When we reached my apartment building, he and I paused at the foot of the stairway. He took out one of his business cards.
“I wrote my personal number on the back. If there’s any night in the near future when you’re free to go to dinner, just let me know. All I need is a couple of hours’ notice.”
“You have no other obligations?” What I really meant was no other girlfriends?
“None that I wouldn’t cancel to see you,” he said. “Good luck on the auditions and the work. I’m sure you’ll do well.”
“Thank you, and thanks for the custard.”
“My pleasure.”
He wanted to kiss me good night. His eyes were as good as tiny windows to his thoughts. A part of me wanted to let him, even encourage him to do it, but my ambition growled warnings. I offered only a smile and started up the stairs.
When I turned at the door, he was still standing there.
I’d be a liar if I told myself I wished he wasn’t, but if this was all that happened to me after coming to New York, I would be forever disappointed. I’d even resent him perhaps for stepping in my way. What sort of a future together would that bring? Perhaps it was terrible to think it, but for many girls my age who had dreams to fulfill, marriage loomed like a cage. For the most part, this wasn’t true for men, which was why I believed my father, with all his wisdom, was blind.
Was it arrogant of me to think I was wiser?
And yet Jon Morales personified such an easy way out and perhaps an easy way to go back home. I could just imagine the look on my father’s face when I announced my engagement to someone in finance.
He’d be lost for words. It was tempting.
Be careful, Emma, I told myself. You’re alone and very vulnerable.
Falling in love is too easy for someone desperate to be recognized.
FIVE
When I looked through Playbill, I saw that Piper was right about the number of open auditions coming up over the next few weeks. However, two were scheduled on the same day and very close in time, so I had to decide which one I’d try. As early as I got to any, there were always dozens and dozens of other girls waiting to try out. I knew I’d spend hours in line, even in the rain. And it wasn’t easy making up the time at the restaurant. Some days I was working more like fourteen hours than eleven or twelve.
I didn’t want to ask Piper for advice to help me make my choice. The more we spoke, the more I was convinced that she really didn’t know all that much about Broadway theater, or any theater for that matter. I even had doubts about the performances she claimed to have done in high school. She was unable to describe the shows in any sort of detail, and with some, she couldn’t remember the story. Of course, people made things up to help themselves look better and seem more experienced, but I was coming to believe she wasn’t as determined to succeed in show business as she claimed she was.
There were auditions she should have gone to that I went to. Dancers were needed in those shows, too, but she always came up with some sort of an excuse for why she couldn’t go. Usually, it was either she had to work at the burger place or the show didn’t have that much opportunity for dancers. Once she complained about muscle strain in her legs. Supposedly, she had dance lessons twice a week in a school managed by a famous Broadway dancing star who was close to eighty years old, someone she said was a “slave driver.”
She didn’t get the dancing part she had auditioned for off-Broadway, but when I listened to her explanation, I began to wonder if she had even really tried out for it. Everything she had failed at, dancing or otherwise, was always someone else’s fault. Was this what happened to performers who failed to get a foothold? I worried that I might become like her eventually. My father always said that rationalization was poison. “In the end, it kills your ambition and work ethic.” You might find ways to avoid the truth at the moment, but eventually there was no way around it.
I tried not to let her be a bad influence on me. She was