Page 1 of Everything's Coming Up Rosie

Prologue

Well, shoot. This isn’t how my life is supposed to go.

On the day I graduated from Northwestern with a BA in musical theatre, diploma in hand and stars in my eyes, I told myself I wouldn’t give up until I made my dream come true.

I also pledged never to do Amish theatre, but as it turns out, it pays really well. Beggars can’t choose and all that.

Back then, in those idealistic years postgraduation and pre–real world, I turned up my nose at the idea of a plan B because “they” said that if I had a plan B, I’d be more likely to use it. And I didn’t want to use it. Because I was going to make it.

I held my future in my own two hands, which meant, according to Eleanor Roosevelt and Timbuk 3, that the future belonged to me and I needed to have a pair of shades ready.

It all seems so naive now.

It’s amazing how seven years can change everything. Seven years of auditions, callbacks, rejections. Seven years of temp jobs and ushering patrons to their seats and getting very good at making fancy coffee drinks. Seven years of what is starting to feel like wasted time.

I randomly think how change must bewayfaster for dogs.

I’m glad I don’t have a dog. If I did, that would mean that both of us were about to become homeless.

Because today, standing in the hallway of my soon-to-be-exthree-story walk-up in Brooklyn, I mindlessly wonder if someone is trying to tell me that dreams like mine are for fools.

There’s a yellow envelope stuck to the front door and a suitcase—my suitcase—propped in the corner of the hallway.

I stare at the envelope, and the envelope stares right back.

I groan. This is not my day. Apparently this isn’t my year either.

After months, the play I’ve been rehearsing finally opened in a tiny black box theatre in the Village. Yes, it was an original, but the playwright had some other successes and the script wasn’t half bad.

It seemed the critics solely focused on the part of the script that wasn’t half good.

They hated it. One of them wrote, “The redhead playing Julietta couldn’t be more wrong for the role. Her stilted delivery and understated reactions reminded me of the time I made the mistake of letting artificial intelligence try to narrate a book for me. This calls into question the ability of this director—everyone knows if you get the cast wrong, you get the whole show wrong.”

What I took away from that review, of course, is thatIruined the whole show. The miscast redhead playing Julietta was me. Never mind that the director actuallywantedthe stilted delivery and understated reactions. That I did what I’d been directed to do.

The show closed after only two performances.

I huff as I open the envelope that someone—I’m assuming one of my roommates, Ellen, whose name is on the lease—taped there. I pull out a handwritten note telling me she’s found someone else to rent my room. Someone who can pay.

This is not unexpected.

The timing is better this way since you’re heading home tonight for that baby shower, but I’ve given up ever seeing the last four months’ rent from you. I packed your things to make it easier because Trinity ismoving in tonight. I’m sorry this didn’t work out, and I really do wish you luck, Rosie.

Ellen

I crumple the paper and throw it on the floor. Then I rush over, pick it up, and try to smooth it out. I’m angry, but I don’t want to have anyone elseseeI’m angry. I stuff the paper into my bag, grab my suitcase, and head downstairs, the whole time thinking,So this is what rock bottom feels like.

If this isn’t rock bottom, it’s rock-bottom adjacent.

And now, I’m going home.

Home. For the first time in years.

Home. To reunite with all of my old high school friends, the same people who voted me Best Actressand Bravest Gradfor the senior class. Never mind I’ve done a terrible job of staying in touch.

Home. To desperately try to hide the truth. There’s no way I’m letting people see that I’m a failure.

I’m an actor.

---