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