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Ice shook her head. "Damn," she said. Everyone eyed everyone else. It was easy to see

how we all felt about it.

"Ms. Fairchild locked the window. The only

way to get back up there is to go through the doors

off-limits to us." Cinnamon warned. "We'd have to

wait until Madame Senetsky left the house." "I heard she's going to a dinner at Gracie

Mansion, the mayor's home, on Thursday," Rose said.

"Mr. Littleton told Mr. Demetrius."

"This is going to end up bad." Ice said. "I can

feel it in my bones.'"

No one disagreed.

But we did all sleep better that night.

Over the next few days, we all concentrated on

our work. Howard learned he might get an

opportunity to fill a two-line role in a film being shot nearby. Edmond Senetsky knew the producer and had given him Howard's head shots. Fortunately for us, that was all Howard wanted to discuss. At every dinner, he lectured about the differences between

stage acting and film acting,

"The reason all those actors in the early movies

look so silly to us is they were still performing the

way they did on stage. It was their only training. So

they made all these grand gestures and exaggerated

facial expressions, not realizing the power of the

camera," he explained.

Cinnamon caught on early, realizing that as

long as he was obsessed with himself he was

disinterested in us. She encouraged his talks and

encouraged us to ask him questions, act impressed and

interested. Only Steven, sitting back with that satirical

smirk on his face, understood what we were doing. As hick would have it. Howard had to go see

the movie producer Thursday night. There was a

reading Edmond asked him to attend. With Madame