The gala itself loomed larger than he expected.
It was not a full performance, only a preview segment before donors and academy families at the fall fundraiser. But Bellcroft treated its public image seriously, and being the scholarship student newly elevated to feature position made Ethan newly legible in ways he had not sought. Naomi coached him on speaking if introduced. The wardrobe office located a clean black jacket in his size.
Ms. Sterling drilled him mercilessly on entrances, cutoffs, and the danger of letting nerves speed up everything that should breathe. “You are not there to astonish them by existing,” she said. “You are there to play.”
Dana, meanwhile, worried about things Ethan barely noticed.
Parking. Whether her thrift-store dress looked respectable enough for a gala. Whether she would say the wrong thing to donors. Whether success would begin to cost them emotional prices neither of them yet understood.
One evening while folding towels, she told her sister on speakerphone, “I want doors to open for him. I just don’t want him to feel like he has to become grateful furniture in someone else’s success story.” Ethan, at the table pretending to review vocabulary, listened hard. The phrase lodged deep.
The gala preview took place under lights warmer and more flattering than any part of Ethan’s daily life.