Willow
Two weeks later, Angie dropped me off at the audition.
“Looks packed,” I said, staring out the passenger side window at the crowd in front of HCT.
“Hamlet’s a big play,” she said. “They need to cast lots of gravediggers and guards and traveling jesters.” She nudged my arm. “Break a leg.”
“Thanks,” I said, my mouth bone-dry. “I’ll meet you at The Scoop when I’m done.”
“I’ll have chocolate waiting.”
The theater lobby was bustling with auditioners, college age to seniors. I recognized a few people from Harmony, as well as a few college students I didn’t. I spied a couple of older girls hanging out together, talking with their heads bent. Ophelia wannabes, maybe. They gave me a shared glance and turned their backs.
A middle-aged woman with dark hair in a loose bun was behind the sign-in table. She peered at me through thick-rimmed glasses. “Name?”
“Willow Holloway,” I said, my heart pounding.
She made a check mark on her list. “And what role are you reading for?”
“Ophelia. Where are the auditions being held?”
“Through there,” she said, jerking her thumb at the main theater entrance.
“We’re all auditioning together? Onstage?”
“Correct.”
“We’re not being called in a room to read alone? For the director only?”
“Mr. Ford doesn’t do it that way,” she said, her expression placid. “He likes to keep things open and transparent. Break a leg. Next?”
I stepped inside the theater and saw the seats were two-thirds full with prospective Hamlet cast members.
Holy shitballs.
I nearly turned around and walked back out. No way I could perform my monologue in front of all these people. I couldn’t even do it in front of Angie, no matter how many times she’d pestered me over the last few weeks.
If you can’t perform a monologue in front of people, how can you perform an entire play?
“I can’t,” I whispered behind my teeth. “This is stupid. I shouldn’t be here.”
Yet I forced myself into a seat in the back row, near the door. This dumb audition was my best and only plan to dispel the darkness or crack the ice around me. Doing nothing hadn’t worked. I had to try.
And if I humiliate myself, so be it.
I closed my eyes and thought about the opening words to my monologue.
I couldn’t remember them.
I opened my eyes, heart now crashing in my chest. The director, Martin Ford, was setting himself up onstage. I recognized him from the HCT website. A lanky guy with flyaway hair and large eyes. He looked friendly. Welcoming. I still felt like I was going to puke.
My eyes darted around, searching the crowd for anyone who looked as nervous as I was.
My gaze landed on Isaac Pearce.
He stood against the back wall, alone, hands jammed inside the pockets of his leather jacket. Instead of nervous, he looked bored, like he was waiting for the bus. His handsome, chiseled face was expressionless. Then it turned toward me and stared. A flicker of disbelief, as if he couldn’t believe I was there. Then he blinked and his gaze darted away.
“I see you, Isaac Pearce,” I muttered under my breath. “Time to share your wisdom with the newbie.”
I got up and went toward the back of the theater. As I came closer, his stormy eyes flared with surprise before shifting back to neutral.
Holy God, he’s beautiful.
Looking at Isaac Pearce was like window-shopping: sighing over something you desperately wanted but couldn’t afford. And yet…the impossibility of my being with him—or any guy—made it easier to be bold.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hey,” he replied, looking straight ahead.
“I don’t think we’ve officially met. I’m Willow.”
He glanced at me, then away. “Isaac.”
“So.” I put my back against the wall, mirroring his stance. “Last time I saw you, you were punching that asshole, Ted Bowers.”
“Sounds about right.”
“That was two weeks ago.” I lowered my voice. “The rumor mill says you were kicked out.”
He shifted against the wall. “I left. My decision.”
“You weren’t expelled for punching Ted?”
He glanced down at me. “Does it matter?”
“I guess not. Anyway, I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Ted was getting all up in my space and you made him back off. I feel a little responsible.”
Isaac shrugged. “No big deal.”
“It was to me,” I said. “I’ve been wanting to thank you.”
“Okay.”
I blinked. “So…Thanks.”
“Sure.”
I sniffed a laugh. “Has anyone told you that you talk too much?”
His gaze slid to me slowly. “No.”
The blood drained from my face as I remembered why Isaac had been held back for a year.
“I’m sorry. Bad joke. I’m just nervous as hell.”
“So am I.”
I glanced up at him, eyes narrowed. “Yeah, right. You look calm as…something really calm.”
His lips twitched. “It’s all an act.”
“Groan,” I said, and laughed.
So Mr. Pearce, you have a sense of humor.
