He played the first measures, thrilling her. As soon as he pressed the keys, the tension in his body was directed toward the music. His eyes were intense, but he swayed with the melody. Eleanor felt a flip in her stomach, watching him move.
He stopped abruptly. “Sing this.”
“What?”
“I want to hear you sing this.” His voice was quiet and deep. When he looked up, she was aware of having all of his attention, but he didn’t meet her eyes. “What is your tempo?”
They were so close, his gaze boring into her, before his eyes flicked away, then down. He was real, and he smelled like soap. It was difficult to move her body, as she was so struck by Don’s presence. She hummed the music. He played a section. “Like this?”
“Yes.”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
She crossed to center stage.
“Come forward,” Harry Flynn called from the audience. She stepped downstage. “Good.”
She looked toward the back of the house, black beyond the lights, and centered herself. For one moment, she tried to forget where she was. The song was about wanting something so much you can’t sleep. She took a breath, took one more step, and Don began to play.
The first three notes, the sorrowful sound, froze her, and she was sure she would forget the lyrics. But then he kept playing, and she continued, the words coming from her as if her mind had nothing to do with it. She sang, and her breath came full and easy, infusing her voice with depth and power. At her best, she felt her voice resonate in her head, her neck, her stomach, even where her lungs opened up against her ribs in her back. The music came from every inch of her.
As the music swelled to the bridge, she took a breath and stepped forward, her hands reaching out. Everything vanished except the music and the story she was telling.
Then Don stopped playing.
“Thank you,” Harry said.
Eleanor blinked.
“That was great,” Harry continued. “Thank you for coming in, Eleanor.”
Her cut had three more phrases left, but she gathered herself enough to smile, then infused her voice with as much happiness as she could. “Thank you!”
How did one walk across the stage like a star?
She took the music from Don’s outstretched hand. He watched her as if he wanted to ask her something but said nothing except, “Thank you.”
By the time she reached the wings, she had started to cry.
“You were in there a long time,” Maggie said, voice sharpened by jealousy. “You sounded beautiful.”
Eleanor was already walking to the door. “So did you.”
* * *
When she returned to their hotel, Eleanor found Rosie on the bed reading a guidebook.
She tossed it aside as soon as Eleanor was in the door. “How was it?”
Eleanor felt like she’d lived an entire lifetime in a few hours but wasn’t ready to speak of any of it yet. “What did you do all day?” she asked instead of answering.
Rosie barely hesitated before continuing. “I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art! I could have spent all day in the Egyptian wing, but then I found the medieval armor . . . I’ve never seen anything like that. Of course I’ve heard all about knights and such but seeing their suits of armor—to know someone wore that, and died in it—it was another thing altogether.”
Like auditioning for a Broadway show and meeting one’s idol—another thing altogether.
Rosie sighed. “I never want to go back home.”
Eleanor had not let herself think beyond today. She had stopped her thoughts outside the door to the audition, as if her life would hover there in perpetuity.
“You look like you need to eat,” Rosie said. “Do you want a nap?”
“No.” She’d given two phone numbers on her résumé: one for the hotel, the other for Pat’s store. She didn’t want her parents to pick up. Her eyes fell on the phone that sat between the narrow hotel beds. “Let’s go.”
Shopping was out of the question, so they explored the neighborhoods they’d circled on their map. Eleanor was glad Rosie had gone to the Met without her, since wandering galleries seemed like a waste of time when there was so much city to see. They walked until their blisters opened up again. Eleanor made Rosie stand outside the theaters with her at intermission. She’d heard about “second-acting”—sneaking into the theater with the smokers in order to stand in back—but at the last moment, she lost her nerve.
They ended up at another diner, trying matzo ball soup.
“You still haven’t told me anything about the audition.”
Eleanor put down her water glass and shrugged.
“We came all this way and you won’t even tell me.” Rosie looked perturbed.
How could she explain it? The experience was neither letdown nor triumph. If Eleanor tried to define it in words, she’d end up on one side of the issue and either get her hopes up or condemn herself.
“Was Don Mannheim there? Did he hear you sing?”
In Wisconsin, you couldn’t see outside at night; the windows would turn black. Her mother always pulled the curtains closed so people couldn’t see in, even though no one was ever in their yard but the pigs. In New York, the streetlamps were bright enough that the people were bathed in an orange glow and could be seen from inside the diner. A girl wearing jeans and a turtleneck that didn’t cover her stomach accepted a cigarette from a young man outside. She kissed his cheek, her mouth lingering over a day’s growth of beard.
“No, he wasn’t there,” Eleanor said, turning back to Rosie. “I don’t think the audition was as important as we thought.”
Rosie’s expression dimmed. “Really?”
Eleanor shrugged. “It was a waste of time and money.”
Rosie straightened her shoulders. “Well, there are two days left, and we won’t let this ruin them.”
But the trip wasn’t ruined. When they returned to the hotel that night, the front desk presented Eleanor with a written message.
She was due at the Plymouth Theatre the following day, ten o’clock. Prepare nothing. Wear high heels.
Chapter Four
This time there were only ten girls at the Plymouth. Impossible not to compare herself in a crowd this small. Eleanor was, without a doubt, the stockiest one. Three had long legs. One was thin as a rail. Another was Maggie.
“Hi,” Maggie said, a moment of panic showing on her face before she could mask it with a smile. “Glad to see you here.”