waves her page. “It’s time! It’s time! Wish me luck!”
She bounds excitedly over to the door as I trade glances with Joe. “She’s been talking about this nonstop. What do you think her chances are?”
“Good,” I say. She’s beautiful, bubbly, and people love to be around her. Even though there’s a lot of competition, she’s just the type of person you’d find on a reality show. The cameras would love her. “Really good.”
But a second later the door opens, and she comes in, head down. There are tears in her eyes. “They didn’t want me,” she moans as Joe pulls her into his arms.
Then they call his number, and he kisses her head and says, “Well, they sure as hell aren’t going to want me, then.”
But he goes anyway. When she slumps down next to me, she says, “That was brutal. They didn’t even ask me a single question. They just looked at me and said I wasn’t what they’re looking for. The end.”
“Really? What are they looking for?”
“Who the hell knows?” she mumbles as the door at the far end of the room opens and Joe comes in, his arms raised in victory. Courtney’s eyes widen. “You got through?”
“Hell no. They took one look at me and told me not to let the door hit me in the ass.”
Courtney sighs. “Well, at least it’s not just me.”
Joe piles up both of their numbers and rips them in half. He puts a hand on my shoulder. “Help us, Obi-Wan. You’re our only hope.”
The words are still hanging in the air when my number is announced.
All right. Well. I don’t feel so bad, now, if they’re just going to look at me and tell me to get lost. I shove my book under my arm and wave my number at the woman. “Hello.”
She looks at her clipboard. “Hi. Name?”
“Penelope Carpenter. People call me Nell.”
“Penelope Carpenter. Right this way.” She leads me down a dark, narrow hallway toward a set of double doors flanked by two security guards, one male, one female. “No questions. Please do not speak unless spoken to. If you are asked to leave, you must leave immediately. As part of your application, you signed a waiver that states you will not discuss the audition process with anyone,” she reads in a dull monotone. “Is that understood?”
“Okay,” I say, thinking, Can I just get my no so I can go home?
“This way, miss,” the male guard says, leading me through a metal detector like they have in airports. I have to surrender my purse and book as I walk through it. They hand them back to me, and the woman nods at me to go inside. Who the heck am I meeting with, the pope?
I take a deep breath and go inside.
It’s a large wood-paneled room, with a giant table in the center. There are three people seated at the far end of it, a woman and two men, and they look restless. The men are probably just a little older than me, but the woman looks about fifty. There are Coke cans and an open pizza box in front of them, all but one slice devoured. The man with the mustache is chewing on his pen, looking at me like I killed his family.
“Hi,” I say, giving a half wave.
“Next,” he says gruffly.
Thank the lord.
I spin on my heel.
“Wait, wait, wait,” the woman says. “What is that book you’re reading?”
I show them the title.
The mustached guy who hates me lets out a little “Ah.” I don’t figure him for a philosopher, but . . . “Do you wear those glasses all the time?”
I push them up on my nose, on instinct. I’ve worn glasses since I was three and am one step away from being legally blind. Contacts have always been a hassle, and glasses, to me, have always been my little insulation from the outside world. “Yes . . .”
I expect that’s my cue to leave. After all, I’ve already been in here a hundred times longer than Joe and Courtney combined. The woman says, “You look young. How old are you?”
“I just turned twenty-five.”
She looks down at a paper. I realize it must be the survey I filled out and handed in at check-in. “It says here you’re a doctor.”
“Yes,” I say. “I graduate with my doctorate in comparative literature tonight.”
“You have quite a long educational history here,” the other, completely bald man with the hipster glasses says. “I’m interested to know why you’re here. Watch