Passage I

PROSE FICTION: This passage is adapted from the novel Lily Nevada by Cecelia Holland (@1999 by Cecelia Holland).

Lily said, "I'll get it, it's just harder than I thought it would be."

Bellamy could see, out of the corner of his eye, where she was sitting in the row behind and two seats to his left. She was going over her lines again with the book on her knee. Bellamy turned his gaze back toward he stage, where the next supposed actor with the audacity to read for him was coming up to the mark; Bellamy frowned; this one was a green boy, his outsize trousers held up by a hank of rope. Everything on the street was turning up at his audition.

Behind him, in the seat next to Lily's, Charlie said, "The hardest thing is going to be making you look like a fifty-year-old woman. I told you that you should be Ophelia. Maybe next time you'll listen to me."

With some difficulty Bellamy shut out his wheedling voice. Up on the stage, Harry, who was man aging the audition, held out a piece of paper to the fidgeting boy. "Read this."

A look of panic spread across the boy's face. He took the sheet, gave it the merest glance, and cleared his throat, and licked his lips, his pleading eyes fixed on Bellamy. "I need a job," he said.

"But you can't read," Bellamy said. "Next." He looked down at the list in front of him.

"Oooh," Eva cried, directly behind him. "The poor thing."

"Eva," Bellamy said, between his teeth. "Next."

"David! He's only a little boy!"

Bellamy clamped his lips together. Up there on the stage, the boy lingered, hanging there, leaning forward, as if only the mark held his feet down, or he could have floated over into Bellamy's lap.

"Eva!" Bellamy heaved out his breath in a sigh. "All right. We'll find something for you to do. Next!"

Eva patted his shoulder. "Good David." The boy beamed; he went quickly back off the stage. Harry threw Eva a dark look and went back to find the next tryout.

Bellamy settled into his seat. There was no use trying to relax. Everything was a mess and, O cursed spite, it was his job to order it. The reading had been awful. Harry simply could not manage Shakespearean English; Charlie took rant to new raw-throated dimensions of insincerity; even Lily had stumbled and staggered. Eva alone had done surprisingly well.

Bellamy turned his attention back to the stage. There was so much to be done. Earlier when they had tried the lights it took them an hour to get even half of them on, and there was almost no scenery. He tapped his fingers busily on his knee. Hamlet needed very little scenery; he could manage with screens. Up there, the next aspirant was walking up to the mark; Harry brought him the paper, and he began to read.

After only a few syllables, Bellamy groaned and covered his face with his hand. "Next!”

The would-be actor flung the page down, snarled something under his breath, and stamped off. Harry bent for the paper. "You're never gonna get anybody doing this, you know."

The next man was coming up across the stage, a tall lean fellow with a great shock of white-yellow hair. As he reached the mark, and held out his hand for Harry's script, he looked at the people in the seats in front of him, and his face fell open.

"Well, well." he said, his wide blue gaze aimed behind Bellamy. He had a marked Rebel accent. "It's the girls from the Brooklyn Hotel."

Bellamy, surprised, twisted to look behind him. Lily was leaning forward, staring at the white-haired man. Charlie clutched at her arm in his ritual fit of jealousy, and Eva cried, "Oh, I remember you!"

"Is this one of the men who bothered you there?" Bellamy said.

"No, no," Lily said. "He didn't do anything. He gave me some coffee." She waggled her fingers at him. "Get on with it. We have to move, remember?"

Bellamy grunted at her. She had a fine officious way of believing she was in command. Also it annoyed him that the girls insisted that they move into the new rooms at the Baldwin today, on top of everything else. He swung around and faced the white-haired man

"Read that, please.”

The fellow cleared his throat and lifted the page.

"What's Hecuba to him， or he to Hecuba. that he should weep for her? What would he do, had he the motive and the cue for passion that I have? He would drown——”

"All right," Bellamy said, surprised and pleased. "Thats good enough. Give your name to Harry, there. Do we already know your address? Oh, yes, the Brooklyn? Good."

The white-haired man beamed. "Thank you." He turned toward Harry: a long flexible body that showed every feeling in him, a carrying voice that spoke every vowel, and the slight lilt of the accent gave it a certain richness. Bellamy rubbed his hands together, delighted.

"Next!"