Stage Fright - Kate Lloyd Page 0,1

her ample bosom. “I hate auditions, don’t you?”

“I can’t think of anything worse, except being pushed over a cliff by a gorilla. And that might be less painful.” I folded my music and stuffed it into my purse. “I’m glad we don’t have to audition to get into our church choir or I wouldn’t have anywhere to sing.”

“Don’t be silly, Jessie. Old Hal would let you in.”

“I’m not so sure.” I remembered joining the choir nine months ago. Director Hal Sorensen had welcomed me by pointing to a vacant seat in the soprano section and hadn’t spoken to me since. “Sometimes I wonder if he even knows I’m there.”

“That’s just Hal and his peripheral vision. He’ll get to know you on our choir’s trip to Great Britain and maybe offer you a solo when we get back.”

“I doubt it.” Thinking of the other sopranos who sang with me on Sunday mornings, I knew there wasn’t much chance. And for good reason. Young and flashy Clare Van Arsdale could fill the sanctuary with dazzling sound without even warming up first. Marci had a lovely voice too.

“We should have been born tenors.” Roxanne’s gaze skated over to a young man leaning against a metal wall locker. “Then we’d be singing three hundred and sixty-five days a year.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “You’re lucky to be an alto.” I thought of Roxanne’s grand, confident voice. Standing six inches taller than me, she possessed chutzpah, as Mom would say, capturing the audience’s attention even when not in the spotlight.

“But all I get are old-lady parts.” Her plump shoulders sagged as she expelled a breath. “Never the lovely young ingénue.”

“Be glad you’re not a soprano. At age thirty-seven it’s hard reaching the high notes. I’m too old to compete with these young women.”

Onstage, I thought, or anywhere.

Chapter 2

Half an hour later, I crept down the stairs into the windowless, low-ceilinged church basement, with its beige vinyl floors and closets containing our robes for Sunday mornings. My hunch was that Hal insisted we rehearse where no one could hear us floundering with new pieces. I tried to slip into the chair next to lead soprano Clare without disturbing the other choir members already practicing.

Hal raised his hand to stop our pianist, Bonnie Lin. The room fell silent. Perched on a stool, he stared down his beakish nose at me. “You’re late.”

“Sorry, it won’t happen again.” My ego deflated, I wouldn’t use the audition as an excuse for fear he would ask how I did. I wanted to forget the traumatic event and was glad only Roxanne knew I’d bombed. I rummaged through my purse and found a pencil for taking notes.

Hal gave the downbeat and the others began singing again. Flipping open my score, I mouthed the words as Clare’s voice glided up and down the octaves. If she’d been at the audition, they would have offered her the leading role. Except she sneered at Gilbert and Sullivan. “I Love Lucy set in Victorian times,” she labeled their operettas. She was saving herself for “real” music—Puccini, Verdi, and Mozart.

After tonight’s ordeal, I was ready to give up singing forever.

I scanned the nineteen other choir members. Except for Roxanne, who was meandering in and sitting with the other altos at the far end of my row, how many would I want to travel with for a whole week? They were a fun group—when Hal was out of earshot—but I should be spending spring break with my twelve-year-old son, Cooper. One reason I taught at a public school was to share his vacation schedule.

Yet since college I’d dreamed of seeing Great Britain, home of Daphne du Maurier and Jane Austen, my favorite authors. I was a single mom on a fixed income. How many other opportunities would swim my way? Though I loved my students, I might spend the rest of my life grading papers in Seattle.

“People, on page four, no breath before the word ‘pardon.’” Hal’s thinning hair sprawled across his domed scalp. “I don’t want to hear any r’s. Pronounce it ‘pa-ahdon.’”

My mother could do it right, I thought. She was born in Brooklyn and try as she might, she couldn’t disguise her accent.

We sang the phrase again and he snorted. “What did I just say?”

I was relieved I wasn’t singing with bravado—loud enough to be heard. Peeking at my wristwatch, I calculated I could tumble into bed in forty-five minutes. I envisioned Mom and Cooper sacked out on the couch watching TV when my son should