Love is a Four-Letter Word (2 page)

Inside the auditorium, the murmur of the hallway disappears. It’s totally silent, like a church or a tomb. I walk down the centre aisle to the front of the room, near the stage, where not one but five people smile at me as I approach. They are seated around a table littered with stacks of paper, coffee cups, water bottles, and a Timbit party pack.

“Who do we have here?”

I swallow, clearing what feels like the world’s biggest cotton ball from my throat and manage to say, “Clarissa Louise Delaney.”

Why am I nervous? I shouldn’t be nervous. I’ve done things that are much harder, like visit my mom at the hopital, or yell at Terry DiCarlo, or spend two whole weeks with Denise, but for some reason I can’t stop my heart from jumping all over the place. One minute it feels like it’s in my throat, the next it’s in my stomach. I can even feel my pulse throbbing in my fingertips.

“How are you today, Clarissa?”

“Fine, considering.”

“Considering what?”

“Considering I have to sing in front of strangers.” The audition panel chuckles. I feel a little bit better. A sense of humour is a good thing, right?

One by one they introduce themselves to me: Karen, the director; Brian, the music director; Nadine, the choreographer; Becky, the assistant director; and Nelu, the accompanist.

“Accompanist?” I repeat.

Nelu smiles at me. “I’ll be accompanying you, on the piano. Did you bring sheet music?”

I shake my head, no. “Was I supposed to?”

“No, no,” says Brian the music director. “We’ll just get you to sing a cappella and do a range test.”

The words “range test” send my heart plummeting to the bottom of my stomach. I’m not entirely sure what it means, but I’ve never been good at pop quizzes.

“Do you want to start with a scene or your song?” Karen asks me.

“Scene,” I say quickly. The longer we leave the singing, the better. Plus this way I can wow them with my acting abilities and they’ll be willing to overlook my singing. Not that it’s bad but it’s not exactly great, either.

Karen, the director, is smiling at me. She hands me two sheets of paper. “Great! I’m going to ask you to read two scenes. The first one is when Dorothy meets the Scarecrow. Nelu will be reading the part of the Scarecrow.”

Nelu smiles at me again. She has friendly eyes and very white teeth. I decide I like her the best.

“Would you like a minute to read over the scene?” Karen asks.

“No, I’m ready,” I say. The thought of standing there reading to myself while the whole audition panel stares at me is not appealing. Besides, I’ve seen
The Wizard of Oz
at least a hundred times. I could probably recite the whole scene by heart.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Karen says.

I take a deep breath, remind myself to speak slowly and clearly, and begin the scene. At first, my voice is a little shaky and it’s hard to look up from the script, but by the time we get to the end I can hear my voice, clear and strong, bouncing around the auditorium. It’s an awesome feeling, very powerful.

When I finish, the audition panel claps politely before scribbling madly in their secret books and on pieces of loose-leaf paper. What I wouldn’t give to sneak a peek at their notes!

“Very nice, Clarissa. Next I’m going to have you read for Auntie Em,” Karen tells me.

I almost choke on my own saliva, or what’s left of it in my dry, nervous throat. “Isn’t that part more for older kids?”

Karen smiles, but her expression is hard to read. I recognize that kind of smile — my mother is a master of the impossible-to-decipher Mona Lisa smile. “Traditionally, yes, but this is a youth cast so we’ll have young actors playing roles of all different ages. You never know, you might be the perfect Auntie Em, or Tin Man.”

“The Tin Man’s a boy,” I protest.

“The Tin Man is whoever we want him to be,” Karen corrects me. “Boys might play girls, girls might play boys. At this point it’s wide open. That’s what’s so exciting about theatre — expect the unexpected.”

“So, Dorothy could be played by a boy?” I ask.

“Maybe!”

I highly doubt that, but given that Karen is the one making decisions, I don’t want to get on her bad side, so I fib a little. “That’s cool.”

Karen beams. “Wonderful! Now let’s see what you’ve got for Auntie Em.”

