it over before reading enough of either kind to make a version of the evening she couldn't change.
Cal knocked while Mae was still onstage.
“May I?”
Nora let him in. He looked at the shoes and then at her face, choosing which ordinary question not to ask.
“Daryl's been watching.”
“Okay.”
“He says he understands you don't want to repeat tonight. He still wants what he booked. The Mae set. He wants me to make sure you know he hasn't canceled it.”
Nora looked at the shoes. They were the same shoes she'd been wearing when she signed the printout for the Monday couple. They had done nothing wrong but she didn't want to put them back on yet.
“I'm not going to do that set next Friday.”
Cal nodded. “I'll tell him.”
“Tell him I can do the rest of my act.”
“He doesn't think he sold the rest.”
“Then tell him both things.”
Cal took out his phone. Nora sat on the edge of the chair and watched him type without trying to read the words over his hand. It took longer than a forwarded message would have, which she appreciated. He had actually told another person what she'd said.
“I don't need you to get me another room,” she said.
He looked up. “I wasn't doing that.”
“I know.”
“You could stop answering things I haven't said.”
Nora smiled a little. He put the phone on the table while they waited. Mae's voice came faintly through the wall, then a sound of laughter, a whole room existing somewhere Nora couldn't see.
“I'm sorry about the slot,” Cal said.
“It isn't gone yet.”
“He's typing.”
He picked up the phone. Daryl had replied. The audience had bought the roast, he said, and he wasn't selling them a different show under that advertisement. He'd remove Nora from the bill. Cal asked if she wanted the message sent on. She said yes.
The little sound arrived on her own phone. Nine hundred dollars became a date which was open again. She could count what that would have covered without pretending it had ever been in the account.
“Your current fees aren't affected,” Cal said. “You'll get the finish paperwork on the writing Monday, and the appearance is as agreed.”
“Okay.”
He stood. There was nothing for him to fix in the room. Nora was relieved and a little angry with him for understanding that.
“Good night, Nora.”
“Good night.”
After he went, she put on the shoes. She washed her hands, dried them with a paper towel and took her notebook from the bag. The set was still there in the handwriting of the woman who'd gone onstage expecting to use it. Nora didn't cross out the parts she hadn't done. They were not wrong simply because something else had happened.
She heard the end of Mae's show from the corridor. Applause, voices, the music beginning. She stayed out of the route while people moved. There was no reason to go and stand in the place where Mae would have to find her before she could leave the light.
Mae came down the corridor some minutes later with a bottle of water held against her throat. Her face was flushed, her hair falling where the woman with the comb hadn't wanted it. She saw Nora and stopped.
For a moment they both looked like people searching for their keys.
“You didn't come out,” Nora said.
“You didn't ask.”
“I know.”
Mae lowered the bottle. Her hand had left a warm, cloudy patch on it.
“I didn't know if you were going to,” she said.
“Neither did I.”
Somebody passed behind Mae and congratulated her. She thanked them, turning halfway, then turned back to Nora. She could still do that easily. Nora had once thought ease meant the feeling couldn't be real.
“How was it?” she asked.
Mae looked toward the stage. “Some of it.”
Nora laughed. It hurt a little. Mae's mouth moved, almost a smile.
“The chair,” Nora said.
“I lost it the first time.”
“You found it.”
“Eventually.”
They stood in the corridor while people finished the show around them. Nobody came to put their arms around each other for a photograph. The bottles had to be collected, cases opened, things put back into places which would make sense at the next event.
“I didn't want them thinking that about you,” Nora said.
Mae looked at her.
“By the end,” Nora added.
“I heard.”
Nora nodded.
“I'm still angry,” Mae said.
“Yes.”
“I don't want you saying what you said tonight and thinking it means I have to be ready.”
“I don't.”
Mae held the water in both hands. She looked very tired now, without the room to carry the weight forward.
“I don't know what we do next,” she said.
“I don't either.”
It was a smaller conversation than the one Nora could have written for them. She couldn't find a way to improve it without giving them something neither had promised.
“Good night,” she said.
Mae nodded. She went to her room and Nora went to hers. There were things to collect in both.