The Sweetest Fix

Dear Miss Stratton,

Congratulations.

We are pleased to inform you that Bernard Bexley will receive your three-minute audition at the Bexley Theater this year. Please read carefully and adhere to all Dance for Bexley Contest policies and procedures as written. There will be no makeups or schedule changes. If for any reason you cannot make your appointment on…

Reese dropped the letter and screamed.

Lorna echoed her, their faces inches apart.

“I’m in! I’m in!”

“Shut up! Holy crap!” They clung to each other, jumping up and down in tandem, their feet slapping down on the kitchen tile. “I can’t believe it. Thousands of people submit! From all over the country!”

Reese leaned away. “What was all that transcendent talk?”

“I meant it, but your odds were still horrible!”

“I know.” Tears blurred Reese’s vision. “Oh my God, I’m in, Mom. I’m going to dance in front of Bernard freaking Bexley.”

Her mother pulled a bottle of wine out of the cabinet, two glasses off the shelf. “When is the audition?” she asked, looking back over her shoulder.

Barely coherent, hands shaking, Reese stooped down and picked up the letter, savoring the opening line one more time before scanning for a date and…

Panic dropped like the steel blade of a guillotine.

“Oh my God.” She was already halfway up the stairs when the letter floated back to the ground. “It’s tomorrow!”

Chapter 2

No. This couldn’t be happening.

This had to be a nightmare.

Reese stared at the locked door of the Bexley Theater in a nightmarish haze.

The unthinkable had happened. She’d missed her audition.

She’d…shown up late to the appointment to change her life.

To make her dreams come true.

How? How?

Reese turned and fell back against the door, staring out at the lively Theater District street, and absently wondered how so many people could move that fast without bumping into each other. How did they change directions at the very last second every single time?

These people probably never missed anything important.

They would have parachuted off their delayed flight, right down onto the stage. Or rented a car when a snowstorm had forced the plane to land in Pittsburgh, instead of trying to save cash by buying a bus ticket. Once the bus got a flat tire on the turnpike, they would have gotten out and ran, instead of sitting frozen in her seat, hoping for a miracle.

These New Yorkers definitely would know what to do now.

Whereas she was at a complete loss.

One did not simply miss an audition with Bexley. The man was rarely seen in public anymore, deigning to attend opening nights on occasion and without warning. He descended from his lofty Upper West Side perch once a year to entertain the dreams of five hopefuls before becoming unattainable once again. There was no phone number to call and reschedule. The acceptance note she’d received in the mail wasn’t even on letterhead. No email address, no social media handles, nothing. Not to mention the rules were cut and dried.

Reese’s phone buzzed in her purse and she pulled it out, shoving it right back in with a squeak when she saw it was her mother calling.

Oh God, what was she going to tell her?

Of course, she’d kept Lorna posted about the travel delays, but they’d hung up with the understanding that she would beg, borrow and steal to get there on time. If she’d only splurged and rented the car, she could have made it.

Numb down to her toes, Reese shouldered the royal blue duffel bag with her name embroidered on the side and walked blindly into the fray of humanity, Times Square flashing with moving advertisements and color in the distance. She hadn’t eaten since scarfing down a bag of chips on the flight, but she wasn’t sure she’d even consume food again, considering her stomach had turned into a crime scene. Sick. She was going to be sick.

I missed my last chance.

And might as well admit it. That’s what this audition had been. She had no college degree or any other useful skill to fall back on. Since graduating high school, she’d been assisting her mother part time at the Cedar-Boogie Dance School, working night shifts at Dairy Queen. Using all of her spare money to attend dance classes in Milwaukee on her nights off. Appearing in community productions where she could as an ensemble dancer. Her plan since childhood had always been to see her name in lights. To succeed at the one and only thing she loved. On three separate occasions since high school, she’d saved up enough money to travel to New York for open casting calls, but she’d never gotten a callback.

Was this a sign from the universe that it wasn’t meant to be?

The next time Reese glanced up, she was in the thick of Times Square.

She slumped down on a stone pillar, bag in her lap, and watched the electronic stock market ticker tape fly left beneath a Calvin Klein billboard. And she tried to gather enough courage to take the phone back out of her purse and call her mother with the devastating news.