Atensely waiting Ezra pulled her aside as soon as she entered the school lobby. "I have to talk to you," he said.

"What's up?"

"Not here. My office."

"No."

"No, we can't go to my office?"

"No to whatever it is you want to ask me in it."

They walked speedily down the hall and into Ezra's comfortable, chaotic, book-lined chambers. It must be nice to be head of the department.

She fell into his visitor chair. "Whazzup?"

"I'm not asking you anymore. I'm begging you. You have to save us."

"Ezra, I told you a thousand times. I've thought about it. I talked to Jared about it. To you. To Maggie. To Bo. I've written to Che about it."

"How is our little professional protester?"

"Not pregnant. But I'm talked out."

"Will you hear me out?"

"Ezra, you got Leroy. What's wrong with him?" She smirked. "Besides wanting to stage a two-man play for spring?"

"Leroy said he'd prefer not to do it," admitted Ezra. "His kid is failing math."

"So you want me to do it so my kids will fail math? My kid is already failing English!"

"They're honor students!"

"Not Asher. Not Michelangelo. He glues all day. Can't get far in life with glue, Ezra."

"Bring him. Bring them both. I'll tutor them."

"You'll tutor Michelangelo." Larissa looked down into her hands with incredulity. "Tutor him in what? Obstinacy? Sculpture?"

"We'll pay you."

"Jared works his a.s.s off all week. We can't both be away from the kids."

"You won't be away. Studies have shown that children benefit from seeing their parents be successful at something other than parenting."

Larissa stared at him. "Are you making this c.r.a.p up?"

"Yes."

She laughed. "Ez, what am I supposed to do when Emily has cello in Chatham, and Asher a track meet in Maplewood, and I'm in Short Hills in the afternoon directing G.o.dot? You haven't thought this through."

"I have, too. We'll rehea.r.s.e on Sat.u.r.days. And please, not G.o.dot."

Larissa said nothing. Ezra took that as encouragement.

"It's just for two, three months. Play goes on in June. If you don't want to continue next fall, we'll get someone else. I promise. Denise will come back."

"Denise is going to leave her baby and come back?"

Straightening his red tie, Ezra adjusted his falling-down crooked gla.s.ses, beaming at her. "We have a deal?"

Larissa shook her head. "Ez, do you remember how the parents hated me at the Hudson School?"

"No, they loved you. But a little diplomacy here at Pingry wouldn't kill you."

"It's either the play or diplomacy."

Ezra nearly clapped. "So we're set? Auditions are next week."

"How can that be? We haven't chosen a play yet! Or should we stick with Leroy's terrific suggestion? In an instant it all will vanish and we'll be alone once more in the midst of nothingness. What, that's not inspiring enough for spring?" Larissa smiled. This diversion for herait was ideal. The offer came along at just the right time. This would take her mind off things, let her get back on track.

"Lar," Ezra said, helping her up from the chair, "let's go and announce the good news and choose a play. Try to think of something appropriate."

"How much time do I have?"

Ezra looked at his watch. "Can you think while we walk down the hall?" He pulled her up by her elbow. "Hurry. Meeting started fifteen minutes ago."

"How can the meeting have started? We're not there!"

"Come on," he said prodding her out. "Fret as you walk."

"Ezra, you've gotten very demanding since you've become department head." Picking up her purse, she took out a lipstick. "I liked you better absent-minded and lackadaisical." Without a mirror, she applied a shade of pink beige to her lips.

"We don't have an hour fifty-five, Larissa," Ezra said, watching her.

She didn't want him to know she was grateful. She wanted him to think she was grudging. Otherwise, how to explain her sudden exhilaration?

But no matter how welcome the distraction, the everyday stress of theater, the demand of it made her anxious even as she rushed down the sunlit hallway. "What if I can't do it, Ez? What if it's just too much for me?"

"You'll be fabulous. We don't want someone who never reaches. You always reach, Larissa. For places other people can't go. That's why we need you."

"Plus you're desperate."

"That, too."

They stopped at the double doors of the conference room. He looked her over before they came in. "So how come today of all days you're dressed to go ride the go-karts?"

