Page 78 of The Difference Between

I laugh a little.

“Thank you.” I shift in my seat. “Yours too.”

She sits up a little taller.

“And your face will be really pretty when you’re on stage spitting these lines out like Goldie Hawn.”

She looks at the paper, then back to me, smile slipping, just a little. “Maybe.”

“Not maybe,” I insist. “You can’t say maybe. If you want something, you have to choose it.”

She looks at me like she might not follow.

“Before I go into a big meeting, I always imagine how great it will go and choose excellence—that’s what my dad always said to do. I say, Choose excellence, Reese.”

“Does it work?”

“Every time.” That’s a slight exaggeration, especially considering the situation I’m in, but she’s nervous and needs the confidence. “You just choose it.” I snap my fingers “It’s just that easy. You want to try?”

She nods and it propels me forward. “Think of something you want to do, then choose it. I choose to—” I coax her with my hand to fill in the blank.

“Play checkers with Miss Reese.”

She laughs; I frown, gesturing with the script. “About the play.”

“I choose to play checkers with Miss Reese after the play.”

I want to bang my head against the wall. “Let’s try the line again.”

“Do you have nail polish?”

A voice inside my head that’s much freer than me screams like a banshee. “My mom does.”

“Me too.”

I roll my shoulders. “Neat.”

She wiggles in her chair. “I can paint your nails.”

“If you practice this line, we can play checkers and paint nails.”

“How do you like to play?”

I glare at her like my mother and Trish and Sylvia put her up to that question. “I walk to work”—I kick a foot up to showcase my foot—“in pumps.”

Unlike anyone else, she is thoroughly impressed by this. “Wow.”

“Wow is right,” I agree. “And you should see the condition of some of those Chicago sidewalks. And I’ve never fallen on a drain grate.” When I think I’m done: “And some of those heels are four inches.”

I don’t know if she fully grasps how impressive that is, but her expression says she does. “I don’t have any shoes like that.”

I give her a conspiratorial smile. “We’ll have to fix that, won’t we?”

She exudes pure joy.

“At the building I work in,” I say, leaning in a little closer to her, “I have to ride the elevator all the way up to the thirty-second floor every single day.”

Her mouth drops.