“Behave, bicha,” Candy said in Spanish and gave her 'the look.' Kit immediately chilled out. As nanny and maternal surrogate, Candy exuded authority.

Snoopy Gudelia looked askance at Candy. “What did you say?”

“I said bicha in Spanish.”

“I know what you said,” Gudelia smiled maliciously. “You have a naughty tongue.”

“I say bicha,” Candy explained. “It means child.”

“That's what they say in El Salvador,” said Gudelia, looking down her long hooked nose.

“I worked with I lot of people from El Salvador, but I'm from Mexico,” Candy said, placing the emphasis on Mexico.

“Sure you are,” said Gudelia, a derisive gleam in her eyes.

Mr. Leonard suddenly took a gooseneck desk lamp, twisted it heavenward and turned the classroom lights off. Everyone was immersed in pitch darkness. Those assembled let out a roller-coaster sigh. Then the dark dispelled, replaced by dramatic lighting, when the gooseneck lamp snapped on.

Mr. Leonard, scooping up stray confused script pages, pointed at Candy.

“Read the part of Marta,” he said. “Take it from the top.

“What is this take it from the top?”

“Come up and read from the top of the page.”

“My hair hurts when I read English. I'm the babysitter, not actress. I never do this before,” she insisted. “I'm shy.”

Jason was going nuts, ready to foist on Candy Mylanta's teachings, bidding her to drink of its deep transformative wisdom, so that she might stop limiting herself.

“What's your name?” Mr. Leonard asked.

“Candy.”

“Where you from?”

“Mexico.”

“The blond hair fooled me. I thought you were Swedish. C'mon up here, Candy,” he said sweetly. “English, Swedish, Yiddish, that's not the point. Not everyone can do this thing we call acting. But you can. I saw the way you spoke to that child. You have the power, the authority.”

After some seconds, his strong hand coerced her to the oaken desk.

“Pretend this desk is an ironing board,” Mr. Leonard said, still in sweet mode. Candy looked dumbly at the printed words on the page and after prolonged freefall. . .

“Since moving to this country. . . (Country she pronounced cone-tree.) Since moving to this country, I obses-ob. . . Mister,” she turned to Mr. Leonard, “What is this word?”

“OBBBBB-SESSSSSS-SIVE-LYYYY,” he gave it the full lip treatment. “Obessively. Like you're crazy about it.”

“Ob-sess-sivel-y clean.” There were yawning pauses, big enough to drop a schoolbus. She grimaced, her eyes desperately sought the next snatch of dialog. “I am always worried about how my visitors will see my house.”

The harsh desk light accentuated Candy's high cheekbones: she seemed so lost and yet each new word gave her confidence.

“Only in this country, there are no visitors. Bleach and ammonia, these chemicals with cheery brand names are slowly eroding my sense of smell. So I cannot smell the stench-filled stuff Abel and I are getting so deep in. All I want it a hug, and he gives me a new credit card. Clean, clean, all you do Marta is clean. . . Abel, all you do is work work work. . .”

Candy said the last in a slow moan, lowered her head.

“That's my Marta!” cried Mr. Leonard. He genuflected, smiled his laser-whites, permeated by creator's pride. He looked at the wall clock. “Good job, Candy. OK, before calling it a night, let's share thoughts and opinions.”

The gravy-brown folding chairs were drawn in a circle.

“Tennesee Williams it ain't,” Miss Fenwick said with a cackle.

Eraclito put his camera down and said, “Gudelia had a point. This is a telenovala. Soapy opera. . .”

“Soap opera,” corrected Gudelia's trapdoor mouth.

“Opera?” repeated Jasmin. “Let's have songs and music. It's good for the people. We can cry and sing. I can dance. Napoleon, he plays the beautiful guitar.”

“I can make songs,” Napoleon asserted, lifting up his guitar..

“I have a song,” blurted Jason. He unfolded it, smudged and wrinkled from his pocket. “Too Many Marias.”

Meanwhile, Kaminsky, the long fallow movie director, gazed down at Eraclito's camera on the floor, picked it up and held it in his palm. “You can take a million pictures with one of these. Where's the art?” he scoffed.

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