Felix came to rehearsal carrying biscuits.
“Is that allowed?”
June took the packet.
“Depends which.”
He showed her.
“Yes.”
“Excellent. I've begun well.”
Frankie met him in the lobby. He looked at her for a moment before smiling.
“Frankie.”
“Yes.”
“I'll get used to it.”
“So will I.”
She hadn't meant to say that.
He looked towards the Ballroom.
“Everyone here?”
“The people who need to be.”
“A useful phrase.”
She took him through.
Vivian stood beside the old photograph. Nina had cleared the dais so the table could be approached without going round a chair. Duncan was sitting near the wide doors. Sol was working at the far side of the room and didn't join the introductions.
Frankie introduced Felix to Duncan properly.
“Duncan Mercer.”
“Felix Rusk.”
They shook hands.
“I've heard about Lorne,” Felix said.
“He was brief.”
“Was he pleasant?”
“Occasionally.”
Felix smiled.
Vivian welcomed him to the house.
“This is better than the reception,” he said.
“For?”
“Talking without somebody thanking a committee.”
Vivian laughed.
Nina gave him the actual schedule for Wednesday.
Not a script. Arrival, where Gideon would be, what the request had to mean, then enough time to remain and let Gideon decide whether he'd received the thing he was buying.
Felix read it.
“Do I say this?”
“Only if you mean it,” Frankie said.
He looked at her.
“Entry to a nonexistent company.”
“Yes.”
“Meaning is going to be crowded.”
Nina took back the page.
“You can ask in your own words. He needs to hear you request entry. Not merely accept an invitation somebody's already given.”
“I understand.”
He looked at the old table.
“Where?”
Nina showed him the approach.
He went onto the dais without hesitation. Then he stopped.
“What will he be sitting on?”
“That chair.”
“Good.”
“Why?”
“No arms. He'll have to decide what to do with his hands.”
Duncan laughed.
Frankie felt the pleasure in Felix's thought. Revenge could be witty, small, precise. It could make the evening look as though he'd taken back the part Gideon was trying to buy.
She could arrange that.
She had promised not to.
Felix turned towards her.
“Don't look so pleased.”
“I wasn't—”
“You were.”
She smiled.
“Yes.”
He came off the dais.
“What happens after?”
“On Wednesday? He pays the fee.”
“And then?”
“We finish the show.”
“On Saturday.”
“Yes.”
“With real people.”
“Yes.”
“Does he know?”
“Their actual names.”
“Not their reasons.”
“Not completely.”
Felix looked at Nina.
“Do you know what they'll do?”
“No.”
“Then we agree on something.”
He handed her the page.
“Where do I eat?”
No one answered immediately.
Frankie looked towards Duncan's table, then away.
“Supper is in both rooms,” Nina said. “After the welcome.”
“Good.”
“You may want—” Frankie began.
Felix waited.
She stopped.
“Food,” she said.
He laughed.
“That is an excellent start.”
June brought the biscuits back on a plate with tea.
Felix sat beside Duncan.
Vivian told him about the photograph. She used the real names, the uncertain date where it was uncertain, the fact that one man had been described as important by somebody who'd written in very bad ink.
“My father wasn't in this one,” she said.
“Did he mind?”
“I imagine.”
“Then don't tell him.”
She smiled.
Frankie sat near Nina.
The room sounded like company.
Nina was checking Ruth's travel. Frankie put a cup beside her and listened to Vivian tell Felix about another man in the photograph.
At the table Felix had begun telling Duncan a story about Gideon trying to seat a guest who wanted to remain standing.
“He said, 'It's a dinner.' She said, 'I'm not hungry.' He was offended on behalf of the furniture.”
Vivian laughed.
Duncan said, “I can imagine.”
Frankie joined the laugh.
For a moment Gideon became the absent person whose difficulty made everyone else's company easier.
She didn't like how pleasant that felt.
Felix looked at her, and the laugh ended naturally enough that nobody else needed to notice.
Nina put away the phone.
“Can we try the welcome entrance?”
Felix stood.
“No rejection?”
“Not today.”
“Good.”
He took his place near the doorway.
Vivian came to the dais. Duncan stood beside the table. Frankie moved to where she'd greet Felix after Gideon's introduction.
Nina watched.
“Wait.”
Frankie stopped.
“Let him cross from the door. I need to see the whole approach.”
Frankie looked at her hand, already lifted towards Felix's arm.
Felix smiled without helping.
Frankie lowered it.
Nina let them begin again.
Felix came into the room, glanced from Frankie to the old table and waited for Vivian to begin.
When they finished, Duncan said he had to go.
Felix went with him as far as the lobby.
Frankie followed to return the empty packet, then stopped when she heard Duncan say something quietly.
She couldn't make out the words.
Felix nodded.
They separated.
She wanted to ask.
She knew what she'd been told.
In the Ballroom Vivian was putting the photograph away. Nina marked one change on the schedule: no guiding touch.
Frankie took the biscuits to the staff corridor.
There were still enough left for people who hadn't attended the rehearsal.