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“Eat that. I mean it.”

She nods and starts nibbling. Good girl.

I go over to check with the people in charge and find out that we don't need sheet music, some people are just annoying and come over-prepared to mess with the rest of our heads, apparently, that we're going to be split up boys-girls and called in groups of ten that correspond to our numbers—here are your numbers, yay, Bianca and me together—and that until then we should sit and wait and blah blah blah also I make it a point to drift awkwardly close to Mason and James and Gay Boy and discover Gay Boy's name is Ian and make
James-Ian babies in my head all the way back to Bianca.

“Do you want ninety-one or ninety-two?” I say.

She looks at me like it's a trick question. I hold up the papers with our numbers on them. “Two,” she says.

“A noble choice.” I tape it to her chest for her.

“Where's Jamie?”

“Talking to that boy still, look.”

“Does he have his number?”

“Not yet.” Which is less noteworthy, if you ask me, than the fact that he hasn't come back to check on Bianca. It's not really a secret whether nailing the audition or keeping an eye on his sister is his real priority here.

At least, it isn't to me.

Bianca?

“What if they don't let him in?” she says.

“Hey, he'll get his number. He's with Mason, you know he's on top of shit.”

“Right . . .”

“Hey. Look at me.”

She looks at me.

“We've got this, okay? We've been practicing our asses off. And this is nothing. Sing a few lines, dance in a big group for a minute and a half? Whatever. Just smile and hit your notes and you'll sail through no problem. Ew, not that smile. Come on. Real smile. There you go.”

“What are we singing?”

I scan the paperwork they gave me. “I don't know. I guess it's a surprise. Here, fill this out.”

I watch her writing down her ton of experience like she's done it a hundred times, because she has done it a hundred times (hence ton of experience), and I write down all my dance classes and feel like a liar because I haven't done modern in forever and I still haven't dug my toe shoes out of the backyard and why did I just say “still” when I'm not going to, I don't
need
to, this is not a ballet school, I am not a ballerina, I need to be a musical theater kid to get through this so I will be a musical theater kid, but it can't hurt, I guess, so I write it all down and then write down chorus and musical theater day camp in small letters like that will make them not ask me to sing or something. Dream big, Etta.

“Look,” I say. “The boys are getting their numbers. Everything's fine.”

“Did you talk to the boy?”

“No, I just walked awkwardly close to them so I could eavesdrop a little. Sounds like his name's Ian.”

“He's cute.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Does James like him?”

“I don't know, boo.”

“I hope so,” she says, but she sounds like she isn't sure, and how is it so easy to forgive her for that when I still want to punch my mom every time she clears her throat and changes
the subject? Bianca's
trying
. She told James to talk to him. She's keeping this secret from her parents. I mean, hell, she's friends with me.

I rest my head on her shoulder. “I know.”

They call us in group by group, alternating boys and girls, and by the time they get to us I'm a total stress case from waiting so long. Meanwhile, Bianca's cooled completely off, stepped into this confidence costume, and is smiling at the auditioners and politely at the other girls in our group and scuffling her feet casually while we get into our lines. Seeing her in the context of all these other girls makes me realize kind of anew how ridiculously tiny she is. What were the Dykes thinking when they saw me with her? You can't
not
notice that. It's impossible to ignore. I'm suddenly all worried about doing the dance combination, that she'll fall and hurt herself.

I need to calm down about her.

I think I'm going down a bad road here.

Dancing's first. They teach us this really easy combination—I'm talking largely grapevines and box steps, like, stuff I was doing while I was in Pull-Ups—and most people seem to have it all right. There are a few other dancers in the group, but really I can only tell because they hold themselves differently, because no one's tripping over their feet doing this. And . . . it kind of sucks, honestly. Really my only hope was that they'd try to teach us this ridiculously hard dance and everyone else would fall over and break their ankles and I
would dazzle them all and tada instant scholarship. Ah well. Bianca's actually on the lower end of the spectrum here, but she's not awful. I'm probably the only one who can tell she's a little off. Well. Me and the two women auditioning us. Point your toes, Bee!

