Duet Rubato

by Claerie Kavanaugh

  No one answers back. I hit “END” and slump forward against the counter. Maybe it is over between us.

  The breeze whisks me through the doors of the theater and the pile of papers stacked on the registration desk flutter to the floor. I’ve managed to pull myself together enough to make my call time. A hot blush creeps up my cheeks at the receptionist’s glaring look. When the door swings closed, I wince as its metal frame rattles. He sighs as he comes around the table and squats to reorganize the disheveled résumés and headshots. I let my dance tote drop from my arm before scurrying to help him.

  I peer over his shoulder and down a long hall where an endless line of people wait. Several are stretching out while others are pressed as far as they can get against the wall, headphones stuffed in their ears as they practice vocal warm-ups. A few of them glance in my direction, while others muffle their laughter in their palms. I cut my gaze away.

  “Sorry.” I cringe at the rough, breathy edge to my voice. I blow a stray strand of hair from my eye. The receptionist rolls his in response before snatching the sheets and standing. Swallowing, I follow suit and tighten my deflating ballerina bun as he straightens the applications. God, what must I look like right now?

  “Name?”

  “I have a callback.”

  “Name?”

  I catch my lip between my teeth. I don’t think I’ve ever showed up to an audition less prepared, not even my first tryout for dance class in third grade. I may have been ignorant to the most basic terms of ballet, but at least I thought I knew what I was doing.

  “Catherine Klarken.” My fingers shake with my words as I take the sides from his outstretched hand.

  “You’re on deck. Five minutes.”

  Gulp. Shoulders back, head held high, I pick up my bag and march to the bathroom, sinking against the cool wood of the back of the door the moment it clicks behind me. Pulling my knees to my chest, I press my forehead against them. A stabbing heat pulses at my eyes, but I push it back. Now is not the time to break down. I have to be strong. I have to give this more than I’ve given anything thus far in my career.

  For Lyssa.

  With both hands, I stand and stride over to the mirror. My makeup is absolute trash. I place the script on the sink next to me and retrieve my clutch and a cloth from my tote. Hopefully I can come out of here looking presentable. Glancing down at the pages, the quick, smooth strokes are automatic as I wet the cloth and run it over my face before opening the rest of my products. Thank God my mandatory drama classes forced me to endure the torture of the quick change. Otherwise, I’d be sunk.

  Some of the tension unwinds itself from my shoulders as I scan the first sheet. I’m reading for Nessa. Megan would wig out if she knew I hadn’t gotten sides for a bigger part, but as badly as I needed this job, I did not want to risk another thirty-foot fall. Yes, both of the leads wore harnesses much safer than those damn ribbons, but I couldn’t chance it. Not again.

  My name booms through the hallway. Stuffing my mascara into my bag, I snatch the sides from the sink and race into the hall, slinging my dance tote over my shoulder.

  The room is mostly empty. Against the right wall, props are displayed in a neat row. A wand, a broom and hat, some props for the Emerald City scenes, and a black hospital wheelchair. The accompanist sits at an old wooden piano in the far-left corner. My rapid breathing smooths out. I arch my back and walk over to the chair, pushing it toward center stage.

  When I take a seat, my eyes cut to the card table against the wall in front of me. The air catches in my throat. Gina Helmsworth sits in the center, flanked by the casting director, a dead ringer for the male lead, Fiyero. And finally. . .

  An undignified squeak sputters out from between my lips. “Addie?” I knew she had to be in the theater somewhere. I never thought it would be here.

  Her features remain stony when she looks up from the sides, hands folded strategically in her black skirt. Vacant, glassy hazel eyes stare right through me, and she doesn’t acknowledge my question.

  The saliva burns my throat as I swallow.

  “You have a copy of Nessa’s sides, correct?” asks Helmsworth.

  I nod.

  “Ms. Davidson will be reading with you today,” she continues.

  Of course. Everyone needs a scene partner. I close my eyes. The room begins to spin, and with it, every bad memory. Fights, closed doors, heartbroken breakdowns. My mouth goes dry as cold sweat drips down my back.

  Addie’s last words the day she left echo in my ears.

