It’s too early for this…, she thought, hurrying to the back of the theater.

"You!" Anastasia whirled around to face her. "Where’s my costume? It should have been done by now!"

Behind Anastasia she could see Dinah Osborn, the other main costumer for the theater, fidgeting with a pair of sewing shears, green eyes wide. The blonde actress’s tirade must have begun just before Judith arrived for work because a small crowd was gathering a discreet distance away, the better to watch the encounter without being pulled into it. She closed her eyes briefly. Always has to have an audience, doesn’t she.

"It’s almost finished," she replied, willing herself to remain calm. Every new production, it was the same old thing.

Anastasia sniffed, nose delicately in the air. "If some people around here weren’t so lazy—"

"If some people around here, Miss Bradshaw, showed up for fittings when they’re supposed to, there wouldn’t be a problem." "I didn’t know I was supposed to be here at a certain time."

Judith bit back the retort her mind was forming, knowing it would only prolong the argument. "It’s posted there on the call board where it always is," she said patiently, pointing to the schedule Dinah had carefully written out. "Same place, every production, posted a week before costumes are needed."

One of the bystanders chortled. "She f@#$in’ got ya dat time, Stacy," Curse Edwards said, grinning.

Before Anastasia could rebuke him for his language or for giving her a nickname, "something a lady never has," the theater manager walked up. "What’s the problem here?"

"Nothing, James." Judith smiled sweetly at the actress before turning to James McKay. "Miss Bradshaw was just late for her fitting. As usual."

Annoyance flashed across his face momentarily before he spoke. "Miss Bradshaw, please see that you aren’t late for your fittings again. I’m sure Judith’ll have no trouble fittin’ you right now. As for the rest of you," he added, turning to the cluster of stage hands behind him, "don’t you have sets to finish?"

The crowd dispersed, McKay headed back to his office to finish paperwork, and Judith fitted the prima donna for Lady Capulet’s ball gown, all the while resisting the urge to jab her once—just once! —with a pin. She did give into the urge of throwing her pincushion across the room after Anastasia flounced out of the costume shop.

"How long did that go on?" she asked, stalking across the room to retrieve the worn velvet pear.

Dinah looked up from the hem she was basting. "Not very long," the quiet girl replied. "You got the worst of it."

"I’m glad." As much as Judith hated "Stacy’s" temper tantrums, she preferred to have them aimed at her instead of Dinah. The head costume mistress was too sweet and innocent to have to repeatedly withstand Anastasia Bradshaw’s verbal abuse without taking it personally. Having had a drunken grandfather live with her family until his recent death, Judith felt herself more prepared for standing up to verbal onslaughts.

Soon the hum of sewing machines filled the long room and floated out into the hallway, attesting to the hard workers within. Neither girl spoke much unless to ask where thread or trim had been placed. Their world was relatively undisturbed by the others in the theater, who had tasks of their own to accomplish. To many of the men on the stage crew, the wardrobe department was a foreign and dangerous land, best left undisturbed unless absolutely necessary.

Dinah was placing Mercutio’s tunic, carefully tagged and labeled with the role and scene, on one of the many racks lining the walls when Phillip Riggin stuck his blond head into the room. "Some of us are goin’ ta eat at Goldberg’s, wanna come?"

Judith finished the seam she was working on before looking up. "I’ll be ready in a few minutes. Just need to straighten up."

He nodded and ducked out of sight. Tidying up around her Singer, she invited the other girl to join them.

Dinah looked away. "I’d love to, but… Richard is taking me out to lunch."

Noting the touch of longing in her voice, Judith said, "You know you’re always welcome to join us when ever you want."

Dinah smiled. "Thank you."

The ritual luncheon invitation done, she smiled back while adjusting her hat. "I’ll see you this afternoon."

At Goldberg’s she forgot about the morning’s problems in the merriment that always accompanied meals with the others from The Rose. In order to not offend other patrons with the colorful language that continually flowed out of Curse’s mouth, the waiter always gave them the same table at the very back of the restaurant. They often took advantage of its location, releasing all the tension built up during mornings perfecting sets, lines, and costumes with jokes and insults.

Anastasia was a favorite target as she provided so many opportunities for being made fun of. The morning’s outburst gave the group fresh fodder. No one worried that she might overhear since the small restaurant was too low class for her tastes.

