Roz laughed too. “It’s going to take more than that to get me running,” she said.
That’s my girl, Mick almost said, as if he was proud of her, but he quickly caught himself. His girl? What the fuck was that? “So what will life after Broadway be like for you?” he asked her.
Roz turned serious again, and Mick could tell she wasn’t in a comforting place. “Totally different,” she said. “My baby brother owns this restaurant in Belt Buckle, Tennessee, and he’s---”
She started to continue, but Mick laughed again.
She smiled. “What’s so funny?”
“Belt Buckle, Tennessee?” he asked.
“Belt Buckle, Tennessee,” Roz said. “It actually does exist. And my brother actually owns a restaurant there. It’s a tiny restaurant, like the town, but he wants me to manage the place and help him out. He wants me to become his partner.”
“What will be the partnership split?”
“Fifty-fifty,” Roz said. “I won’t go in for less.”
Mick nodded. “Good girl.” He considered her. “But are you sure that is what you want?”
Roz thought about this. “What I want? No. It’s not what I want. But is it what I need? Yeah. It sounds like a good fit.”
“For you,” Mick asked, “or for your brother?”
Roz knew what he meant. But still. “For both of us,” she said firmly. “I can’t keep chasing an illusion. I’m getting too damn old. I’ve got to get on with it.”
Mick studied her. Once again, she couldn’t see the forest for the trees. “You’re going to settle for less, in other words?” he asked her.
Roz looked at him. “You saw me on that stage. You saw me doing what I do. What did you think? I have what it takes to be a star, Mr. Sinatra? Do I have that natural ability you spoke of?”
Mick suddenly didn’t want to be blunt. “I’m no expert.”
“You’re a member of the public. You’re the person who buys the tickets that keep people like me in a job. In your opinion do I have what it takes?”
Mick exhaled. “For that role, no,” he said firmly. “You were one of the worse on stage.”
Roz smiled weakly. “The knife and then the twist. What a gentleman you are.”
“I’m no gentleman,” Mick responded forcefully. “That I will never be. But I can lie to you if you like.”
Roz shook her head. “No. I wouldn’t like. And thanks for not going there. It’s just hard to know that . . . It’s hard to know that your dream may not come true.”
Her words touched Mick in a way he didn’t think was possible. And he said words that were not in his character to speak. “Anything I can do?” he asked her.
Roz was about to say that there was nothing, but then that fateful hope began to swell within her again. “You’re a friend of Barry’s?”
Mick hesitated. If she went there, she would prove herself to be no different than all the other come-uppers he had to deal with on a daily basis. She would disappoint him. “Yes,” he said. “The director is a friend of mine.”
But then Roz didn’t go there. She couldn’t.
Mick pressed the issue. “Why do you ask?” he asked her.
She shook her head. She was in a tough place, but she knew asking for favors would only make it worse. “No reason.”
“Do you want me to speak with him?”
She looked at Mick. “And say what?”
“I will tell him to put you in his play.”
Roz considered him. “But what you saw of my talent didn’t impress you.”
“That doesn’t mean you aren’t talented. You’ve been picked before. You’ve had roles before.”
“But it means I’m not talented to you,” Roz said. “A member of the buying public.”
“One of those I-know-absolutely-nothing-about-talent member of the buying public,” Mick corrected her.
Roz smiled. He was being nice. She appreciated it. “So what are you saying? I shouldn’t throw in the towel? I should keep plugging at it?”
“You should have thrown in the towel years ago.” Mick looked at her. “And you know it.”
Roz stared at him. She never met anybody so brutally direct. “Better late than never, right?” she asked.
“I’ll talk to Barry if you want me to.”
She shook her head. “Thanks,” she said, “but no thanks. It wouldn’t be right.”
Mick relaxed. All was right with the world again.
“If he wanted me in his play,” Roz continued, “he would have chosen me when he had the chance. If he’s forced to put me in, I’ll just be one of those air-headed actresses screwing her way to the top, or at least that’ll be the talk. No thanks. If it happens for me, it happens because of me. And my talent.” She smiled. “Or lack thereof.”