  “I guess you’ll have to decide which is more important. Your family or your precious career.”

  I hear her last words at the gym. “At least I know what I meant to you all those years.”

  A sob struggles to escape my throat, breaks free in the form of a hacking cough.

  “Are you all right?” an unfamiliar voice asks.

  God, what am I doing here? Why did I think I could do this again? Be here again? I’m a dancer. That’s all I’ve been and all I’ll be. I can’t try out. Not like this. Lyssa. . .

  Lyssa. My light. My lifeboat in this sea of endless failure. This is for her.

  “Ms. Klarken?”

  I’m anchored back to the audition room with a stunning thud. The director scrutinizes me, her green eyes piercing my soul.

  “Y-yes ma’am?”

  “Will that be a problem? Reading with Ms. Davidson?”

  Yes. “No, ma’am.”

  Helmsworth nods. “Take it from the top of page two.”

  I glance down at Nessa’s lines and look up at the panel. My eyes cut back to Addie and I clear my throat, morphing my features into the appropriate look of surprise for the scene. I read the lines with Addie responding in kind, but when she begs for my help, I mean, Nessa’s help, I’m swept back in time. The script tumbles from my lips as if I’ve been saying it all my life, but it boomerangs through my eardrums in the form of the fight that had turned everything on its axis, ten long years ago.

  “Please.” I had said. “I need you. This is what you wanted.”

  “What I wanted was my life, Cate,” she had spat back.

  Behind the directors’ table, Addie laughs without humor and picks up the script before her solemn expression returns. Her lips move and I know she’s imploring my character to listen, but I hear her anguished reply from our last night.

  “My life, you hear me? Not to punish an innocent baby!” she had continued.

  I suck in my breath and spin the chair sideways as my own reply echoes in my ears.

  “But, you said,” I had fumbled.

  “It’s your line, Ms. Klarken,”

  The director’s voice makes me jump and I hurry to fill the silence.

  Addie shakes her head, her eyes wide and pleading as she crumples the paper in her fingers, and once again, I’m thrown into a tailspin.

  “I said I didn’t want to raise someone else’s child. Not that you shouldn’t have it,” Addie had fumed.

  My eyes harden and I spin the chair to face her again. My voice is flat, though tears burn the back of my eyes and guilt clogs my throat.

  “Well what other choice do I have, Lyn? I can’t support a baby. My career will go down the drain.”

  I shake my head. Yes, there had been risks, there still are. I’m in the midst of one, sitting in this audition room.

  Addie sucks in her breath. Her features are a replica of her expression back then.

  “You honestly think your career is more important than your baby’s life?” she had shrieked.

  Addie reads her line and I respond, all the while our argument looping in my mind’s eye.

  “What? No! Of course not!”

  Addie gapes. I push closer to the table.

  “Dancing is all I’m good at, Lyn! What kind of life will it have?”

  To my relief, my character’s line comes out. Now is not the time to relive the past. Though it seems my subconscious is determined to thwart me. I lean forward.

  �
�Then don’t keep it,” Addie had said, her words as clipped then as they are now. Resentment drips from her narrowed eyes as her nails dig into the script between us. I wonder if she’s remembering too.

  “Put it up for adoption,” she had suggested. “Give it to a loving home. There are options, Catherine. You don’t have to—”

  I gasp and look at her with wide eyes, slapping her arm before sitting back in the prop wheelchair. That line was the first cut before she ripped my heart out. I wince.

  “Don’t you get it, Lyn? I can’t! If I give it life, mine will be ruined!”

  Fire is alight in her dark eyes as they burn into mine. My chest aches. Exactly how it had felt when I first knew it was over.

  “And if you don’t, he or she will never have a life at all.”

  “I’ve lived, eaten, and breathed dance since I was nine years old!” I had exploded.

  I roll toward the table with such force I nearly knock it over as I move to shove her.

  “Nine years old, Lyn. I’ve failed everything else.”

  I blink back more tears. God, why is this so raw?

  “Who would I be without it?” I had whispered. My words are as raspy and lathered with anguish and confusion as they had been then, and my heart starts bleeding in my chest.