“Thanks, I needed that.” I heaved a shaky breath. “I wasn’t expecting us to audition in front of each other. I thought we’d be in a room alone, not in front of a firing squad.”
“Martin likes to keep things open,” Isaac said.
“So I’ve heard. You’ve worked with him a lot, yes?”
He nodded.
I bit my lip. Under normal circumstances, his reticence would’ve chased me off. Tonight, my nerves jangled so hard they loosened my jaw, and I couldn’t stop talking.
“I saw you in Oedipus last month,” I said.
“Mm.”
“You probably hear this constantly, but you were incredible.”
His sigh sounded irritated, as if he’d expected better from me. “Thanks.”
“You do hear that a lot, I suppose,” I said. “One more compliment just bounces off of you, right?”
“I said thanks.”
He doesn’t want to hear it. Shut up.
“How about this?” I squared my shoulders to him. “Watching you act was like looking through a doorway into another world. A place where extraordinary things happen. I got to escape by watching you. So instead of a general compliment, I want to thank you for taking me somewhere else for a couple hours. I needed it.” I blinked hard. “Is that better?”
He looked down at me. I felt him in my cells. A connection. A piece of his power or magic or charisma directed entirely at me. As the moment held and wavered, I wondered what it would be like onstage with him, wrapped entirely in that energy. Going somewhere together.
Impossible, I thought and looked away, breaking the moment. He’s a genius. I’m less than an amateur.
Isaac’s deep voice cut into my thoughts. “Thank you.”
Two slow words. Nothing more. Yet they seem to say everything. Now when I looked up, his angular face had softened and the storm behind his gray-green eyes was calmer. I stared, trapped in his gaze once again, wrapped in that energy.
“You’re welcome,” I said.
Martin Ford called the group’s attention and asked everyone to find their seats. Without a word, Isaac and I pushed off the wall and moved toward the rows of worn, red velvet chairs. He stood in the aisle and gestured me in, as if he were holding a door open for me. I shrugged out of my jacket, and we sat side by side, his elbow resting on the armrest between us, his shoulder inches from mine. Unlike when Ted Bowers was in my space, I felt none of the suffocating tension being this close to Isaac. The scent of cigarette smoke and masculine shower soap wafted over me, and my rampaging nerves were calmed.
Martin Ford strode into a yellow circle of light on the stage, His gray hair stood up slightly in places, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows. His smile was friendly and reassuring, but his voice was all business.
“Thank you all for being here. I’m so pleased to see such a turnout. When I call your name, please step to the center of the stage, introduce yourself and tell us the monologue you’ll be performing. We’ll give no feedback tonight. Callbacks will be sent by email tomorrow morning. Anyone called back will be expected to be here tomorrow night, same time. If you can’t make it, you’ll forfeit any spot you might’ve had in the show. Similarly, if you cannot commit to the rehearsal schedule posted on the website, you won’t be considered for a role.” He clapped his hands together. “Enough with the boring technicalities. Let’s get started.”
I expected alphabetical order. Or perhaps a system of seniority with the veteran actors going first. Instead, names were called at random, with unknowns following people I’d seen in Oedipus. The woman who played Jocasta performed a riveting monologue from King Lear. Another man performed a piece from Midsummer Night’s Dream. A female college student auditioned with Juliet’s “What’s in a name?” speech from Romeo and Juliet.
I leaned in to Isaac. “Did I miss the memo that said we had to audition with Shakespeare?”
The barest flicker of a smile touched Isaac’s lips, but before he could answer, Martin Ford called his name.
The entire theatre craned to look back, like a spotlight trained on him the entire time it took him to stand and walk down to the stage. There, the actual light spilled over him, glinting gold in his brown hair. His hands were still in his jacket pockets and I wondered if he was going to act like that. A prizefighter tying one arm behind his back to give everyone else a chance.
“I’m Isaac Pearce.” He turned his head in my direction. “My monologue is from A Streetcar Named Desire.”
I let out a slow breath of relief.
Not Shakespeare. Thank you.
My inhaled relief reversed in a shocked gasp as Isaac tore his hands from his pockets. His face morphed from neutral to arrogant rage so quickly, I had to blink to remind my eyes they were seeing the same man. One of his hands balled into a fist, the other jabbed accusingly at the air above the audience’s head as he began his monologue.
I watched, riveted, as he stalked the stage like a predatory animal. He tore off his jacket and flung it to the ground as if it were holding him back. He wore nothing but a white wife-beater underneath and the sight of his body clothed in that tight scrap of cotton stirred something in me that I thought had been suffocated to death.
