“But although Rita Yearling will be a superstar by the end of the coming season, she’s still relatively unknown to the TV audience. So what we needed, I knew, was a male costar who would be instantly recognizable to the whole world....”

Gabriel found his puzzlement deepening. The guy sitting at Finger’s right side looked vaguely familiar, but Gabriel knew he wasn’t a well-known actor.

“So I went out and got a guy who is known the whole world over,” Finger was at his self-congratulatory best, “and signed him up to play our Romeo, our male lead. And here he is! A superstar in his own right! Francois Dulaq!”

Everyone in the big dining room rose to their feet and roared approval. “Du-laq! Du-laq!” they began chanting. Even the crystal chandeliers started swaying in rhythm with their shouts.

And then it hit Gabriel. Francois Dulaq. The hockey star. The guy who broke Orr’s old scoring record and made the Canadian Maple Stars world champions. They even beat the Russo-Chinese All-Stars, Gabriel remembered from last season’s sportscasts.

A hockey player as the male lead? It’s Buster Crabbe all over again, Gabriel moaned to himself.

He had to climb up on his chair to see what was going on. The crowd was still on its feet, roaring. Dulaq had gone around Finger to where Rita was standing. They put their arms around each other and bared the most expensive sets of teeth in television history for the media cameramen. Finger beamed approvingly.

The expatriate American tugged at Gabriel’s sleeve and yelled over the crowd’s hubbub, “Whaddaya think?”

Gabriel shrugged. “He might be okay. Looks good enough. Probably can’t act worth shit, but he wouldn’t be the first big star who couldn’t act.”

Frowning and shaking his head, the expatriate said, “Yeah, but he can’t even speak English.”

Gabriel almost fell off his chair. “What? What’s he speak, French?”

“Nope. Neanderthal.”

Not knowing whether it was a joke or not, Gabriel climbed off his perch and sat down. The crowd settled down, too, as Finger nudged Dulaq to the microphone.

“I wancha t’know,” Dulaq said, “dat I’ll t’row evert’ing I got into dis job... jus’ like I t’rew dem body checks inta dem Chinks last May!”

They all roared again. Gabriel sank his head down onto his arms and tried to keep from crying.

At precisely two a.m. Gabriel’s phone buzzed.

He wasn’t sleeping. His trusty suitcase was open on the bed, half filled with his clothes. Since the end of the dinner, Gabriel had spent the night phoning Finger, Montpelier, Brenda, Sam Lipid and anyone else who would listen, telling them that if Dulaq was the male star of the show, they could get themselves another chief writer.

They all argued with him. They cited contracts and clauses. They spoke glowingly of Dulaq’s magnetic personality and star quality and sex appeal. They promised voice coaching and speech therapy and soundtrack dubbing. Still, Gabriel packed his suitcase as he fought with them.

Then his phone buzzed.

Gabriel leaned across the bed and flipped the switch that turned it on. Rita Yearling’s incredibly lovely face appeared on the phone’s screen.

“Hi,” she breathed.

Gabriel hung suspended, stretched across the bed with one foot in his suitcase, tangled in his dirty underwear.

“Hello yourself,” he managed.

Her eyes seemed to widen as she noticed the open suitcase. “You’re not leaving?”

Gabriel nodded. He couldn’t talk.

“Don’t you care about the show?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“Don’t you care about me?”

With an effort, Gabriel said, “I care a lot. Too much to watch you ruin your career before it really starts. That hockey puck of a leading man is going to destroy this show.”

She dimpled at him. “You’re jealous!”

“No,” he said. “Just fed up.”

“Oh, Ron...” Her face pulled together slightly in a small frown.

“I can’t take it anymore,” Gabriel said. “It’s just one battle after another... like fighting with a Hydra. Every time I chop off one head, seven more pop up.”

But she wasn’t listening. “Ron... you poor sweet boy. Come out onto your balcony. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

“On the balcony?”

“Go out and see,” Rita cooed.

Untangling himself from the suitcase, Gabriel padded barefoot to the balcony. He was wearing nothing but his knee-length dashiki and the chill night air cut into him the instant he opened the sliding glass door.

“Surprise!” he heard from over his head.

Looking up, he saw Rita smiling lusciously down at him. She was on the balcony one floor up and one room over from his own. She stood there smiling down at him, clothed in a luminous wisp of a gown that billowed softly in the breeze.

“I took this room for the weekend. I wanted to get away from the suite where B.F. is,” she said.

Ron’s knees went weak. “It is the east,” he murmured, “and Juliet is the sun.”

“This is a lot more fun than talking over the phone, isn’t it?” Rita gave a girlish wriggle. “Like, it’s more romantic, huh?”

Without even thinking about it, Gabriel leaped up on the railing of his own balcony. He stretched and his fingertips barely grazed the bottom of Rita’s balcony.

“Hey! Be careful!”

Gabriel glanced below. Ten floors down, the street lamps glowed softly in the cold night air. Wind whipped at his dashiki and his butt suddenly felt terribly exposed.

“What are you doing?” Rita called, delighted.

He jumped for her balcony. His fingers clutched at the cold cement, then he reached, straining, and grabbed a fistful of one of the metal posts supporting the railing.

His feet dangled in empty air and his dashiki billowed in the wind. Somewhere far back in his mind, Gabriel realized what a ridiculous picture this would present to anyone passing below. But that didn’t matter.

Beads of cold sweat popped out all over his body as he strained, muscles agonized by the unaccustomed effort, hand over hand to the edge of the balcony’s railing. His bare toes found a hold on the balcony’s cement floor at last and he heaved himself, puffing and trembling with exertion, over the railing to collapse at Rita’s feet.