Dani asked for her hot dog to be plain except for a little ketchup. Judging by the vendor’s reaction, one would have thought she’d requested the world to be made flat. He gave Mark an approving nod after he ordered his with the works. Mustard and relish and who knew what else smothering the poor hot dog. Another way she differed from a native.

Lunches in hand, they strolled along the street. Somehow they ended up at the south end of Central Park again. Mark must have planned their path; she hadn’t paid really attention to where they were going. But when she noted a free bench under a shady tree, she was glad they’d backtracked.

She sat down, and Mark joined her on the other side of the bench. She sort of wished he were sitting closer, but as soon as the thought crossed her mind, she mentally laughed at herself. She hardly knew this guy. But she’d already taken him out of the Ted Bundy category; since leaving the museum, he’d had plenty of opportunities to pull something and had been nothing other than a gentleman. A gentleman she could relate to and laugh with, and who really did know about the best hot dog stand ever. Her dog was so good, she couldn’t help roll her eyes with pleasure, even if it did have only ketchup on it.

They sat and ate in silence for a few minutes, and during that time, she made a point of not looking at him too closely, because that would make her want to get to know him better. Just because she’d taken him out of the stalker-killer category didn’t mean that she would be around long enough for him to be a real prospect. She was leaving New York. In ten days, she would fly back to the Midwest, where she’d do her best to be happy.

She took another bite of her hot dog, studiously keeping her gaze on a squirrel — and away from admiring how well Mark’s chest and shoulders filled out his shirt.

Finished with his food, Mark crunched up his hot dog wrapper in one hand then draped the other arm across the back of the bench. “So why won’t you be going back to the museum with me?”

Dani glanced at him, imagining herself scooting over and sitting in the crook of his arm, which was now so available. Instead, she made a deliberate show of chewing to finish the bite in her mouth as she tried to come up with a way to answer his question that wouldn’t make her look like a silly farm girl, even though she hadn’t grown up on a farm — just near some.

She’d have to tell him about why she’d come in the first place, something she didn’t exactly relish the idea of doing. She swallowed and then grabbed a napkin and wiped some ketchup from the corner of her mouth. When she couldn’t stall any longer, she finally said, “You’ll laugh.”

“No way.” Mark gave a firm shake of his head. “Come on. Tell me.”

For a moment, she bit her lip and actually let herself eye him — but he was smiling back, so she couldn’t take in every inch without being obvious about it. His smile was enough, though — warm and inviting … supportive.

“I’m a walking cliché,” she warned him.

“Hey, I’m rather partial to clichés.” He grinned, showing his teeth, and she couldn’t help but laugh. “As they say, time will tell if the grass is always greener. And it seems that the cat’s got your tongue.”

She laughed. “Plus, ‘There’s no time like the present’ and ‘I’m scared out of my wits’?”

“How about ‘opposites attract’?” He let that cliché sink in for a second before adding a caveat, “Of course, we aren’t opposites, so that cliché stinks.”

She tried to let the implication slip away, to not react to the very real attraction she felt for him and the implied attraction he felt for her, cliché or not.

He leaned forward. “Come on. Tell me.”

Dani crossed her legs to stall then finally said, “Okay, fine.” She took a breath and dove in. “I came here after Christmas and gave myself six months to make it into a Broadway show.”

Yep, total cliché. Cat’s out of the bag and all that. She hurried on to rescue what positive opinion he might have created of her.

“I don’t expect to get a leading role or anything, especially starting out. But I’ve studied voice and dance for most of my life, and I’m a decent actress, too. I’d be happy with a chorus role and the chance to work up to bigger parts over the years. But here we are, six months later, with nothing to show for it but three jobs I’ve been fired from because I couldn’t get a replacement while I was auditioning. So I’m heading home. My flight is in ten days. And there you go. That’s why I’m not going back to the museum.” She paused, waiting for the expected rolling of the eyes.

Mark didn’t do any such thing. Instead, he looked genuinely interested. “And?”

Dani couldn’t help but tilt her head in surprise, and a smile threatened to curl the corners of her mouth. “And … isn’t the rest obvious? I never got a part, and I’m out of money.”

