There was a sense of being on the verge of something extraordinary. Of having a breakthrough just within her reach. Not only with dancing, but with life in general. She was in love with a man. A kind, thoughtful, wonderful, occasionally grouchy man who never left her guessing, never failing to give her a sense of security. Belonging.
A man who made love to her like a million more times wouldn’t be enough.
Her friendships—with the aspiring dancers she ran into at every open call—sprouted buds and bloomed a little more each day. With Leo knee-deep in crafting the Fixes and her evenings unavailable, thanks to her fake job, they spent afternoons together. Talking, cooking together in his kitchen, thoroughly messing up his sheets every chance they got.
In the evenings, she got to know Cori better, eating cheap from the street carts on the floor of their closet-rooms and listening to K-pop. They walked the city and visited sites from their favorite movies, people watched in Central Park and gave each other back massages when their muscles burned from overuse.
Yes, for a week, she walked around in a near-stupor, but with Valentine’s Day looming, the fissure in her gut widened. With every open call, she came a little closer to reaching the final cut, but never quite got there, always being passed over for someone with more experience. And so on the morning of Valentine’s Day, Reese stood shivering in the cold, waiting to be called into the theater where her favorite musical was performed nightly, one final shot in her pocket. The longest shot of all.
Over the last seven days, she’d lost herself in the experience of being in love, with a man and a city, not allowing herself to reach this point of near-hopelessness. Oh, it was upon her now, though. Her limbs were almost numb with the knowledge that her bags were all but packed, her sublet running out tonight, and it was a very bad time to lose feeling in her joints.
Reese shook out her hands. Stretched her heel up to her butt, listening to the counts through the door, already knowing them by heart. She went over them in her head nonetheless, trying to psych herself up for the biggest moment of her life. This needed her full concentration. Leo’s image continued to demand her attention until she gave up trying to banish it. No way around it, she wasn’t only dancing for herself. This was for them, too.
The metal side door of the theater groaned open and a man stepped out with a clipboard. “Reese Stratton.”
“That’s me,” she said, pasting on a confident expression. Hefting up her bag, she followed him into the theater, her stomach rippling with trepidation at the sight of the six-person panel. They were spread out at a long table, identical reusable cups in front of them. They looked bored as they gave her a now familiar once-over, already making notations strictly based on her appearance.
In the last row of the orchestra, dancers sat side by side. The lucky few out of dozens who’d made it to the next round so far—and that didn’t take into account the other hopefuls still waiting outside for their shot.
Reese kept her poise, dropped her bag and took her position on stage. The music started and she vanished into the moves, casting herself as the femme fatale with nothing left to lose, which couldn’t be the further from the truth.
She had everything to lose.
The audition went by in a blur, muscle memory taking over, every note of the song pounding in her blood. She was transported back to her childhood bedroom in Wisconsin where she danced in front of the floor-length mirror hanging from her closet, a framed Wicked poster reflected in the wall behind her. How many hours did she spend trying to roll a fedora down her arm and catch it without looking?
And then it was over.
The music stopped and she held her pose for three counts, before folding her hands in front of her waist and waiting, controlling her breathing as best as possible when the wind was struggling in and out of her lungs.
They passed her headshot right to left and leaned back to confer.
“Wait in the back, please,” one of the panel members said without looking up. “We’ll call you up for the next round.”
She started, positive she’d heard them wrong.
The one who’d spoken raised her eyebrow.
Reese nodded and mumbled a thank you, jetting off the stage before she could change her mind. But her heart was in her mouth the entire walk to the rear of the theater. The back row dwellers welcomed her to their ranks with nods of approval and she sat, forcing herself to acknowledge the accomplishment of making it past round one. Up against the best in the business. If nothing else, she’d have this memory and she’d savor it.