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"Really? Enlighten us, oh great Zuni of the theater,' Cinnamon said.

"Madame Senetslor simply needs to separate her private life from her public one. We'll all have that problem some day. At least. I expect to," he concluded.

"He's probably right," Rose said.

"Of course I'm right. I'm sure all of you have things you'd rather the rest of us didn't know,"

Fie smiled at Ice, who gazed back at him with such a cold, hard expression, she wiped the smug smile off his face and he sat back.

"I wonder how long we'll be kept waiting," he muttered.

"Waiting is something with which you had better make acquaintance," we heard, and all turned to the doorway to see Madame Senetsky enter.

If any of us have ever wondered what it would be like to be in the presence of royalty, we surely were finding out at this moment. I thought. With a regal air that seemed to precede her and wash over us to make commoners of us all. Madame Senetsky appeared. Ms. Fairchild remained a few feet behind, as if it was forbidden to stand too close to her imperial self.

In her left hand Madame Senetsky held a jeweled cane with a meerschaum handle. She wore a dark suit with an ankle-len

gth hem, the jacket open to reveal her pearl silk blouse and prominent bosom. There were strings of pearls around her neck and her blue-gray hair was pinned tightly in a chignon and fastened with jeweled combs. She wore a large faced antique watch on a gold band on her left wrist and on her right were coils of gold bracelets. Almost all of her fingers had rings, ranging from simple gold bands to large rubies and diamonds.

The news clippings I had barely scanned in the hallway had told me she had to be at least in her midsixties, yet she had the complexion of a woman far younger. Her skin had almost a silvery tint, with only tiny wrinkles around her eyes but a remarkably smooth forehead. Her cheeks were a bit sunken, which served to emphasize her high cheekbones and the sharpness in her perfectly straight nose.

Elegance and sophistication were defined by such a woman. I thought. She truly had perfect bone structure, with a very strong, firm mouth, the lips of which were just barely tinted a light crimson. When she drew closer. I saw that her surprisingly youthful appearance owed a great deal to the smart use of makeup. Even so, her blue eyes were girlishly bright and intelligent. Gathering information about us in seconds. In the face of her perfect posture and slow, confident air, we could barely shift our eyes an inch away from her. This was a woman who not only demanded attention, but easily commanded it as well.

She considered each of us, lingering on our faces as if she wanted to be absolutely sure that no imposter had come into this school under false pretenses.

"Perhaps in the theater more than anywhere else. Mr. Rockwell, patience is a virtue."

Howard started to respond, but she pulled her head back as if she held invisible reins on his lips, and he kept them firmly sewn shut.

"I am here not only to welcome you today," she began. She didn't have an English accent as such, but her pronunciation was so careful, so precise, I couldn't help but be impressed and self-conscious about my own. But to welcome you to hard work, dedication, and sacrifice. There is no pretending that isn't required. Here at the Senetsky school, the only illusions we permit are the illusions we create on the stage."

She paused, took a step closer, and once again perused each and even, one of our faces as if she was looking for some sign of weakness and defeat already. Ice looked more annoyed and angry than frightened. Cinnamon stared up at her with two unmoving and unflinching eyes, revealing little emotion. Rose looked calm, a soft smile on her lips. Steven shifted his eves but looked quite unimpressed, even a bit bored and Howard nodded as if he was hearing exactly what he had expected to hear.

Was I the only one whose heart was pounding? I gazed back at her, holding my breath.

"You have all indicated a desire to succeed in the most difficult of vocations. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, almost any tradesman or tradeswoman can hide, bury, or find some excuse for failure, but when you people fail, you all fail right in front of the public. There is no question that you've failed, no

equivocating, and very few other people with whom to share your blame. A series of bad notes," she said, directing herself toward me and then toward Steven and Ice. "is as obvious as beautiful notes. A terrible stage performance, a lack of concentration, sticks out under the lights," she added, looking at Howard and Cinnamon and Rose.

"In short, you will all be judged severely. You will all be competing with people as talented or more talented, even those less talented who have

compensated with more effort and dedication, and your reputation will be only as good as your last performance. In the arts, it is most difficult to coast on your past successes and be tolerated long.

"I have often been asked what is the secret of success in the arts. Let me tell you all now and forever. It is easily a proportion of sixty percent talent to at least forty percent perseverance and attitude.

"You are all here because you have proven you possess the raw talent. I will have your talents developed and nurtured by the finest teachers in New York City, indeed in all the entertainment world, but I. myself, will be in charge of developing the proper attitudes in you all.

"To do this. I will literally, from this day forward, take charge of your life. You will dress, eat, walk, talk as I instruct, You will learn how to hold yourself properly, how to converse properly, how to present yourself properly, for appearance is an essential ingredient in our lives, far more than it is in the lives of ordinary people. Therefore. I will be in judgment of you constantly, even when you are merely crossing from one room to another, spooning soup or sipping tea, talking to each other, or sitting and reading a book.

"We are, in short, always performing, always on one stage or another.

"You will be unhappy a great deal of the time, as anyone under a microscope of criticism would be, but if you have the grit and determination, if you are sufficiently ambitious, you will survive and grow into the successful performer a Senetsky graduate becomes."

She pulled her shoulders back even more and gazed down at us all, searching for some sign of defiance. I thought. No one so much as breathed hard.

"Why all this effort? Why this opportunity? I will give you my philosophy, simple and sweet. Along with all the fame, the accolades, the money, and prestige comes an enormous amount of responsibility. We are the truly chosen few, given talents for a purpose.

"We fill the lives of ordinary people, brighten their dreary world with meaningful distraction. We show them beauty where they would see none without us. We help them appreciate their own powers of perception, their own senses and emotions. We are truly the prophets and the clergy showing them what God means for them to worship, to love, and to cherish the most in this world.