was utterly oblivious. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember me?” She didn’t stop smiling. Or looking at him.
“Sorry. Did you sign as yourself or use some other name? Most people use . . .”
“I signed as Gotham Girl.” Her body was turned all the way to him in the passenger seat.
He kept his eyes on the road. Her laser focused attention was slightly disorienting. “Did I ever write back?” He didn’t remember a Gotham Girl. But so many people wrote to him.
“You sure did! We went back and forth. I heartily disagreed with your assessment of my personal situation.”
“What did you ask me?”
“One was why, if I was so talented and so gifted and was doing what I was meant to do, blah-di-blah, was I always so flipping broke.”
“And I said . . .”
“You quoted Marlon Brando. Never confuse the size of your paycheck with the size of your talent.”
Julian nodded in understated self-approval. “And the second?”
“I asked how a girl could tell if a guy had a thing for her.”
“To which I . . .”
“Told me to run.” She laughed. “You actually said that. You said if you have to ask, he doesn’t.”
“Ouch.”
“You’re telling me. Then you asked if he’d seen my favorite movie.”
“And?”
“That’s it. I really took that apart. And you kept writing back, repeating, but has he seen it? You were very annoying.”
Julian vaguely recalled that exchange. The girl had been insistent, writing to him several times a day, presenting bags of evidence, but refused to answer his basic question and one day went radio silent. “Well?” he said. “I never did get an answer from you. Had he seen your favorite movie?”
She threw up her hands. “Do you see now why I stopped writing to you?”
“Why, because you don’t like answering questions?”
With the top down, the wind blew about her hair. Julian pulled over to the curb. She looked worried for some reason, like he was going to throw her out of the car or something. He nearly reached out and stroked her flushed cheek to reassure her. “I want to put the top up,” he said. “You don’t want to be a wild Beatrice for your audition, do you? Probably best not to be too disheveled.”
Her face melted at him, confounding him.
At the Greek Theatre in Griffith Park, she asked him to come in with her instead of waiting in the car. He checked his watch, texted Ashton to take the Fox meeting without him, and followed her into the amphitheatre.
With a spring in her step she hopped up onto the stage when her turn came, waited for her cue from a man with the clipboard, nodded to Julian, and began. She was well prepared. She was phenomenal.
After his eyes had sought the starry guide,
they turned again into the light.
“Tell me who you are,” he cried.
And thus I answered:
“A while ago the world possessed me.
Had my time been longer,
Much evil that would come,
Had never chanced upon me
Because you loved me well, and had good cause:
For had my sojourn
Been longer on this earth,
The love I bore you in return
Would’ve put forth
more than blossoms.”
The producer sat mutely, like Julian, but less open-mouthed. Then he said, “Miss McKenzie, what was that? Was that Dante? Because I cannot find it in my book.”
“It was from memory, sir,” she said. “I rewrote it a little. Condensed some lines.”
Silence from the front row. “You rewrote Dante?”
“Yes, sir. I wanted to do my best.”
“Thank you, Miss McKenzie. We’ll be in touch. Next!”
“That was excellent, Mirabelle,” Julian said as they walked to his car across the street. “Really. If it was my play, I would’ve given you the part on the spot.”
“You would have given me a part in your play?” Her whole face lit up, even her little nose. “Like a walk-on? Or a lead role?” She laughed when he could find no response. “I’m just teasing you.”
“I know,” he said.
“And would I first need to tell heaven from hell?”
“No, just a smile from a veil,” he said.
She high fived him for the musical wordplay. “The being-prepared, I learned that from your blog, you know,” she said. “You can’t over-prepare, you wrote. You said always do your best but learn to accept that it is probably not going to be enough.”
“I sound like a real pill. Did I ever say anything remotely cheery?”
“So many wonderful things. Lessee, you said to always go out into the world dressed like you were about to meet the love of your life.”