She’d known all of that for weeks now, but saying it aloud, hearing herself say the words, made the whole thing real and painful. And pathetic. She looked away, searching for the squirrel, but it must have run off. She shrugged. “Funny how time can go slow and so fast at the same time. When I got here in the winter, six months sounded like an eternity, and some days felt like they’d never end.”

“Especially when you’re working dead-end jobs,” Mark said. He spoke as if he knew.

“What do you mean?” Dani asked, hoping against hope that maybe he didn’t think she was a loser for coming to New York like some backwards hick with nothing to call her own but stars in her eyes, a girl who knew more about milking cows than the theater.

I’m not that girl.

Mark leaned back. “Let me guess what your last six months have been like.”

Dani folded her arms in challenge. “Go for it.”

“You’ve worked any job you could get to pay rent and to eat. You probably share a small apartment with several others to cut costs. Auditions and callbacks rarely fit with your work schedule, so you try to get time off, but after doing that a couple of times, your bosses have had to ‘reluctantly’ let you go. So you’re suddenly free for auditions, but broke. And so the cycle continues.”

“Exactly!” Dani said with wonder in her voice. “I’ve been fired three times. I’ve relied on temp work mostly. How did you know? Are you an actor too?” She hadn’t seen him at any auditions, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything; the city had a huge number of theaters, and she hadn’t shown up at that many auditions, thanks to her efforts to not starve or end up homeless.

He seemed to want to hedge, his head tilting back and forth, before he answered. “I’m a musician. I play the oboe. I know all about trying to get the gigs, including auditioning to play for Broadway. Kinda sucks, doesn’t it?” He took a big bite of hot dog, almost as if he were biting the head off some casting director.

Dani couldn’t help but laugh; she had felt that way more times than she could count. “Then you understand why I’m going home. The six months are over, and it’s past the end of chasing a dream. Time to return to reality.” She brushed her palms together to rid them of crumbs from her bun.

Mark started shaking his head rapidly, but he held up a finger to tell her to wait as he chewed and swallowed. “Six months isn’t enough to test a dream. Obviously I haven’t heard you sing or seen you dance or any of that. But I can recognize the fire when I see it. You’ve had it for a long time, haven’t you?” He said it as if he could tell that she’d dreamed of making it here since she wore pigtails. “You really aren’t past the end of your dream, are you?”

He probably knew her type all too well. Over the years, he’d surely seen a parade of wannabe actors and singers and dancers.

She didn’t trust herself to speak at first. Then she cleared her throat and managed, “Of course the fire doesn’t go out this fast. Making it has been a dream since I was five.”

“And you’re going to let six measly months and how many auditions — what, twelve or so? — change all that? No way.”

Nine, she thought, mentally correcting him. He’d think she was a bigger loser if he knew that number, or that she’d been called back twice. This was an awfully big pond, and no one here cared that back home, she’d been an awfully big fish in a tiny pond. Out here, she might as well forget thinking of it as a pond; this was an ocean, and she was drowning. Small or big doesn’t matter; I’m not even a real fish.

She couldn’t answer his question, because yes, she was going home. Yes, she was giving up on a dream she’d held for most of her life. When he didn’t say anything either, a thick silence slowly descended between them. But something was held suspended in that silence, something she couldn’t identify or name. A connection.

Suddenly, she didn’t feel so lonely in this vast city of millions. She was going home in a matter of days — she could count it in hours, if she wanted to — and she didn’t want to leave Mark behind.

Why not? I just met him. Why should I care about him? He can’t possibly care about me. Her stomach went heavy and flat; she had no more appetite, even though this was, as Mark had promised, the best hot dog she’d ever tasted. She searched for something to say to end the silence; it was growing uncomfortable, and she couldn’t bear to think that what she felt as a connection with Mark was nothing more than a strand of pity, even if he had hinted at attraction with his list of clichés.

After forcing a smile onto her face, Dani tucked her hair behind one ear and leaned her head against her hand, with one elbow propped onto the back of the bench. “Okay, so if six months isn’t enough, enlighten me. How long did it take you to make it?”