Free Wish Upon a Star by Mindy Klasky Page B

director and the artistic director and someone who had some other job related to the show.
    The entire time I stood there, I thought, I need to focus. I need to be here now. I can’t think about Sam, about the past. I promised myself. I need to focus. Around and around, my mind chased itself like a kitten playing with its own tail. I tried to use my tangled emotions, to pour them into the reading, to make my confusion about Sam and the rest of my sorry life inform Laura’s dream of her Gentleman Caller, but I wasn’t sure if I was brilliant, or only the most pitiful woman in the world.
    “Thank you,” the casting director said when I was through. And then, impossibly, he added, “Can you come back this afternoon for the chorus call?”
    “Yes,” I said, surfing to the crest of a sudden wave of adrenaline. I pumped every acting trick I had into the one word, trying to sound like I always made the first cut. While I managed to restrain my enthusiasm as I left the room, I had to give a little jump and a yip of surprise after the door closed behind me.
    They liked me! At least enough to call me back for a singing audition. Enough to give me a chance to play Laura as I’d never played her before, with even more conviction than I’d had in college. Despite Sam, despite my distraction, despite my uncertainty, they liked me.
    Four hours later, though, my enthusiasm had been replaced by pure, unadulterated panic.
    I’d returned to the audition hall at noon, even though I knew I’d have to wait. I didn’t want to chance getting trapped by a parade, by a street fair, by a roaming band of urban pirates, that would somehow keep me from my afternoon audition slot.
    My paranoid promptness nearly cost me my sanity. I waited in the hall outside the audition room, listening as each of the men sang. Every guy was permitted sixteen bars of music—one minute to prove that he was the perfect tenor, the perfect baritone, the ideal Tom Wingfield or Gentleman Caller. More than once, I had to flee to another floor, take a break from the pure musical perfection.
    That was bad enough, listening to the men. But then the Amandas started singing—strong altos every one, belting out their snippets as if they wanted the Statue of Liberty to take notice all the way downtown.
    I wasn’t trying for Amanda, I told myself. I wasn’t competing against those women.
    And then the first Laura went in. Her voice was rich and clear, so strong that the door to the audition room might as well not exist at all. She was phenomenal. There was no way I could go into that room, not after comparing myself to her. I didn’t have a prayer.
    I was going to be sick. Fifteen minutes before they called my name—fifteen more minutes of listening to the unbeatable competition. I turned on my heel and fled to the bathroom.
    I ran cool water over my wrists and forced myself to take a dozen calming breaths. Toweling off, I stared into the fly-specked mirror. Out of habit, I reached for my necklace, tugged lightly at my pearls. What was I doing wearing pink? It conspired with my blond hair to make me look pale, washed out. I’d been stupid to put myself in front of theatrical decision makers looking anything less than my absolute best. I tugged again, as if I could change the color of my clothes.
    As I forced my fingers away from my neck, they glinted in the overhead fluorescent light. Faint golden swirls glimmered against my skin, the vaguest reminder of Teel’s promise. I had wishes—four of them. Surely, the tailor-made role of a musical Laura Wingfield was worth a wish. Worth my entire professional future.
    I glanced around to make sure that none of the bathroom stalls was occupied, and then I pressed my thumb and forefinger together, bearing down hard. “Teel!” I enunciated.
    Immediately, a thick fog coalesced between the sinks and the stalls. Glints of jewel-toned light reflected off the mirrors, the faucets, the metal doors. I caught my breath at the