I started off too quietly.
Anyone who knew anything about theatre would advise against doing “Memory” for an audition. It was too well-known, almost to the point of cliché. And it was hard to sing. Not just on a technical level; it didn’t work if you couldn’t pull up the emotion to bring it home. And that wasn’t easy to do without any preparation. I didn’t understand why Cal was having me do it.
It was a song that built, but I knew almost immediately that I’d put myself at a disadvantage. Beginning where I did, in a rasp of a whisper, meant that I was going to have to climb that crescendo in bigger leaps and bounds than I usually did.
When I was fourteen, I’d brought the house down with this song. I’d had nothing—and everything—to give. My voice was my ticket, my chance.
But I hadn’t understood the song. Not really.
I’d pretended back then—and I’d done a good job of it—but this? This was real. This was true. I felt the song. Felt it in my bones. The despair, the regret, and beneath all of that, the hope that remained, despite everything.
Closing my eyes, I let the room fall away, let the audience, Cal, the whole reason I was here, disappear.
I sounded good. Not perfect, but good. Honest.
I reached my favorite lyric—“Touch me, it’s so easy to leave me”—and really put my teeth into it. Unfortunately, as my voice found that final, reaching note, it cracked.
Cracked.
And that was the final nail in the coffin of this audition.
There was almost no point in continuing, but I did. Because I could.
And I did it with a fucking flourish.
As the song reached its crescendo, I released my grip on the piano. Stepped forward. Flung my arms open and let my voice carry me to the end. As the song ended, the final notes plinking away in complete silence, I opened my eyes.
I scanned my audience.
Nothing.
“Thank you for your time,” Cal said. “We’ll be in touch.”
And just like that, I was dismissed.
CHAPTER 4
I didn’t relax until I got home.
Armed with ice cream, an edible, and my favorite Chinese takeout, I dumped my mail onto the table in the hallway and prepared for an evening of self-pity and wallowing.
It was amazing how drained I felt. All I’d done was go to Midtown, sing two songs, and come home. Of course, it wasn’t as simple as that—I’d been thinking, worrying, preparing for the audition for weeks, focusing all my energy into making sure I blew the producers away. I’d kept my nerves at bay largely by working, by rehearsing, and now that I was done, everything seemed to slam into me at once.
I put the ice cream in the freezer, popped the edible, and grabbed an egg roll. I was too tired to even plate the rest of my food, instead back-flopping onto the couch in a move that would have gotten me very low scores from the Russian judge.
At least it was over.
I chewed my egg roll and stared at the ceiling.
The apartment was the only remaining proof that there had been a time when I’d been wealthy and successful and famous. It had been one of the first things I bought, after paying off my parents’ mortgage and pouring money into my sister’s college fund. At the peak of my career, I’d owned several places, but this was the only one that had ever felt like home.
It was the only thing I owned outright.
There was a slight jingle and then Fish leapt onto the couch arm before descending to sit on my stomach and stare at me. Well. The second thing I owned outright.
“You don’t eat egg rolls,” I told her, which was, of course, a lie.
If I didn’t go and put the rest of the Chinese food away, there was a strong possibility that she’d nudge a carton off the counter with her nose, causing it to fall and therefore spill its contents all over the floor in a feast fit for the smartest, cleverest, most annoying cat in all five boroughs.
As a distraction, I ate the rest of the egg roll and gave Fish a scratch under her chin, which was her favorite place to get scratched. Soon enough, she was purring and pressing her face against my palm, focused more on affection than food. For now.
“Maybe I’ll start teaching dance again,” I said.
I’d turned the basement unit of the brownstone into a dance studio and would offer private lessons or kids’ classes whenever I felt like the days were way too long and empty.
I always advertised as “Kathleen Rosenberg” but for the most part, students—or their parents, depending on the age—would figure out who I was pretty quickly. I didn’t mind, as long as they weren’t dicks about it. And if they weren’t, but they were clearly fans, I usually spent the last class teaching them some of my more famous dance moves from music videos or performances.
If they were dicks about it, I took them off the mailing list and wouldn’t let them reenroll. I hated discovering who were dicks about it.
I’d put a lot of my emotional well-being eggs into the basket of Harriet’s success as a composer and lyricist. And now I couldn’t even get a part that had been specifically written for me.
I really wished the edible would kick in soon because I could use some manufactured levity.
Fish meowed, but I could tell she didn’t really care about my woes. As long as I fed her, she didn’t care how I spent my time.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t let you go hungry.”
She rubbed her chin against mine.
At least I had the apartment. When I first bought it, I’d filled it with the kind of expensive, uncomfortable, beautiful things that a star like me was expected to have. Things that looked good on MTV Cribs—which I’d been featured on.
But after everything went to hell, I sold most of those things off—annoyingly, for a fraction of the price—and replaced them with stuff that I actually liked. Almost none of it had been new, and definitely not at the same price point as my previous furniture, but it was comfortable and cozy and mine.
It all showed a little wear and tear these days, but I kind of liked it that way. There was a chair in the corner with a pillow over the seat because there was a huge rip in the cushion. I’d moved an end table over one of my larger rugs when I’d spilled wine on it. And the bedspread in my bedroom was in desperate need of a revamp, but I kept putting it off. Sure, it was starting to fray at the edges—thanks to Fish and her claws—but it was soft and familiar and warm.
It was a metaphor for my life.
I let out a sigh deep enough that Fish dug her claws into my chest as it heaved her upward.
Underneath me, I felt my phone buzz with an incoming call.