  “I guess you’ll have to decide which is more important. Your family or your precious career!”

  With my chest heaving and my eyes blurred by searing tears, I launch into the song, the anger from back then boiling like an inferno beneath my skin. When I finish, I replace the chair, stride out of the room, and pause.

  “She’s perfect.” The director says.

  “That felt so real,” says pseudo Fiyero. “How did she do it?”

  I’m pretty sure Addie hums.

  “I know she lives with you now.” I sit back on the bus seat. “But after the day I had, I really need to see her.”

  “Yeah,” Grayson says, the whirring of a fax machine resounding behind him. “Sure, of course. I’ll tell them you’re coming.”

  My shoulders drop in relief. “Okay. Thanks, Grayson.”

  “No problem. I’ll swing by around seven to get her?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Great. And don’t get too worked up over what happened with Addie at the callback, okay? She needs some time.”

  I bite my lip and nibble on the stinging flesh. “Grayson.”

  “Trust me. Don’t give up so easy.”

  I slump back against my seat. “I won’t,” I murmur as a tear slips down my cheek.

  “Good,” Grayson whispers. “I’ll see you tonight.” And then the dial tone buzzes in my ears.

  Getting off at the Greenwood Estates, I try to ignore the way my stomach flips in protest. Much as I hate to admit it, Grayson has a point. After today, my relationship with Addie is all but obliterated, and I need something in my life not to burst into flames the moment I touch it. Even if I have to kiss up to Evelyn and Henry’s holier-than-thou backsides to spend time with my kid.

  My shoes clip-clop along the sidewalk. Rolling my shoulders back, I step forward and rap my knuckles against the door three times. At first, nothing happens. Then feet shuffle against the carpet, and several deadbolts click.

  The door swings open to reveal Grayson's mother, salt-and-pepper hair styled in a chin-length bob accentuating her high cheekbones, and dressed in a bejeweled blouse and black slacks. Her piercing green eyes study my face, features frozen in a stone-cold scowl before fracturing into a camera-ready grin. My feet scuff.

  “Catherine!” she exclaims, wrapping her arms around my waist. My muscles twitch with the impulse to tense under her calloused touch. Instead, I do my best to reciprocate the gesture, sucking in my stomach to avoid touching as much as possible until she steps back and holds me at arm’s length. “What a pleasant surprise. What brings you here?”

  “Well, I—”

  “Grandma?” My heart jumps into my throat as Lyssa slinks down the stairs. “Who’s here?” She stops on the last step. “Mom?”

  “Hey, baby girl,” I smile and wave. “How are you?”

  Lyssa shrugs, scuffing her suede boot-clad toe on the carpet of the stairs. “Uh, good,” she sputters, glancing between Evelyn and I. “What are you doing here?”

  I force myself not to shrink under Evelyn’s glimmering puckered lips as she faces me again. “I missed you,” I say, then glance at Evelyn. “Can I come in?”

  “Actually,” Lyssa hedges, “we were about to leave. Grandma said we could go for ice cream.”

  My posture deflates. “Oh, did she now?”

  “Yep.” She continues down the stairs and stands next to Evelyn. “Gram, can Mom come too?” I don’t miss the hopeful glint in her eyes.

  Evelyn smiles and runs a hand through her hair, voice thick with honeyed sweetness as she levels our gazes with an icy stare. “Of course, dear. We’ll all go together.” My blood boils at the sight of Lyssa’s hand cocooned in Evelyn’s ornamented fingers.

  “Come on, Grandpa’s waiting in the car.” As she grabs her purse and breezes past me, she whispers, “You wouldn’t keep her from her family, would you, dear?”

  I take a sharp breath, then shake my head and follow them to the car. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Evelyn returns my hesitant smile with a snake-like grin. “Good.”

  Once Lyssa’s munching on a cone of Neapolitan ice cream, and I’m slurping half-heartedly at a chocolate mocha cone, Henry clears his throat and folds his hands on the table.

  “So, Catie.” My eyes meet his. “Grayson tells us you had a callback today?”

  The ice cream tastes like frostbite as I gulp it back.

