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“Hoas your summer?” asks Ms Joy

My eyes flick to hers, caught off-guard “Sorry? Oh SuI always notice when other people’s hands shake during their auditions, especially when holding a sheet of paper “It was alright Lots of, uh … burgers”

“Ah, yes Biggie’s Bites The always reliable, never un-tasty Tucker-owned Biggie’s Always a friendly face, seeing you there”

“Thanks”

“And it’s a nice change to see you up on that stage for once,” she adds, toying with a pen in her hand, which hovers over a pad full of e presence”

I give her a reluctant siven any other auditionee, andin front of an audience

“Well, don’t let estures atState your nah we all know you, et cetera, et cetera”

I’ht chitchat, since it did the likely-intended trick of relaxing lance over at Vann, I realize he’s still sketching away, ignoring e, and the whole damned world for all I know

That, of all things, is what gives me the resolve to lift my chin, part my lips, and fill the auditorium with my confident voice “My na for the role of …”

I look down at the side I took, crinkled up in sley lines that Vann and Frankie and about four or five other guys read The same speech The same tired words

And I see the lines between them—the lines of the female in the scene, thebeauty in the café to which Kingsley is aardly babbling