"It’s a shame you have to put up with her, Judy," Lance Doctorow said, once Curse finished his impression of the blonde prima donna for the second time.

"It’s a shame any of us has to put up with her." She shrugged. "I guess I’m used to it, though. It happens every production."

"Still, it’s just not right," the shop foreman said, frowning.

The others agreed. As they paid for their food, conversation turned to lighter topics, such as the weather and horse racing. Walking back to the theater between Stition Richards and Riggin, Judith, enjoying the weather and being outside for a little while, half-paid attention to a discussion of the new sets and changes to be made to the lighting. Stition had to ask twice before she realized he was talking to her, not Riggin.

"What? Oh, yes, I asked her. She went to lunch with Richard again."

"Oh." He didn’t say anything else until the end of the block. "I wish she’d eat with us just once."

"Yeah." After they made it safely across the street, she continued. "There are a lot of people I wish would come with us. Frankie, for one."

"And Stacy," Riggin said, interrupting. "Though I don’t know if she’ll enjoy it as much as she did dinner with my mother."

"Dinner with your mother?" she glanced at him, eyebrows raised. "What tells me that never happened?"

He pretended to ponder the question. "Lessee… There’s her intense dislike of me, her uppity ways, the fact that she hates me, and… did I mention she doesn’t like me?" His black eyes sparkled, ruining the serious look he was trying to keep on his face. "Ah, I was just tryin’ to make her mad last night," he said, shrugging one lean shoulder, giving up all traces of seriousness.

On her other side Stition kicked a stone down the pavement. "Thinks she owns the whole stage," he muttered. "Next time she otta clean it up."

"Too bad the paint already dried."

"Wait a minute." Judith stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, puzzled by the jump in topics. "What does the stage have to do with dinner?"

Between them, the two crew members regaled her with the tale of Riggin’s inspired joke about dining with his family again and Anastasia’s fury at both not getting to stage to herself like she commanded and at not being able to stop him, each interjecting remarks about her facial expressions into the other’s commentary. By the time they reached the block the theater was on Judith was laughing so hard she had to wipe tears away from her eyes.

"Oh, that was priceless!" She leaned against the theater’s carved cement balustrade, catching her breath.

Riggin beamed proudly at her reaction to his prank. "Yeah, it was pretty good, wasn’t it?"

"You do know, though," she said, sobering some, "that she’s going to repay you for it?"

He shrugged. "What can she do to me?"

"Remember Catwalk?"

He shrugged, unconcerned. "I’ve got witnesses."

"She’s an actress," she said, sighing, "A good one even. Don’t underestimate her, okay? ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’"

"I’ll be fine."

[ invitation to dinner scene ]

[ dinner at the Rosenburg’s scene ]

"Clear!"

Judith jumped slightly, even after all the time spent there still not quite used to the stage crew’s yells, and turned to see who was behind her. When she saw the stagehand’s blond hair and black eyes she smiled.

"’Lo, Riggin."

His usually ready smile was slow in appearing. "Busy?"

"Why? What’s wrong?"

Riggin’s reply of "nothing" was far too quick to be believed. After a pause he added, "Small talk."

Small talk?!, she wondered. What in the world… Aloud, she said, "Oh. How’ve you been today?"

"Picked up some stuff from home." He grimaced, making Judith think the visit hadn’t been a happy one.

Changing the subject to a less painful one, keeping to the small talk limit, she said, smiling, "Mother says you and Ragtime are ‘fine young men’ and ‘why don’t I invite them to dinner more often?’" She neglected her mother’s opinion that either of them would make a fine husband for a girl like herself.

"Well, of course she does!" He grinned, any traces of a grimace gone from his face. "She’s clearly an excellent judge of character."

Judith laughed, something she——and most people——often found herself doing around Riggin when he was in a good mood. "Something like that. I guess you’d both better consider that an open invitation for Sunday dinner from now on."

He bowed, pretending to flourish a top hat. "It’s an honor."

"Always the perfect gentleman, aren’t you?"

"Naturally," he said, straightening, then frowned.

Wondering what was bothering him, she perched on the bench used during Act II, scene IV. Riggin acted like he wanted to talk to someone about something, even if it was just small talk to take his mind off his problems. As she tried to think of safe, light subjects to discuss, other than the one she wanted to ask about, she studied his face.

