STRIPPED (The Slate Brothers 3)

“Two weeks ago? It happened two weeks ago and you’re just now telling me?” she asks.

“Well. Things were complicated between you and me,” I say. “I mean, we weren’t even speaking.”

Trishelle rolls her eyes at me. “Just because we weren’t speaking,” she says, starting to smile. “Of course I still want to be here for you if you need me.”

And now I’m starting to smile and I can feel our anger melting away, and it’s such a relief. It’s like I can see her again, the real her. She never left, not really.

“Well, I’m telling you now. And I need you, Trish.”

She puts an arm around me.

“Did you really like him? Or was it just sex?” Trishelle asks.

“I thought it was just sex. But I really liked him,” I admit, a few tears rolling down my own cheeks.

Trishelle gives me a pitying look. “Do you have anything of his we can burn? Like in the movies?”

I laugh. “No, no— nothing.”

“Or we could at least sit on the couch and watch a bad made for TV movie and eat ice cream.”

“Don’t you have to go somewhere?”

She exhales. “Fuck it. What more can they do to me? Trust me, there’s no punishment worse than these shoes. And anyway, I want to know all about what happened to you these past weeks. The sex part, I mean. Not the stuff that’ll make you cry— just the raunchy bits.”

“There’s sort of a lot of raunchy bits,” I admit, turning even redder.

“Perfect,” Trishelle says, eyes— ruined mascara and all— lighting up.

19

“You’re going to do great, seriously,” Trishelle says as we walk toward the theater. She’s no longer wearing stripper heels— and she’s no longer a cheerleader either. She is, however, on the school gymnastics team.

“I think the apron thing is too much,” I say, smoothing the half apron she convinced me to wear to look more hostess-like.

“Focus!” Trishelle says, snapping her fingers in front of my face. “Focus. The apron is an accessory, not the role. Don’t think so much about it.”

“This isn’t even a real role! It’s just an audition piece for the department!”

“Anna,” she whines, saying it like “an-NAH” just to prove how exasperated she is with me. I sigh, then push through the double doors into the mural-covered theater lobby. There are dozens of other freshmen here, all reviewing parts, plenty talking about roles they had in their high school programs. It makes me feel a little better— I’m not competing with them, after all, since they’re after something totally different. I just want to get into the department. They’re welcome to play Evita and Maureen and Lady Macbeth and Roxie Hart all day, every day, so far as I’m concerned.

Once I’ve signed in, Trishelle sits with me on the cool tile floor of the lobby, as all the chairs are long taken. We were warned that auditions could take several hours, and I’m surprised that Trishelle, in many ways, looks more nervous than me.

“Are you that worried I’ll botch it?” I ask, and I mean it— with each passing moment, she seems to get more and more wary, until I feel like I need to start telling her to focus.

“No! Of course not. I’m just nervous.”

“Really nervous,” I say, and she scowls at me. I’m most thrown by the fact that she doesn’t look nervous-scared, but rather, nervous-excited, like she’s waiting for a birthday party.

“Anna Milhomme,” a woman calls out, following my name up with the names of four other girls who will be auditioning in the same group as me. Trishelle squeezes my hand, then bounds into the theater so she can watch from the house.

I follow the woman— she’s one of the tenure theater professors, which I know because I’ve basically memorized the department’s website— along a hallway and into the backstage area. It’s otherworldly back here; the concrete block walls are painted black and strips of light blast from between the curtains that divide up the wings. The other girls auditioning with me already have their heads up, their shoulders back; when we’re marched out on stage in a single line, they beam, glossy lips catching the light.

A voice from the house—I can’t see due to the stage lights— calls out. “Alright, let’s go left to right— say your name, the number of the piece you’ll be reading, and then we’ll go back through for you to perform it. Those of you reading a piece that has partner dialogue, we’ll read that for you. Got it?”

We all nod. Each girl steps forward, gives her name, and then says she’ll be reading the hostess scene. Literally— every single other girl on stage with me will be reading the hostess scene. And I’m going to have to read it last, since I’m on the far right.

I force a smile and step forward when it’s my turn. “I’m Anna Milhomme, and I’ll be reading…” I stall, lick my lips. I prepared most for the hostess scene, but the idea of reading it after the other four girls makes me more than a little wary. The fact that time is ticking by as I dwell on all this makes me even warier. I blink, force a smile. “I’ll be reading scene three.”