"Because I thought I was coming in as the set decorator," Larissa rejoined, opening the doors. "This is what painters wear."

Inside the conference room, buoyed with black coffee and a sense of his own importance, Leroy, though having relinquished the coveted position of director, clearly did so resentfully. His first action after they all sat down and got some water was to distribute to each of the eight seated people copies of G.o.dot, and embark on a long sermon punctuated by no periods on why it was the greatest play of this or any century.

Larissa could tell that there were some people at the table who did not think a set decorator was qualified to be a director, despite Ezra's excited recital of Larissa's credentials: theater and English double major at NYU, summer stock theater (the Great Swamp Revue and Jersey Footlight Players) director of the acclaimed theater department at the Hudson School. Larissa could tell neither Leroy nor Fred, Ezra's a.s.sistant, was impressed.

"Leroy," Larissa said in her no-nonsense voice, palms down on the table, her manner sober, "I appreciate your recommendation, and we can all agree to the quality of G.o.dot, but we need a different direction. Something more lighthearted. I was thinking of a Shakespearean comedy."

Leroy had no intention of giving up. "G.o.dot is a comedy."

"Well, yes. A tragicomedy. But G.o.dot is wrong for spring, with all due respect. The air of bleak existentialism as read mostly by a cast of two, with a set of one scraggly tree is not the joyful experience most children and parents a.s.sociate with a spring production. I'm thinking of something more inclusive and multi-parted. A little funnier, a little less angst-ridden." She smiled amiably at him. He did not return the smile. Ezra, though, smiled exquisitely at Larissa.

For the next ninety minutes, Larissa, Ezra, Fred, Leroy, Sheila Meade, Vanessa (Sheila's a.s.sistant), Vincent (Leroy's), and David, the line reader, pounded out the possibilities. Leroy shot everything down. As You Like It was not funny enough ("certainly not as funny as G.o.dot"), Midsummer had too much confusing dialogue, and Much Ado was too long. ("G.o.dot, on the other hand, is brilliant, funny, deceptively short, and will be simple to stage and direct.") Larissa kept quiet. Ezra had to prod her. "Well, Larissa, you're the director," he said. "What do you think?"

"Choosing a play is a collaboration," Leroy announced haughtily.

"Yes, but the director has final say," Ezra pointed out. "Lar, what say you?"

"Well all have to agree so we can throw our support behind it," Leroy announced, with Vincent nodding next to him.

Larissa suddenly realized it was nearing one! She had to go. Knowing that time was running short tensed her into silence. She had to get into her car right now and drive away.

Wait. Wasn't she going to forget about Stop&Shop? Wasn't that the purpose of all this? Wasn't she freed from the constraints of the supermarket parking lot? Accept the position of director, straighten out, back on the rails.

If she left now, she would barely make it there for one.

She felt fourteen pairs of eyes on her as if they expected her to decide; at the very least to speak. "Okay, here's what I think," Larissa said. She was out of time. "As You like It is meant to be performed outside," she stated. "We can do it inside, but it won't be as good, and outside is impossible." She tried not to sound impatient or hurried. "I suggest Comedy of Errors. It takes place in one day, serious subjects such as death by hanging and slavery are pushed aside for the sake of the joke, and all action is physical rather than internal, which makes it easier to rehea.r.s.e and execute successfully." She fell silent, waiting for them to agree. From Leroy's barely suppressed sneers, Larissa guessed he was not a fan of The Comedy of Errors. Sheila said she preferred to do As You Like It. Twenty-six-year-old Vanessa, who was trying on theater for size before she fled into the world of fashion design, agreed with her boss. Vincent agreed with his. Young Vincent painted sets with her, so Larissa was miffed at his backstabbing, while Fred, who worked with Ezra, fancied himself smarter than anyone (including his boss) and therefore had to have an opposite opinion on everything just to prove his intellectual superiority. David, the line reader, thought because he read lines with the kids, he was qualified to make staging decisions. Ezra was, as always, bemused. Noncommittal, but bemused.