His eyes held none of their typical sparkle as they focused on a point just to the left of her face, and his brow was wrinkled as if he were debating with himself. She tilted her head slightly. What ever it was on his mind, it must be serious.

"Awfully quiet, aren’t you?" Anastasia looked from one to the other. So absorbed in watching Riggin, Judith hadn’t noticed the actress’s approach. "So this is what peons do for fun." She heaved a sigh and turned away.

Judith caught the gleam of mischief that flashed in Riggin’s eyes, and wanted to laugh when he asked, "Do you mind me calling you Anastasia in public? I love to say it," punctuated with a dreamy smile.

Anastasia turned back, momentarily confused. "It would be improper," she replied haughtily.

Judith smiled her sweetest smile at her. "It’s not a nickname," she pointed out, mentally adding, "which we all know is improper for a lady."

"But it’s so hard for me to be proper around you," he said, the perfect image of a lovesick swain.

She narrowed her eyes at the two of them, trying to decide what they were up to. "Fine, you may call me Anastasia." Her tone of voice implied she was granting a royal favor.

"Thank you," Riggin said, then kissed her hand.

"You’re quite welcome."

Whatever his other failings as an actor, Riggin managed to conceal his surprise at her response very well. "Can I help you with anything tonight, Anastasia?"

She considered his offer for a moment. "Yes, I could use some help cleaning my dressing room."

"It would be an honor."

"Thank you." She turned to lead the way to her dressing room, missing the confusion in his face. Judith felt the same way; this was rare behavior for the actress, as close to being nice as she knew how.

"If you want to talk later, Riggin, I’ll be back in costumes."

Dazed, he smiled in her direction before following Anastasia to her dressing room.

Busy with a tunic for one of the citizens of Verona, Judith lost track of the passage of time after the encounter with "nice" Anastasia. The costume shop’s location in the theater often dampened sound from elsewhere, which sometimes made it hard to judge by the others if you were the last one there or not. Tonight it would just depend on how long it took to clean Miss Bradshaw’s dressing room. She was just about to start on the last bit of trim when a movement in the doorway caught her eye.

"Any of this look familiar?" a heap of clothing asked, voice muffled by all the material. Riggin peered around the mass of costume odds and ends, blowing a lace ruffle away from his mouth.

She couldn’t help but laugh at the comical sight. After setting down the tunic on a stool near the door Judith inspected the articles of clothing he offered. "Yes. We’ve been wondering where this was… and this… and this…" she said, taking the costume pieces one by one and draping them across the back of a chair until the chair couldn’t be seen under the bits of costumes from four different shows.

Checking pieces for damage before putting them away in the appropriate place, she asked, "How was it?"

Riggin leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. "I was expecting her to slap me. Learned my lesson."

She stood on her toes to put a hatbox, now with its hat, back on the proper shelf. "Yes that was rather… odd…"

"If I didn’t know better, I’d almost think she was beginning to like me," he said, laughing.

Judith half-smiled at him over her shoulder, replacing the last of the clothing that didn’t have need of mending on one of the room’s many racks. "It would be a first, her liking someone other than herself."

He struck a dramatic pose, the back of one hand against his forehead. "And I’m left to pine away!"

"Somehow that’s not something I picture you ever doing."

He gazed at her with a wounded expression. "You doubt my affection?"

"I never said I did." She deposited the last remaining pieces on the mending pile. "I just said I never pictured you pining away for love."

"Me, neither. Sounds… painful." He grinned.

"I agree." Judith picked up the tunic she had been working on and perched on the stool. After fiddling with the trim to make it lie like she wanted, she began tacking it in place.

Riggin continued to lounge in the doorway, eyes taking in the sewing machines, racks of costumes, full length mirror, and shelves piled with material, trims, and sewing notions that filled the long room. When he made no motion to move, Judith nodded to the chair now free of Anastasia’s past costumes, thinking they cold both use the company. "Have a seat."

Still keeping to the small talk rule from earlier, she said, "You and Ragtime are Michael’s new favorite heroes."

"Well, naturally!" He leaned back in the chair, tipping it onto two legs.

"Heaven help us all," she teased, "he wants to be just like you." Catching the light, her needle flashed in and out of the gold braid and maroon velvet.

"And have his parents disown him?" Riggin laughed, but there was a note of bitterness in it.

