Four days before opening night the rigging room door locks at ten.
He locks it.
Not me.
He crosses the room. Turns the lock. Turns around. Looks at me with the dark eyes and the jaw and the chalk on his hands and says nothing.
He does not need to say anything.
He crosses to me.
Not rushing.
The specific unhurried movement of someone who has decided something and is executing the decision with the same controlled certainty he brings to everything since the third morning.
He stops directly in front of me.
His hand finds my jaw.
The rough chalk white hand tilting my face up with the easy authority of someone who has been deciding where things should be for twenty years and has decided this.
He looks at me for a long moment.
The dark eyes running the inventory.
Not the professiona
