“Penny for your thoughts?”

Soojin stares up at the ceiling. Practice is done, another four arduous hours with nothing to show for it but swollen ankles and a bone deep sort of exhaustion. “Only if they’re special.” The words are virtually masked by the blades of the fans set up around the studio to help with the early August heat. 

“Special?” Lisa stops dead in her tracks. Water bottle halfway to , she frowns, “It’s a penny.”

As she rolls onto her side, face pinched in discomfort, Soojin mumbles, “I know.” The fingers of her right hand crawl across the floor and reach upward ever so slightly, “Help me up?” 

“Up you—” Lisa tugs, fingers wrapped around Soojin’s wrist. “Yah!” 

Soojin is deadweight on the floor. Each tug is as useless as the last and, when her body is face down on the floor, Lisa merely pulls. “You make a terrible broom,” she remarks as she stops to catch her breath. 

“I think I have floor burn,” Soojin whines, cheek pressed against the hardwood floor. 

“Serves you right!” Lisa yelps in return and, without forewarning, collapses atop Soojin. When there is no protest and the body beneath her doesn’t squirm, Lisa says, “You did something human again, didn’t you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Soojin grouses, “We’re human. All we do is human things.”

“No.” The airiness is as unnatural to Lisa as snow is to the tropics. “Something you regret. That you’re replaying in your head how you should have done it differently but can’t.”

Over the fans and the hum of the half cooperating AC, the sounds of sirens cut through the afternoon.

“Story of my life.” 

“You miss her.” Lisa wriggles and rolls until her body is flush with Soojin. “She back yet?”

Lifting her head, Soojin turns. Her eyes cross as they focus on the face inches away. “Tonight.” 

“When you see her after the performance—” Lisa closes her eyes and yawns, “—tell her I say hi.”

The performance earns a standing ovation. In the green room the atmosphere is electric. For a midseason performance, the reception is glowing and the reviews are promising. 

“Drinks at Cantina’s!” A voice bellows and the response it earns is deafening. 

“Soojin, dear, your stage presence,” Gloria, the tall woman molded in clay and forged in the image of an Amazonian, sidles into Soojin’s side. Manicured nails creep across the exposed skin of her arm, leaving in their wake faint trails of red. “Radiant. Stunning. Exquisite.” The inflection of her voice dips and the lids of her eyes flutter as she suggests, “Why don’t you let me show you just how much I revere your craft? Hm?”

“ off, Glo