Judith dropped her hands to her lap, staring at him. "They disowned you? Why?"

He let all four chair legs touch the floor. Keeping his voice light, he said, "Seven months ago. When I started here." He grinned. "I’m an ‘ungrateful wastrel’ and a ‘disgrace to the family,’ I believe."

"You are not."

"Well, I know that."

"Why would they think such a horrible thing?"

He grinned, obviously amused with the reason. "Theaters are dens of iniquity, you know. My mother just thinks I’m going to wind up in jail."

She sniffed, not amused with any of it. "How would they know theaters are dens of iniquity or not? Have they ever spent time in one?"

"At the opera occasionally." Riggin acted like a teacher patiently explaining an easy lesson to a slow student. "It’s all right to attend a show, but you know what the people who work there are alike." They both rolled their eyes.

"Oh. Yes. We’re all murderers, thieves, and ‘ladies of the night.’"

"Ex-actly. And," he continued grandly, "Anderson Ellis Riggin couldn’t possibly have a son who works in such a nice place."

Judith frowned at that statement. She strongly doubted she’d like his father if they ever met, which was a highly unlikely occurrence. Anyone who could turn his back on his son simply because of where he worked didn’t rank very high in her opinion. Mrs. Rosenburg had always said of her daughter that she had a weak spot for underdogs, and this was proving no exception to the rule.

"Well, you’ve got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was," she said, using one of her grandmother’s favorite proverbs. When Riggin just smiled faintly, not saying anything in response, she continued, indignation mounting the more she thought about it. "Whether or not he approves, you’ve got to be your own person. You’re not your father after all."

"God forbid!" He tried to laugh.

"Is he that bad?" A mental picture of a stern, New England loyalist banishing his patriot son like in a Revolutionary War play flashed behind her eyes.

"Just—" he paused to find the right phrase "—pleased with himself."

"And not with a son who’s good at what he does?"

Riggin shrugged and gave her the briefest of smiles. "He wouldn’t know. He threw me out of the house in February."

She stared at him, shocked, as the words sank in. "Oh, I’m so sorry," she breathed. Impulsively she hopped off her stool and hugged him.

After she pulled away, he shrugged again. "I’ve had months to get over it."

She gazed down at him a moment before quietly asking, "Are you?"

He looked up at her and lifted one shoulder. "Sure."

Nudging away a pair of sewing shears with her toes, she made a space for herself on the floor near his feet. In an even softer voice she said, "It doesn’t seem that way to me."

He leaned forward insistently. "I’m—" After a pause he leaned back again, deflating like a hot air balloon with an air leak, before admitting, "Saw him today."

Judith nodded, waiting for him to finish saying whatever was on his mind. He shifted in his chair, then grinned, a gruesome sight considering the dullness of his eyes and his current state of mind.

"I wanted to hit him."

"Oh." She nodded again and tucked her knees up close to her chest. "Why?"

He shifted positions again, slumping down more, and concentrated on a point near his feet. After a full minute had passed in silence, he abruptly said, "I should get home."

Almost without realizing what she was doing ("the left hand knows not what the right does" as Grandmother would say) she placed her left hand on his. "Things get better, eventually. It takes time, but they do."

She dropped her eyes. Yes, things do get better with time, sometimes in unexpected ways. The years of being yelled at for imagined wrongs, or for something someone else had done, ended when Grandpa Adams had died. She had been used to his drunken rages, mostly because she had been stubborn and refused to let them get to her, but it had become harder when his mind started slipping. At first it had just been little things, like a misplaced book or forgotten hat, that would set off his temper, but when he began imagining she was his other daughter, Aunt Sara, the one who had eloped with a young man he had disapproved of and moved out West to live on a cattle ranch, Aunt Sara, whom they hadn’t seen except in an occasional photograph, it had become harder for her to not let it bother her. Every time she had had to convince him she was Judith, not Sara, and he was as gentle as a lamb towards her until the next time. Yes, things had gotten better with time, in an unexpected way.

"Thanks."

She nodded, barely aware he was even there, so lost was she in her own reminisces. Time passed, how much neither knew, and the tension in the room grew thicker, gaining mass, as the two sat in separate worlds yet worlds so close. Finally, he stood, almost as if he were sleepwalking. Startled out of her thoughts by the unexpected movement, she tilted her head back to look up at him looking down at her.