So I read the part of Auntie Em. I admit, my heart isn’t really in it. I just can’t get into the role. Her lines are so boring — “No, Dorothy” this and “poor Toto” that. When I finish, the panel claps again and Brian asks me what I’m going to sing.

“‘Over the Rainbow,’” I say. Suddenly I feel a little foolish. I bet everyone sings “Over the Rainbow.” Maybe another song would be more memorable, or at least a change of pace. Now I will be compared to every single girl who sang “Over the Rainbow” before me. Oh, well, too late to change now.

“I probably would’ve picked it even if I wasn’t auditioning for
The Wizard of Oz
,” I say. “I really like the song.”

Brian winks at me. “Me, too. It’s a classic. Do you need Nelu to give you a starting note?”

I shake my head, no, and silently curse my mother for never putting me in piano lessons. I could be halfway to being an opera star right now instead of floundering around like a fish out of water, a fish who wouldn’t know what note to start on if you gave her the choice of notes to pick from.

I have to clear my throat two times before I start, but when I sing, I think I sound all right. I look over the heads of the audition panel into the empty auditorium. It dawns on me just how many seats are in here. As I wonder whether or not I could sing in front of a full house, my voice wavers a bit. I decide to look over the audience and into the balcony, at the back windows. I imagine I’m looking for a rainbow, or at least a bluebird.

When I finish, my cheeks are flushed and I am feeling pretty proud of myself. The panel claps again and Brian leans over and says something to Nelu, who gets up and goes to the piano.

“Very nice, Clarissa. Now if you don’t mind, we’re going to get you to sing it again in a different key,” he says pleasantly.

“Key?” I repeat.

Nelu’s fingers spread over the piano and she plays a chord, followed by a single note. “Can you sing this note?” she asks.

I open my mouth and try to match my voice to the sound coming from the piano. It sounds right, although it’s just a little higher than I like to sing.

“Good,” Nelu says. “We’re going to sing it again, and this time I’m going to play with you. Just follow along with the piano.”

She makes it sound like the easiest thing in the world, but the song is much faster than I remember, and too high. My voice gets thin and reedy and I can’t seem to take in enough air to get through all the words. Soon I’m caught between whisper-singing and gasping for air. When we finish, my breathing is ragged, like I’ve just run the four-hundred-metre dash, sprinting the whole way. I’m so embarrassed I want to crawl under a rock and die — but I can’t, because I still have to do something called a range test.

The panel claps again, but this time it seems insincere, their smiles phoney. They probably have to clap after every person, no matter how good or bad they are. Nelu talks me through the range test, but my ears are buzzing and I’m trying so hard not to cry that I barely hear the instructions. She plunks notes and I follow along, trying to squeeze out the notes between the lumps that have formed up and down my throat.

When it’s over, Karen says something about a list and callbacks and thank you very much for coming, but I can tell by the way she is smiling indulgently at me and the pity
in Nelu’s eyes that I will not be getting a call. The effort of holding back my tears is enormous, and starting to burn my throat. Images of my entire life, the life that I was meant to lead, flash before my eyes: me bowing on stage while fans throw roses at my feet; me at my first premiere; me on Oprah; me getting my first Oscar. They all disappear like words in the sand, washed away by the tide.

Karen gets up to shake my hand and I smile weakly before turning and getting the heck out of there as fast as I can without running.

When I get back, Mom and Denise are giggling over something in the kitchen. It’s embarrassing to hear a grown woman giggle, especially your own mother.

“What’s so funny?” I ask.

Mom beams at me. “There she is! Future superstar and multi-award-winning actress! Well, how did it go?” She pulls me close to her and tugs on the end of one of my braids. “Nice touch,” she adds.

“Thanks.”

Next she starts unbraiding my hair and running her fingers through it. I let her do this, even though I’m getting too old for it, because she lost all her hair a few months back. Just over a year ago, my mom was diagnosed with cancer. She’s had three treatments and the doctors say things are going “according to plan” — which is good news — but no one is saying the magic word
remission
just yet. But the minute they do, Denise says, “We’re throwing your mama the biggest remission party there ever was!”