  “You did?” Lyssa asks, perking up. I nod and she squeezes my hand. “Awesome, Mom!”

  My plastered-on grin turns genuine. Maybe I can make her proud of me after all. “Thanks, baby.”

  “How’d it go?” she asks.

  “Yes, please,” Evelyn chimes in. “Tell us.”

  I lick a drip of chocolate off the side of the cone. “Nothing’s set in stone yet, but. . .” I shrug. “I have a good feeling.”

  Evelyn’s features sour before smoothing out again. “That’s wonderful, dear. It must be hard always chasing down work.” She throws Henry a look.

  Wincing, I mutter around a mouthful of ice cream, “I’m glad to be back in the saddle again, going after my dreams.”

  “Yes, but dreams don’t pay bills, now, do they?” Evelyn sneers and Henry gives her a side-eye.

  “Sometimes they can. Look at Grayson.”

  Evelyn smirks. “We provide for our son. He’ll never hurt for money as long as we own the radio. Unless . . .”

  Henry places a hand on his wife’s arm. “Evelyn, please.”

  “What?” she scoffs and smiles at me, sending shivers down my spine. “It’s true.”

  “Unless what?” I ask, glancing between them.

  “Nothing you need to worry about. We’ll be happy to come see your show.”

  “Yes, I’m sure your schedule must be quite demanding.”

  “And Lyssa can stay with us whenever Gracey can’t watch her. Since she lives with us anyway.”

  Lyssa winces. “Grandma.”

  “That’s kind of you, but—”

  “Think nothing of it, dear. Family helps family.”

  I sigh and drop my gaze. “Thank you.”

  Evelyn nods. There’s a prolonged silence until I finish off my cone and turn to my daughter.

  “So, Lys, are you having a good time staying with your dad?”

  Lyssa pauses, and my upper lip curls at the way her gaze darts to Evelyn before answering. “Um, yeah,” she admits, ducking her head. “We’ve done all kinds of fun stuff. The fair, the water park, I told them all about the trip.”

  “Which we’re more than happy to pay for,” Evelyn interjects. “We would never want Lyssa to miss out on such a valuable cultural and educational experience.” She fixes me with a challenging glare and
I resist the temptation to sink down in my seat, facing Lyssa and smiling so wide, my cheeks ache.

  “That’s great! Are you excited, honey?”

  Lyssa nods, auburn hair swinging. “I can’t wait!”

  We continue idle chatter until Evelyn gets up to powder her nose and Henry goes to warm the car. Only when they’re both gone does some of the light in Lyssa’s eyes dim as she leans in and whispers, “Um, Mom?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Thanks for letting me stay with them.” She ducks her head and sniffs. “I’m really sorry.”

  My heart aches as I scoop her into a hug.

  “Oh, honey. You know I would do anything to make you happy, right?”

  “Yeah.” She nods and wraps her arms around my back. “I know. I love you, Mom.”

  “I love you too, baby,” I murmur. “No matter where you live.”

  Catie got the part. Of course, she did. The crew didn’t stop singing her praises for two whole days, marveling over how raw and emotional her performance had been. They knew we were friends, and they’d tried to pry it out of me. Some secret that had allowed her to tap into the character with such honesty. I didn’t say a word. Thinking about that day makes my stomach churn. I may not have seen her for over nine years, but her habit of wearing her heart on her sleeve still remains oh-so-excruciatingly intact. Whether she realizes it or not.

  The pain in her eyes when she yelled at me—at Elphaba—for abandoning her without a second glance wasn’t just a brilliant fucking performance, it was real. When she started reading with me, a tiny voice wanted to push against her. To abandon the pretense of an audition and lay everything out in the open. How could she sit there and lie to my face when it had taunted me in black and white? She’d moved on.

  After everything we’d been through together. All the pain and anger after Grayson sent her home sobbing. The rush to the store to buy the pregnancy test. The trepidation and adrenaline that blinded me as we waited on the results.

  She chose to forget. Like she hadn’t betrayed my trust and then thought it was okay to sweep the mistake under the rug with some morally gray procedure, all for the sake of her fucking career.