"Oh… Goodnight…" She took at deep breath, feeling as if she had been asleep for days.

"Goodnight." He shifted his weight and opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something else. "Ah…"

She blinked, gradually regaining a sense of where they were. "Hmmm?"

He shrugged, still gazing at her, uncertainty on his face. He blinked, too, as if giving up on whatever it had been. Again, "Goodnight."

She nodded slightly, half-smiling. "G’night, Phillip."

She dreamt that night.

She was nineteen again, standing in the middle of the sitting room, as Grandpa entered, glaring. He started yelling and wagging his finger, and a small boy with dark hair cowered behind her. Grandpa started advancing, eyes wild, fist shaking, stumbling in drunkenness, and she and the boy backed up until they reached the wall. They stared at each other, only now the boy was taller and had blonde hair and black eyes. Grandpa advanced even more and the two pressed their backs against the wall then fell through, falling, falling through blackness, finally landing on their feet in the dim house of the theater. They backed down the aisle as Grandpa walked through the wall, still yelling at them, joined now by a man whose face was shadowed except for his eyes, cold eyes glaring hatefully. They continued down the aisle, she and the boy backing up, Grandpa and the stranger stalking forward, still advancing even when the two backed into the stage. They stared at each other again until she felt a weight in her apron pocket and pulled out a pin cushion, which started growing and grew and grew until she heaved it at their pursuers' feet, where it exploded into a shower of pins and needles, gleaming in the dimness as they fell on their heads, pricking the men until they shrank away into nothingness, leaving her sobbing huddled against the stage and him frozen staring at the spot where the pin cushion fell.

When she finally awoke, her cheeks were damp with tears and the sheets were twisted around her body.

III. Pensiveness

Dinah started rummaging through a new trunk, hunting for part of a cloak and hood set left over from "The Merry Thieves of Sherwood," having not found it in the previous two.

"Find it yet?" Judith threaded a needle with the precise shade of green thread needed to mend one of Anastasia's costumes from the mending pile.

"Um… not-" She looked over the rumpled blue hood she had just unearthed. "Ah, yes. Now I have."

Judith glanced up, smiling, before starting on the hem of the dress. "Good," she said, laughing. "I was going to tell you to try Bianca's or Miss Bradshaw's dressing rooms if you didn't."

"I should be thankful it was in the trunk, then."

Concentrating on keeping her stitches neat, Judith didn't answer immediately. "We could probably just send Riggin after it if dear old Stacy had it. She was actually nice to him the other night."

"Oh?" Dinah blinked in surprise. After a minute she said, "She… she was nice to me, too… yesterday… and early for her fitting."

She stopped hemming for a moment. At Goldberg's there had been a few comments about Anastasia's new attitude, but they had been lost among complaints about the sets they were about to begin building for the show after "Romeo and Juliet." And truthfully, she couldn't remember any of either conversation. "I wonder why she's being so nice all of a sudden."

Dinah smoothed her neat skirts before sitting on one of the low stools in the room, sewing basket at hand. "So do I," she said, "but I wasn't going to ask."

"Probably wise," Judith agreed, laughing. She began again on the hem, expertly hiding her stitches in the soft velvet. "It might be tempting fate."

The brunette's smile widened a trifle, imperceptible to anyone who didn't know the girl very well. "I suppose we can just count it a blessing 'til she returns to her—" Dinah caught herself before finishing, "old self."

As she sewed, Judith wondered about Anastasia's sudden niceness. The actress had been at the Rose for a long time before she had joined the wardrobe department, but in all the time she had known her, Anastasia hadn't shown an ounce of kindness to anyone unless it benefited herself. All reports said that she had been like that long before Judith arrived, too. Apparently Miss Bradshaw had never heard the saying about catching flies with honey, not vinegar.

After a while Dinah said, half to herself, "Perhaps she's sick…"

"Or maybe she hit her head on something."

The other girl nodded. "Yes."

"Maybe it's better just not knowing." Judith rethreaded her needle.

"I'm not all that sure I'd want to know, anyway."

Laughing, Judith agreed.

Dinah looked up, smiling. "It's something to think about, at least."

She smiled back. "True." It was something to think about, something other than her grandfather and Riggin's inhuman father and the problems both had caused. Anything was better to think about than that.

