PRESENT TENSE
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Saturday, November 15, 2003
"I am so nervous!" Rose complained,
searching through her side of the closet for a long black skirt. Auditions for
the musical the college was putting on in the spring were that morning and the
thought of auditioning made her agitated.
"You’ll do fine," Jack assured her,
pulling on a shirt and buttoning it quickly. "Even if you don’t get the
part you’re auditioning for, you’ll get a smaller part, or at least be included
in the chorus."
"I don’t know." Rose found a
suitable skirt and pulled it on. "Maybe I should forget about it. I’m sure
that there are much better singers than me."
"Not many, and you’ll never know if you
don’t try. Have you ever sung on stage before?"
"I was in a musical my junior year of
high school, though I just had a small part, and I sang a hymn in front of the
congregation at church once."
"You see? You can do it."
"That was a long time ago."
"If you really don’t want to audition, I
won’t push you, but I think you do. You’ve been practicing that song for the
last week and a half."
"I’m sure everyone is tired of it."
"After the first twenty repetitions,
yeah, we got a little tired of hearing it. Of course, anything would be boring
if you heard it twenty times in three days."
Rose laughed. "All right. You’ve
convinced me. I’ll audition. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you."
Jack gave her look of mock alarm.
"You’re scaring me, Rose. You really are."
"Oh, shut up." She pulled a loose
T-shirt on. "I have to run. Auditions start at eight, and I want to warm
up my voice first."
"Break a leg."
"I hope not!" Rose retorted,
laughing, as she hurried out the door.
*****
The backstage area was already teeming when
Rose arrived at Masline City College. She slipped into the small theater, where
a number of people were preparing for their auditions by warming up their
voices and stretching in preparation for dancing.
After she had signed up, Rose joined a small
group gathered around the piano and singing scales. When she was satisfied that
her vocal cords were sufficiently warmed up, she did some stretching exercises
to get ready for the dance audition.
The dance director’s assistant was teaching
groups of people a simple dance number in an open area of the workshop. Rose
joined the newest group and paid careful attention as the assistant
demonstrated the dance steps. She had always enjoyed dancing, had always been
good at it, and she hoped that if she didn’t get the singing role she wanted,
she would at least get a part dancing in the chorus.
She thought that the dance portion of her
audition went well, even when she had to quickly move out of the way of the
girl dancing beside her. The girl was doing her best, but she had absolutely no
rhythm or timing and forgot half the steps, sending her blundering into Rose’s
way.
At ten o’clock, Rose was finally called in
for the singing portion of her audition. She walked onto the open stage, her
heart thumping nervously. The directors told her to stand in a spot marked by a
masking tape X on the stage, and she couldn’t resist looking up to see if there
was something dangling over her head, waiting to fall on her.
"You’re auditioning for the role of Mary
Magdalene, right?" the director, James Anderson, asked her.
Rose nodded. "Right."
"Okay, Sylvia’s going to play I Don’t
Know How to Love Him, and we’ll see how you sing." He gestured to the
pianist, indicating that they were ready to begin.
Rose listened to the opening notes, then
began to sing.
I don’t know how to love him
What to do
How to move him
I’ve been changed
Yes really changed
In these past few days
When I’ve seen myself
I seem like someone else...
Her voice rang out loud and clear, filling
the empty theater. Even the pianist looked impressed.
When she came to the end of the song, she saw
the directors conferring among themselves, taking notes on her audition.
"Thank you, Rose," James told her.
"We’ll be announcing the cast members at eleven."
Rose nodded. "So I should wait
around?"
"Yes, wait around. We’ll be announcing
all roles, including the chorus, at that time."
"Thank you." Rose smiled and turned
to leave the stage, relieved that she had gotten through the audition without
making a fool of herself. From the looks on the directors’ faces, she was
certain that she would at least be included in the chorus.
*****
At 11:30, Rose came in the door at home. Jack
was sitting in the kitchen, sketching a picture of an unusually shaped squash
that Helga had found and put on the table as a centerpiece.
"How did it go?" he asked, looking
up from his work.
Rose fought to keep an even expression.
"Well..." She sat down next to him and buried her face in her hands.
"Oh, no. It couldn’t have been that bad.
What happened?"
Rose could no longer keep her blank
expression. A huge smile broke out across her face. "I got the part! I did
it!" she squealed.
"I knew you could do it! Didn’t I tell
you so?"
"Yes. You were right. Rose Dawson is a
force to be reckoned with!" She threw her hands up in the air, clapping.
"Yahoo!"
Jack laughed and got to his feet, pulling
Rose from her chair and whirling her around.
"Jack!" Rose grabbed his hands and
pulled him into the living room. They collapsed on the couch, still laughing.
"What’s going on?" Helga came down
the hall, a handful of things she had been putting away in the nursery still in
her hands.
"I got the part!" Rose told her,
sitting up. "I’m going to play Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Superstar."
"Congratulations. Does this mean you’ll
find a new song to sing?"
Rose made a face at her. "Maybe."
"Please do, or this kid’s going to pop
out and sing instead of cry." She patted her swollen middle.
Rose laughed. "Wouldn’t that be better
than crying?"
"Which would you rather hear at two AM?
Crying or singing?"
"Good point." Rose grimaced.
"Okay. I’ll find a new song."
"Maybe you could find several of
them," Jack suggested. "Just to give us a little variety."
Glancing at Helga, he added, "Just to teach the baby a little
variety."
"Just so long as that variety doesn’t
include anything bawdy," Helga interjected. "Like that song about the
master of the house."
"You guys are ganging up on me,"
Rose complained half-jokingly.
"You’re right," Helga told her.
"No, we’re not," Jack assured her
at the same time.
Rose looked at them both assessingly.
"You’re confusing me," she announced calmly. "I think I’ll just
go and practice my songs again."
"No! Give us a break, please. Your voice
is beautiful, but that song is getting old," Helga pleaded.
"Oh, all right. If you feel that
strongly about it," Rose teased, sinking back down beside Jack.
"I do, I do. I never thought I’d say
this, but I actually miss your folk songs."
"Of course you do. If I don’t sing them,
you’ll have to remember them all by yourself." At Helga’s dubious
expression, Rose pointed out, "I’ve heard you singing them. I saw you
singing through a paper towel tube to the baby one day. That song about the
newborn baby."
At Helga’s blush, Jack started laughing.
"You were singing through a paper towel tube?"
"It helps the sound get to the
baby," Helga protested, her face still red. “Studies have shown that
babies who listen to music do better when they get to school.”
"We’ll have to remember that—in a year
or two," Rose told her, flopping back on the couch and putting her feet
up.