Light filled in the lines of his muscles. A tattoo darkened his right bicep. Another on the inside of his left forearm. Skin and bone and power, stripped bare under the stage lights. Isaac turned inside-out, acting from the depths of his soul, with every atom in his body, every muscle, every sinew. He thundered that he was the “King around here” and everyone in that damn audience, including me, believed him.
When the words ended, the passion flowing out of Isaac shut off like a faucet. A brief bow, a muttered thanks, and he grabbed his jacket. He strode offstage, back up the aisle to reclaim his seat next to me.
His body was calm, yet it crackled a little. I could sense the last vestiges of his energy dissipating like steam. I stared as he laid his jacket over his knees. Stared at the bare bicep that was inches from me.
He kept looking straight ahead, then finally glanced at me.
“What?”
“Sorry,” I whispered back. “Can’t hear you over the ghost of Marlon Brando crying his eyes out.”
A tiny smile crooked Isaac’s lips. Twice I’d made him smile now. Come to think of it, the only other time I’d seen him smile was taking his bows after Oedipus.
“Willow Holloway?”
I froze.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. I have to follow that?
I swallowed the lump of raw nerves in my throat and started to rise to my feet.
“Any last words of advice?” I whispered.
I wasn’t expecting an answer and so had kept moving out of my seat, but Isaac’s hand wrapped around my arm, gently but firmly holding me back. A jolt of electricity rocketing through me again, settling warm in my belly. His hand was warm through my sleeve, and instead of feeling trapped, my nerves were growing quiet under his touch.
“Don’t think about the words,” Isaac said. “Even if you fuck up or forget the lines, keep going.” He let go of my arm. “Just tell the story.”
Martin called my name again, and the audience started to look around for me. My eyes still held in Isaac’s.
“Tell the story,” I whispered. “Thanks.”
He nodded, and his gray-green eyes flicked toward the stage. Go.
I reluctantly broke away and walked down the aisle between the seats.
Tell the story.
That’s exactly what I didn’t do. I never did. I never could.
I took the three stairs to the stage and stood under the spotlight. Martin Ford, his stage manager, and the assistant director—the woman with the thick glasses who’d been signing us in—sat behind a table facing me. Behind them, the audience blurred into a sea of faceless spectators.
My own nervousness came roaring back on that stage with so many people watching me, rattling along my limbs, making my left leg tremble.
Fuck it, my character Rose was a nervous gal. I’d use the fear instead of fighting it.
“Hi, I’m Willow Holloway. I’ll be performing a monologue from William Mastrosimone’s The Woolgatherer.”
I bowed my head, took another breath and when I raised it again, I stopped pretending I knew how to act. I forgot about the “scene beats” and “breath technique” from the acting book I’d grabbed at the library. I took off the invisible jacket that was Willow and did what Isaac said.
I just told the story.
I told the audience my favorite thing was to sneak to the zoo at night and watch the elegant cranes stand in the still water. I put myself there, with the birds and their gentle quiet. My heart pounded as the loud boys with loud music came and threw rocks at the birds. I watched in horror as the birds’ legs “bent like straws”, and I shouted to make it stop, but the boys couldn’t hear me. They kept throwing rocks and tears streamed down my cheeks as I told the story of blood staining white feathers—
(blood on my white sheets)
—red, and of dark water growing still and quiet.
I told the story of how I ran to get the guard but when I came back it was too late. They were all dead. I told how I’d screamed and screamed—
(X threw the stone of his body against mine, and I broke, while inside I screamed and screamed)
—and didn’t stop until they took me away, stuck a needle in my arm and then I slept.
I finished the story of how they never caught the gang, my voice trembling in Rose’s soft, shy lilt, and how even if they did, it wouldn’t make the birds come alive again.
(I never told anyone because it won’t make me come alive again.)
Silence. I came back to myself, on that stage. I wiped my cheek and bowed my head to show the monologue was over, and when I looked up, they were all staring at me, mouths agape.
“Okay…thanks,” I said.
I hurried off the stage, not looking at anything but the nearest way out. I pushed through the side emergency exit, into the cold, bracing air.
I did it.
I didn’t care whether I got the part or not. All that mattered was that for the first time, I’d told the truth. Cloaked in other words, but still my truth.
I slumped against the wall. Tears streaked my cheeks and I couldn’t tell if they were mine or Rose’s.
Maybe it didn’t matter.