For once Judith was thankful that they were between shows and that Dinah as a quiet person. Typically between shows the costume shop was a madhouse with mending costumes from the last production and creating costumes for the new one. Now, she had plenty of work to keep her occupied and no one to make her talk about what she didn't want to discuss, let alone think about. If Dinah noticed any change in her, she tactfully didn't comment on it.

Late on Friday she finished the mending pile. Rather than begin a new costume at that hour, since it wouldn't be too long before it had to be put away for the day, she decided to find a quiet place in the theater in order to be alone for a little while. Hearing voices from both the green room and the shop, she tried the stage. If that wasn't empty, there was always the back of the house.

Finding none of the company rehearsing or any of the stagehands putting sets in place, she perched next to a footlight on the edge of the stage. Row upon row of velvet-cushioned seats reached to the back of the house, fading into darkness in the shadow of the balcony. In the dimness she could understand why Stition claimed to have seen the theater's resident ghost. While she didn't necessarily believe the spirits of the dead roamed the earth, she believed that what ever Stition had seen was real, whether it truly was a ghost or just one of the stagehands' jokes.

Her eyes wandered from the rose-decorated walls to the magnificent crystal chandelier hanging from the vaulted ceiling high above her head. It would make an elegant, and entertaining, place to spend the remainder of ones ghostly days. Perfectly understandable for the original owner to haunt it. From all accounts it was Lord Carter Thomason's pride and joy. Idly she thought that the theater must be stunning before and during a performance if it looked so lovely in the quiet dimness.

She was distracted from her thoughts by a sneeze. Judging by the location, behind and above her, it came from the catwalk. Probably Riggin, she decided. From what Missy had mentioned to someone in the hallway earlier that day, he had been hiding up there when Sgt. Franklin had come by the previous evening with the news. She glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the rafters. If what she had heard was true, then he wouldn't want company right now.

Judith continued to sit on the edge of the stage, heels lightly drumming against it as she swung her feet, not too hard so McKay wouldn't yell about marks on the carved and painted wood. Her mind drifted from memories, good and bad, of her grandfather to Riggin and his family problems. While her grandfather had made her life miserable just before his death, that was in the past. Anderson Ellis Riggin was making his son's life a living hell in the present, kicking him out of his home and not even letting him see his own mother. All because of his place of employment.

As voices from the shop faded, a sure sign it was the end of the day, she decided to go on home rather than mope around the theater any more. After dusting off her skirt she headed for the wings. At the edge she paused.

"Goodnight," she called over her shoulder, not entirely sure if she were speaking to Riggin or the ghost.

She didn't wait for a reply.

Judith downed the rest of the cup of water and made a face. She could still taste the aspirin she had just taken for the headache that had been building all day. The fresh air-if you could call it that in New York City-hadn't done much to help alleviate it. Ignoring the throbbing, she slowly headed back to wardrobe.

Riggin was outside the costume shop, as if he was waiting for someone, she thought. He looked up as she drew nearer. "Evening."

She mustered up a half-smile. "Hello, Riggin."

He straightened up and grinned at her, but she could still see the worry in his eyes. "How are you?" Ironic that he was worried about her, wasn't it?

"It's just a headache," she said, shrugging, ignoring the pounding that suggested it was more than just a minor one, knowing full well that that wasn't what he was asking about. "How are you?"

Shrugging, too, he said, "I'm fine."

"That's good." As much as she wanted to ask about what she had heard hinted at the day before, she didn't know the best way to bring it up, especially with others around.

"Why didn' anybody tell me dere was a party?" Ragtime grinned at the two of them.

Riggin rolled his eyes. "You weren't invited."

Lizzy, through with a fitting, added from just inside the room, "Why would we want you at a party?"

"Oh, I see. Fine," he pouted, lower lip thrust out. "Didn' wanna come anyway."

The actress laughed. "Fine then. Go back to the shop with Lance and do… manly things or something," she teased, wrinkling her nose.

Judith smiled slightly. "I didn't know there was a party in there, either." When she had left to take a break, only Alan Sherbrooke had been there, trying on a pair of boots.

"We'll just have our own party, then." He draped an arm across Judith's shoulders.

"No, Judith's welcome at our party," Lizzy replied, smiling sweetly. "Just not you."

After a comment about expecting something like that from Riggin, Judith slipped in, "Well, Mother can't wait to feed you two again."

