Chapter One

Meeting Ryan took a full month. They had first seen each other at a “cattle call” audition for a new run of the mill musical being opened just off of Broadway. At huge auditions each person was assigned a number and would wait for their turn to stand on the stage and sing for ten measures and recite two pages. To pass the time, Kaylin watched the other auditioners and rate the men based on looks alone. She barely listened to the carefully thought-out speeches or the same songs over and over, she just looked and rated. Most of the faces were the same from other auditions - most of the songs were too. She had a few friends in this business, and they sat around her. They rated the men too, and the gossiped quietly among themselves.

Kaylin wasn’t paying much attention when the number 6-1-6 was called out and a man slowly approached center stage. From behind her, one of the girls did a breathy cat call, while still another gave a dramatic, “Hellllooo…” Kaylin blinked a few times and focused her eyes. He was wearing a black cotton shirt with blue jeans, nothing too spectacular, his hair was a rich chocolate brown that he wore parted down the middle and swept just over the tops of his ears. He read his two pages of dialogue and cleared his throat as he began his ten measures of “La Vie Boheme” from the musical Rent. He was good looking, but not enough make her pay any closer attention.
She saw number 616 again, closer this time, at the first call backs a week later. Ten men and ten women were called to come back and have a second audition. This time they were paired up and had a full scene to perform together; they were asked to sight sing an entire song from the show, and were taught the basic choreography for one number; it was all very standard. Kaylin had had call backs before, nothing for this close to a full scale Broadway show, but she was good at channeling her nervous energy into a steel reserve.

She wasn’t paired up with number 616, she was paired up with number 218 - a blond with such perfectly messy hair that she knew immediately it took him a half hour in the morning to make it look that way. Although the ten actors called back were of the same size and body shape, their hair color varied as much as their accents. 218, Kaylin quickly discovered, was originally from Oklahoma and although he could drop the accent at any time, in casual conversation he preferred to use it. He whistled a lot to accentuate when he was overwhelmed, or excited, or just about any time.

The second audition ended up lasting two days. This time she did notice number 616 a little more; he had a dimple on the right side of his chin, he ran his hands through his hair easily so he didn’t use hair product (something that couldn’t be said for number 218), he laughed easily, and he could act. He could act and sing very well. He was perfect for the part.

At the final audition there were only six people. Each actress had to do a scene and a song with each actor. When Kaylin matched up with number 616 their reading was short and their song turned out to be the same one she had sang at the first call back – a plus. They weren’t called by their numbers anymore, but Kaylin didn’t quite hear his name, she was focusing on how to read her part with him. The scene was an argument and she had to be angry, seething, but also vulnerable and scared. Before she knew it, the stage manager called their scene to a close; she shook his hand, smiled and walked over to her things piled neatly on a folding chair sitting in one of the wings of the stage.

Two days later Kaylin got a call from her manager excitedly telling her that she had the part, the lead in a major production. The theater would be hosting a press conference on Wednesday announcing the actors and actresses. This was a very big deal. She needed to be at the box office Tuesday at ‘nine sharp’ to sign her contracts.

That night Kaylin went out to celebrate with her girlfriends, two of whom auditioned for the part she had landed. These were her New York friends; New York friends were rivals and confidantes: they celebrated each other’s successes and figured out ways to get each other in the chorus lines when their insurance was about to run out. New York friends gossiped with each other and about each other, New York friends got pissed when you landed the part they wanted, but never missed an opportunity to celebrate. New York friends became like family when no one could get home for the holidays, or when there was no family around. Kaylin had a lot of New York friends.

At some point during the night, a friend of a friend called and recruited the small group to join a few more at a small club in Brooklyn. It was there that she saw number 616 again: the friend of a friend turned out to be a friend of a friend of number 616. The small club turned out to be loud and not very crowded, so the combined group made up the majority of the space. The girls danced wildly and screamed to each other over the loud music thumping loudly around their swinging hips. When Kaylin got tired and returned to their table, she found that the only other person sitting there was number 616. He was watching her, and rather than looking away when she met his gaze he smiled when he saw she was coming over.