The music began to play. Rina stood behind the thick curtain, waiting. She briefly closed her eyes, allowing the notes to fill her from head to tingling toes, imagining the full-bodied music swelling from an orchestra pit just below the stage, as she’d once seen it at the Met.

This, of course, was not the Metropolitan Opera, and the music filling the auditorium beyond the curtain was prerecorded, but nevertheless, as she counted the beats in her head — one, two, three — she felt her heart drum fast, and a burning sensation rise from her stomach to her throat.

When she’d first started performing, this pre-show anxiety was almost enough to chase her off the stage, but by now, Rina had learned to welcome it, to flow into the excruciatingly exquisite state of heightened awareness.

Six, seven, eight. She heard the rustle. She saw the sliver of light that meant the curtain was opening. Slowly, Rina began to walk forward, her long skirt swaying gently, her chin tilted at just the right angle. She kept walking until she felt the warmth of the spotlight, and then she stopped, waited, as the black mass beyond the stage erupted in applause.

Rina felt herself lifted up on the wave of cheers, felt herself floating somewhere above, and, when she opened her mouth to sing, the song that emerged filled every corner of the theater, and she was no longer standing in the Scott P. Wilkens Auditorium of P.S. 49; she was onstage in a gilded opera house, she was on Broadway; she, Rina Levitan, was a star.

Midway through the song, as she slowly began floating back into herself, as she became aware once again of the click of her heels on the hard wooden floor, of the swish of her sleeve as she raised her hand triumphantly toward the ceiling, Rina allowed herself a peek at the audience.

Other actresses didn’t like to look at the audience while they performed; it threw them off focus, brought back those jitters. But Rina drew her energy from the admiring throngs, and, though most of the women out there were swallowed up by the onstage lighting, if she looked down, she could see the faces in the first two rows.

She made eye contact with one random face, allowed herself a brief wink, and saw the girl’s megawatt grin flash back at her. Her eyes roved again; there was the organizer of tonight’s performance, smiling complacently, front row and center. And there, toward the end of the second row, was Rina’s mother, and her daughters, Atara and Huvy.

Rina’s voice faltered for the tiniest millisecond. Inwardly berating herself, she pulled her eyes away from the audience, training them upward instead, toward the ceiling, toward the very Heavens, as she finished her song with a final crescendo.

The applause began before she’d even drawn breath, and Rina kept her arms stretched outward toward the audience, as if embracing them and their adoration, until after the heavy curtains had rustled to a close.

***

Back in Row 38, Gabriella shifted in her seat and gave yet another yawn. She glanced at her watch. How long could this show possibly go on? She’d been up half the night with Levi, who, it emerged from this morning’s doctor visit, had an ear infection, and all she really wanted to do right now was go to sleep.