"Really?"

"Yes. She says you're the only ones who truly appreciate her cooking."

Riggin grinned at her. "Nothing like a starving stagehand."

She smiled back, remembering the conversation when she first invited them to dinner. Never again would she make the mistake of asking if they wanted food.

"Yeah, we can appreciate good food, we just can't make it!"

Judith laughed a little, not enough to make her head ache. She couldn't picture either stagehand cooking without burning something, not heating something long enough, or just creating a large mess in general. "No wonder you starve."

"Yep. Only time I get real food's when I visit Mama."

The grin on Riggin's face froze into place. Judith, opposite him, winced. It reminded her of a mask hanging on the wall, features molded to express an emotion, but no light in the eyes to bring it to life. A glance at Ragtime showed he realized his faux pas. The tableau hung suspended in time until the Italian broke the silence.

"Speakin' of dinner… dat's what your cat's gonna be if she doesn' quit jumpin' on da Victrola."

She released the breath she had been holding when Riggin turned to him, eyebrows raised, and asked, "My cat?"

"When she's messin' up my records, she's your cat." The group laughed, and Judith relaxed against the wall.

"So when she's shredding my clothes she's your cat?" Ragtime grinned at him. "Sounds like ya understand perfectly."

Riggin cuffed him lightly, and the other boy returned it. The two scuffled a bit, the girls watching, amused, until Ragtime turned to them and asked, "'Course ya can see why we named 'er Angel, right?"

"It couldn't be more fitting. I'll bet she looks like one, too."

"She is one," Riggin said, smirking at his roommate. "He's a tyrant."

The seamstress laughed, ignoring the headache the aspirin had done nothing to eliminate. "A tyrant? I can believe that." She hoped her voice didn't give away how horrible she felt.

"Me? A tyrant?" He raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "I seem ta rememba somebody soundin' like Edwards when 'is shirt got shredded." When Riggin didn't immediately reply he turned to the others. "Angel's da one dat's a tyrant. We're just servants in our own apartment."

Judith remarked about what it's supposed to be like that with cats, which led to a joking discussion on the proper way to treat a cat. She was glad for it because she didn't have to think too much. Concentrating just made the pounding of her head more intense.

After saying something about cats being worshiped in Egypt once upon a time, she noticed the concerned look Ragtime was giving both of them. Riggin hadn't said anything in a while, just smiled and nodded, and she knew she wasn't being her typical self. She couldn't think of a way to reassure him that things were fine, but he spared her from inventing an explanation.

"Speakin' of Angel… 'bout ready ta go home?"

Riggin paused before nodding yet again.

"All right. See ya t'morrow, Judy."

She smiled as best she could, hoping the headache would disappear before morning came around. "See you tomorrow. Don't forget you're invited to dinner anytime."

Riggin's smile mirrored her own. "Thanks. Night."

"Thanks, Judy. An' sometime I'll bring you guys ta dinner in Little Italy."

At that the trio parted ways; she hadn't noticed when Lizzy slipped away Even though she knew it would do nothing to help the throbbing pain within her skull, Judith opted to take the Fulton Street train rather than walk home. Vinegar Hill was too far away to walk to this late in the evening without worrying that someone in the shadows might be waiting to prey on a tired seamstress with a headache, although she pitied anyone who might choose her for a target that night. She was liable to fly of in a tirade rivaling one of Curse's about being bothered when she had a headache and a hundred other things on her mind.

Sitting next to a window, Judith watched buildings flash past without really seeing them. She just didn't feel like wondering about what took place within their walls this ride. Instead, she let her mind drift, returning to the look Ragtime had given them both.

What had gone through his head? Had he noticed that neither of them had been their normal selves for a while, since the same night, even? If he did, had he connected the two? Was there really a connection? What was he thinking, if there was one? And why did she care?

The glass vibrated against her cheek as the car rattled along the tracks It was almost soothing, as it made her forget however briefly the pain in her head. Despite the temptation, she fought against closing her eyes, even for a moment. She hadn't realized while talking with the others how tired she was. After what seemed like an eternity the train pulled in at the Sands Street station. The brisk walk home didn't rouse her from her drowsiness, but it did banish the questions that had rambled through her brain.

She fell into bed and was asleep almost instantly. No images of black-eyed boys and deceased grandfathers haunted her dreams.