Well, whatever. At one time, back in college, in Hoboken, theater consumed Larissa. Being on the stage herself, what power! But that was over ten years ago. Dionysus was not her G.o.d anymore. Oh, sure, if you gave in to him, surrendered yourself to his charms, he would make you good, he would make you great. But it was a Faustian deal you made with him. And while Larissa accepted Ezra's offer, she accepted it for her own reasons and was not about to dance with Dionysus again. She just didn't care that much anymore.

"Why not Tempest?" Leroy suggested sourly.

"Maybe Taming of the Shrew?" Fred piped up. Oh, so he was unhappily married, Larissa thought, him and his bow ties and French berets. He certainly looked unhappily something.

"Tempest is too long," Larissa said.

"So?"

"Leroy, but you were just lauding the brevity of G.o.dot. Now you don't care how long the proposed play is. Plus," she continued evenly, "Tempest is complicated, it's hard to memorize and stage." She turned to Fred. "As for Shrew, we put it on three years ago last fall."

"I don't think that's true." Just to be contrary!

Larissa was quiet. "I painted the sets. I know. Vinnie might recall it." She glared at him. "He painted the sets with me. Remember, Vinnie?"

A sheepish Vincent barely nodded, hoping Leroy and Fred wouldn't see him agreeing with her!

Larissa exchanged an impatient glance with Ezra, that reluctant-to-intervene people-watcher. "Fred, I don't understand what the issue is. What's wrong with Comedy of Errors?"

"What's wrong with Much Ado About Nothing?" he countered. "We didn't stage that three years ago, did we?"

"I still think Tempest is a good idea," Leroy weighed in. "It's not an actual tragedy, you know."

"I know," Larissa drew out. "Do you really want to stage it?"

"Let's say yes."

"Can I ask you, Leroy, why are you so suddenly adamant about The Tempest? In my hands I'm still holding the play you were adamant about an hour ago."

"Well, if I can't have the one I really wanta"

Vinnie and Sheila and Fred nodded in a.s.sent.

Ezra finally spoke. "How do we feel about Much Ado?"

Leroy first looked at Larissa, as if to gauge her imminent reaction. Then he said, "I like it. It's a fine choice."

"What do you think, Lar?"

Now he speaks! "It's fine for fifteen-year-olds?" said Larissa. "On the one hand we have Comedy of Errors, 122 pages, light, external, easy to set, funny, just right for spring. On the other we have Much Ado About Nothing, about betrayal, shame, humiliation, infidelity, death, itself only one bad performance away from becoming a tragedy."

"That's what makes it so rich and rewarding," said Leroy.

"According to you, Larissa, every comedy in Shakespeare is a breath away from becoming a tragedy," said Fred.

"And not just in Shakespeare," muttered Larissa.

"Okay, then how about Midsummer Night's Dream?" interjected Ezra as the situation was about to become untenable. (About to?) "Midsummer Night's Dream," repeated Larissa in a slow voice, (poorly) hiding her supreme irritation, "deals with lovelorn triangulating. It's too adult to be performed by fifteen-year-olds. Then againa" She didn't even have to glance at her watch. She knew it was one o'clock. Getting up, she grabbed her denim suede purse off the back of the chair.

"You're leaving?" said Ezra. "But we haven't finished."

"You're right," Larissa said. "But you know my opinion. Discuss amongst yourselves. Tell me tomorrow what you've decided."

"Should we do a casting call this afternoon?" asked David the line reader, already thinking ahead.

"Choose the play first."

"Larissaa" That was Ezra.

"I really have to go, guys. Honest, I have no dog in this fight. It's the end of March, the play opens in June, that'll be barely eight weeks after auditions to rehea.r.s.e. Not a lot of time. Whatever you decide, I'm fine."

Ezra followed her to the double doors.

"Lar, what are you doing?" he said quietly. "They think you're storming out."

"Aren't I?" She patted him on the sleeve, "Make nice with them, as only you can."

"We have to have a decision!"

"Am I the director, or are you? Or is Fred? Or perhaps Leroy wants to direct from the sidelines. I hear there's a play he's just dying to do," she added with a brisk smile, pleased with herself. She waved G.o.dot in front of Ezra.