I hiss it into her ear during a turn, and she does. Good girl.

We run through it a few times as a group, then line by line. It feels nice, moving around at the same time as people to something besides tap, but yeah, this isn't really dancing. Still, one of the women auditioning us, the one with the clipboard, is watching me really closely, and I see her nod a little and make a note. That's got to be a good sign.

I'm extra convinced that that was a good note when she makes the same face when Bianca starts singing—okay, maybe a little more of a smile for Bianca than for me, but that's pretty understandable. We're singing “Far from the Home I Love,” from
Fiddler
, which seems like a kind of bizarre choice, but I'm going with it. The girl next to me is freaking out, whispering, “Why couldn't they have chosen something from
Spring Awakening
?” which is such a weird musical to expect to show up at an audition. Seriously, it was on Broadway for like six minutes and it's about German teenagers having sex.
Fiddler on the Roof
at least has zillions of years of history behind it, even if “Far from the Home I Love” is a really dreary song. I mean, it's pretty, but it's not the kind of a song a girl without a great voice is going to be able to act her way through.

Well. Not without some serious effort. And do I look like Etta “Halfass” Sinclair to you? No, I'm Etta “Kick It in the Ass” Sinclair. I'll make this work.

But first Bianca, and the auditioner who loves her, and yeah, she's amazing. The accompanist is beaming at her when she's done, and the other girls are looking at her like they want to roast her on a spit. Bianca gives everyone this polite little smile on the way back to her seat and gives me the world's most subtle high five.

My turn. I stand up by the piano and take a second to close my eyes and get into character before I nod at the accompanist. And then I'm there. I don't think about the music—I know this song, I used to put shirts on my head and do “Matchmaker, Matchmaker” with my sister when I was little, I know
Fiddler
. I just tell myself I'm in love with this gorgeous guy and he has to go live in Siberia and that really sucks but what the hell because I love him and he loves me and nothing else matters. Everyone else did it all sad and mournful, so I go the other way. I close my eyes sometimes, I smile a little, because I am so willing to move to Siberia for this boy. I'm excited about loving someone enough to go to Siberia. I'm brave and strong and
bring me to New York, auditioners
. It's totally a bad metaphor because Nebraska itself is about as
far from the home I love
as anything could ever be, but right now I'm singing and pretending how much I would miss this place if I left. I'm thinking about the gross movie theater with the
stale popcorn and the weird farmers' restaurant and the retro coffee shop and Rachel Rachel Rachel and then I think about New York and bright lights and bigger things and all these
feelings
come out of nowhere, maybe my sister could visit me at school someday, maybe me and Bianca could be roommates, I am so willing to make this leap of goddamn faith, everything I love, all these freaking feelings, all the phone numbers of these new friends and all the beautiful people I could meet, they are all coming with me. I do not need to be here. I can be as far from the home I don't love as is physically possible.

And then the song's over and clipboard lady says, “Thank you,” and everything rushes out. The other girls are looking at me like I totally screwed this up.

I think I did okay.

“Callbacks will be posted online by the end of the week,” they tell us.

“How'd it go?” we ask the boys after.

Mason shrugs. James keeps talking to Ian.

•  •  •

Called back:

Bianca Grey

James Grey

Ian O'Donnell

a bunch of people we don't care about

Me

“SO ARE YOU OKAY?” I
ask.

“Yeah.” He plays with his straw, letting it fill with coffee, capping it with his finger, tapping the coffee out, filling it up again. “Yeah, I'll be fine. More time for basketball and stuff. And I can pull some more shifts, I wanted to save up and fix the paint on my bike anyway. It's all scratched up around the tires.”

“Stupid roads,” I say.

“Seriously. How dare they.”