Denise is big on parties, as long as they aren’t in celebration of her birthday. For as long as I can remember, Denise’s birthday party consists of a cake that says, “twenty-nine again!” and a bottle of wine that she shares with my mother in front of the TV. Pretty lame if you ask me.

She never says anything about it, but I know Mom misses having her own hair. My mom is a former beauty queen and a very successful hair stylist. Hair is everything. Some people would say that life is everything and of course they’re right, but they probably never had their hair fall out.

At first, Denise taped pictures of Halle Berry and all sorts of actresses with really short hairstyles to the mirror in the bathroom. Now that her hair is starting to grow in, Mom looks just as good as any of them. She says she loves the no-fuss look, but last week I found her old straightening iron and hot rollers in the garbage. I think it made her sad to see them every morning in the bathroom, knowing she won’t be able to use them for a long time.

“Come on, kiddo, don’t keep us waiting. We’re not getting any younger,” Denise says.

“It was fine,” I say carefully.

“Fine?” Denise repeats.

I shrug. “Yeah, fine.”

Mom kisses my neck. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she says.

I twist away from her. “Sorry for what?” I demand. “I said it was fine!”

“Okay, okay!” she says. “Take it easy! You just sounded a little down. But if you say it went fine, then great. I’m glad.”

“Your first audition, you deserve a treat!” Denise says. “Have a delicious caramel-flavoured rice cake!” She offers me the package as she and my mom burst into laughter. I guess I missed the joke, because there is nothing funny or delicious about rice cakes.

“I’m going to bed,” I announce.

“So early?” Denise says. “Come on, we’ll have a girls’ night in.”

“Every night is a girls’ night in,” I mutter.

“Well! We don’t want that kind of attitude bringing us down, do we Annie?” Denise says.

Mom throws a protein bar at Denise. “Shush, you!” she scolds. To me, she offers her cheek. I kiss it before turning to leave. She grabs my arm and looks right at me, the way mothers do when they are trying to figure out what you’re hiding. “You’re sure it was fine?”

“I said it was fine.”

It most certainly was
not
fine. It was the exact opposite of fine. Not that I would ever tell my mom that. I don’t like to give her things to worry about. A bad audition doesn’t really compare to getting cancer and losing all your hair.

In my room, I whip my bag into the corner, tear off my shoes, and throw myself on the bed, fully dressed. I punch my pillows a bit but even that doesn’t make me feel better. I feel stupid and pathetic and definitely not fine.
The Wizard of Oz
is sitting on my nightstand, taunting me. I shove the book under the bed, behind a pile of empty shoeboxes that I had told my mother I threw out ages ago. Maybe this is a sign that it’s time for me to move on, grow up, or at the very least, read other things.

The doorbell rings. It’s Benji, I know it. I feel bad about the way home. I barely spoke a word, but it was only because I was afraid that if I opened my mouth I’d start to cry. Thank goodness for Mattie and her motormouth. If she hadn’t been there the silence would have been unbearable.

I’d like to go to bed and forget the whole thing happened, like a bad dream. But I can hear my mom chatting with Benji in the kitchen, so I pull myself together and put on
the happiest face I can muster. Minutes later, someone knocks tentatively on my door.

“Come in.”

Benji slinks in and makes his way to my bed without saying a word. He climbs up and we lie side by side for a while until he asks, “Well, how did it go?”

“Not great,” I admit. “The song was really high and my reading wasn’t very good.”

It doesn’t feel as bad to say it out loud as I thought it would. Actually, it’s kind of a relief.

“I’m sorry, Clarissa.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Mine was okay,” Benji says. “I barely looked at the audition panel but at least I remembered the words to the song. And I didn’t throw up.”

“Did you show them your sketches?” I ask.

Benji shakes his head, no. “I forgot. I was just so glad the whole thing was over that I kind of bolted. But I’m glad you made me do it. You should do one thing every day that scares you.”

“Who said that?”

Benji shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s famous. Maybe Oprah?”

“That sounds like something Oprah would say. Benji?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t tell anyone what I told you, about the song and the reading and stuff.”

Benji draws a cross over his heart with his finger. “Never,” he swears.