The stage manager smiled, then nodded at his assistant.
“Curtains!” the assistant yelled, and the curtain rose on a stage overcrowded with pretty, shapely ladies.
Mick leaned back. He had planned to poke his head in, give his regards to Barry, and keep it moving. He wasn’t in New York for the hell of it. He had things to do. But a stage bursting at the seams with pretty ladies in leotards? He decided to stick around.
It began the way Mick suspected most auditions began. Girls dancing and prancing in the full group, then in smaller groups, then in twosomes. But it was during this part of the audition, the twosomes, where one of the twosomes stood out to Mick.
It wasn’t that the two ladies were great dancers. Neither one of them were great. The blonde was reasonably good, she had some strut in her stuff, but the black girl was just okay. But she was the one that caught his attention. She knew the routine better than her partner, she was excellent technically, but her execution sucked. She moved as if she was trying to remember the next dance step, as if she was trying to get it technically right, but she didn’t seem to have that natural feel for what she was doing the way her partner did. And there was no rhythm to her movements, just movements, which couldn’t be good for a dancer.
So it wasn’t the dancing that got his attention. It was her. It was her big brown eyes that looked soft and hard, cheerful and sad, all at the same time. Mick crossed his legs and stared at her. Because her eyes told stories that contradicted each other. It was as if she was brave and then scared, and then brave all over again. She danced as if she was teetering on the brink of something that could be akin to magic, or total disaster. He couldn’t figure out which. But it was a sight to see. He’d heard about the desperation of these show business wannabes every time he was in New York or L.A., but he’d never seen it so starkly.
But it wasn’t that the dancer was desperate for attention, or even success as the world would define it. Mick didn’t see it as that kind of desperation. It was the kind he saw when he was a kid at the carnival. The animals would be caged and on display. But you could see the anguish in their eyes. They didn’t want to be there. They wanted to roam free, to finally be who they were meant to be, but they couldn’t figure out how to break the chains. Because they were desperate too. Like the dancer he couldn’t stop watching, they were desperate to live. They wanted to know what uncluttered, unburdened living was all about. Mick knew that kind of desperation. He felt it, he became it, every day that he woke up.
He leaned against Barry. “Who is that?” he asked him in a lowered voice.
Barry leaned against Mick. “Which one? The blonde?”
“The other one.”
“The black girl? That’s Rosalind. Roz Graham. Been on the circuit for years.”
“No success?”
“She had some moderate success some years back. I even hired her a time or two when I was directing off-Broadway. But like most success around here, hers didn’t translate long term either.”
“No big hits on her resume?”
“No,” Barry said. “But it doesn’t take a big hit. Getting parts, no matter how small, is usually enough of a taste to keep them itching for more.”
“Think she’s good enough for your play?”
Barry shook his head. “Not from what I’m seeing now. She’s not a strong enough dancer for what I’m going to need them to do. And she’s got some years on her now. She’s not the fresh face twenty-something kid she used to be. Which is another strike against her. My chorus girls need to be girls, not some dame pushing thirty-three.”
Mick leaned away from Barry. And continued to watch Roz. Because he knew that was part of the desperation too. The years were closing in. Time was running out. That one big break she thought was going to set her career on fire was growing dimmer with each passing day. Mick recognized something in her. He recognized her quiet scream.