I do believe that Mason will be okay, but I also believe that he's sad. I think maybe he wasn't taking it seriously because he thought he didn't have to, that he could get a second audition in his sleep. He did it before.

I so want to ask him what happened, if he fell, if he missed
a note, if he just didn't stand out enough. I guess I'm trying to figure out why I got through, and even though I have literally no reason to think that he might be thinking the same thing—he's been nothing but happy and supportive of me, hasn't shown any sign that he thinks I don't deserve it—I'm convinced that he's sitting here wondering why the hell I got through and he didn't. Because frankly this is kind of ridiculous. I've always been a fan of musical theater, but I never really thought of myself as someone who was actually involved in it. It's like that season of
Survivor
when they brought fans in to play against people who'd been on the show before. I just went from sitting on my couch eating tortilla chips to living on the damn island.

God, rein it in, Etta. It's a second audition for a scholarship to a school you are not going to get into. You are not going to win a million dollars.

“I think Bianca's more upset about it than I am,” Mason says. Under the table he traps my ankle between both of his. We're back at the retro coffee shop, drinking ice coffee because it's ridiculously warm for February today.

“She's just worried about you.” I actually have no idea what she is. She was a little weepy and incoherent on the phone last night. I talked her down and we made plans to hang out after group tomorrow. But today I really just wanted to see Mason.

I don't know what we're doing. I think he's looking at this relationship or whatever more seriously than I am. Which is
fine with me, but it does make me feel like I'm using him that I don't really feel the same way.

Watch, I'm actually a lesbian. That's the big punch line.

“I'm worried about her,” he says. “Everything going on with James.”

“What's going on with James?”

“Hooooo boy,” he says.

“No no hey. What's going on with James?”

“He's hanging out with that guy a lot. Blue hair.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. He lives just outside Bellevue and James has made the drive every day for the past three and he stays there for a few hours and like . . . you know. She's used to having him around all the time. And at first he'd bring her with him but then I think . . . I don't know. Either she stopped wanting to go or James stopped wanting her there.”

I mean, I love Kristina, but I wouldn't want her hanging around on my dates. But I don't think that's what this is.

“She's having a rough time,” Mason says. “The religious thing.”

“Shit. Yeah.”

“She needs to get over it,” he says. “She will.”

And I say, “Yeah,” but I don't really know if it's that easy, or honestly that it should be. “You think she should?”

“I think . . .” He stops, actually thinks. “I think yeah, actually. James is more important to her than anything else, and if
she lets this get between them she's gonna implode.”

I don't know if you implode if there's nothing to you, first of all, but also, obviously thinking that gay people are wrong is antiquated and messed up, but that idea is not what Bianca's worshipping. She's not in this to hate gay people. She
doesn't
hate gay people. She's just this girl who really loves her God and doesn't want to do anything to pull herself away from him—sorry, Mason—probably just as much as she doesn't want to be pulled away from her brother. And yeah, we can ask her to deal with James being gay, we can ask her to
accept
it, but I don't think we can just say that something she believes, something that she fundamentally wants to not hurt anybody, is something she can, or should, just get over.

But you know, what do I know about God. My mom thinks that nothing's real if it's not in biology textbooks, and I guess I'm the same. But, to make a totally blasphemous analogy, I assume, knowing that there are ugly parts of Rachel doesn't make me love her any less, and it definitely doesn't make me want to do anything to screw up her chances of loving me.

But I mean, whatever. We do anyway.

“She'll be all right,” I say, but I'm not really sure of that either.

•  •  •

Yeah, worries confirmed. Bianca's a wreck in group. I actually get her to sit down, which is kind of frightening in and of itself, but I think if I didn't she would have shaken until she fell over.
Now she's just sitting here next to me, tapping her feet and twisting around and jitterbugging her hands on her knees to burn more calories when she isn't pushing tissues into her eyes and breathing out hard through her mouth.