Page 31 of The Failed Audition

“Are you sure you want to do this?” John asks me seriously. He must see me hesitating, staring at the phone like it holds my future. “Once I make the call and get you in, I don’t want you to flake. Last thing I need is to owe some asshole club manager a favor.”

I let my heart guide me.

“I’m sure,” I tell him.

I’m all in.

I text my brother.Yeah. I landed the role.

ACT EIGHT

Only a week into my job and the manager of Phantom has already badgered metwiceabout amplifying my sex appeal on the aerial hoop, dangling from the ceiling.

My act, apparently, is too tame for the Vegas nightclub. But if I shake my ass anymore, I might as well walk down the strip to a triple X joint. Honestly, they probably pay better.

I knot the straps around my long knee-length coat, hiding my costume: a black corset, matching underwear, and fishnet stockings. I wobble in my five-inch silver stilettos as I depart from the club. I try to comb my fingers through my tangled dirty-blonde hair that poofs around my oval face.

Last time I tried to hang from the hoop, my hair in a bun, the manager cursed me out and called me Virgin Mary. Unfortunately the nickname has stuck around the workplace. But I’d rather not be fired in my first week, especially since John stuck his neck out to help me.

The upside: I’m in the air ninety-nine percent of the time at Phantom. And one of the girls gave me the address of a gym with circus apparatuses. I’ve signed up for a couple classes. Maybe I can strengthen my skills while I’m here.

And a plus has been the location. Right in the heart of The Masquerade. I only have an elevator ride down to The Red Death, where I plan to meet up with Camila and drink to surviving my very first week in Vegas.

Just as I exit the elevator, my phone rings. I read the caller ID: SHAY.

I’ve been screening his calls more than usual this week. I shelter my anxiety and slip into the nearest hallway bathroom, pressing the phone to my ear. “What’s up?” My eyes flit to a couple girls who fix their makeup by the mirror.

“You’ve been ignoring me,” he says. “I get why you’re lying to your parents because they’d flip their shit. But you’ve already told me the truth, so what the hell, Thora?” I hear the sound of a bouncy ball being tossed at a wall.

I picture him lying on the floor, against his bed. Throwing and catching the blue rubber toy. The Cincinnati gym, where we practiced together as teens, had a bouncy ball dispenser in the front, and we both spent way too many quarters for handfuls of them.

I say under my breath, “I’m just scared you’re going to tell me that I’m making a mistake.”

He’s silent. Biting his tongue, maybe. “You’re going to miss conditioning tomorrow.”

“I know.”

“Have you called the coach?”

“I sent him an email.” I swallow a lump.

He exhales heavily. “So how has it been? They don’t make you wear heels, do they?”

I glance down at the uncomfortable silver stilettos that neither fit my personality nor really my body, my toes aching. “They’re not that bad,” I say optimistically. “I’ll wear them in.”

He laughs. “Yeah right.”

I realize how this conversation—and most of them lately—have been circumnavigating around me. Friendships go two ways. “What about you?” I ask.

“I’m not wearing heels any time soon.”

I smile. “No, I mean, how are you? Is conditioning going well? Are the freshman looking good?”

“They’re okay. It’s same-old-same-old, you know—well, I guess you don’t know.” The bouncy ball sounds like it pops hard against the wall.

“Shay,” I whisper, resting my hip on the sink counter. “Do you ever dream that you’re meant to do something…more?”

“I like my life here,” is all he says. “It was going fine until…” He sighs in frustration. “I’m just used to you being around.” I hear the ball bounce on a floorboard. “I have other friends, but you’re the one who annoys me the least.”

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