Chapter 2
Sarah’s audition in New York City was set for the morning of May 14th, which meant she needed to get down to the city the day before. Jeremy couldn’t get off work at the Nantucket Records’ Office to take her, but Sarah confessed to Alana privately that she didn’t want him to go anyway. “You understand this world, Alana,” Sarah said. “Dad just doesn’t. He would never want to leave Nantucket. And he definitely doesn’t want me to go.”
Alana hesitated and filled her mouth with coffee. The May morning was splendorous, with a blue sky speckled with fluffy white clouds. She tried to put herself in Sarah’s shoes, to remember exactly what it had been like to throw herself into her career of being “seen” in fabulous and very expensive cities filled with judgemental people. She hadn’t thought Greta and Bernard understood her, either. But they’d known far more than she’d given them credit for back then. That was the nature of being a teenager.
“Your dad wanted to go away for college, remember?” Alana said with a smile.
“He wanted to move to Indiana to play football. That’s different.”
“It was Notre Dame football,” Alana corrected. “That’s some of the best football in the league.”
Sarah pulled her long hair into a ponytail and looked out the window. Her face was sour. Alana thought for a moment she’d lost her respect. It was always difficult with teenagers. One minute, you were on their good side; the next minute, all was lost.
But then Sarah said, “I’m sorry. I’m acting like a brat because I’m nervous.”
Alana reminded her just how ready she was. They’d been running Sarah’s lines for months, so much so that Jeremy had asked for a moratorium on theater at the dinner table. They often walked the beach as Alana read the lines of every other character who interacted with the character Sarah wanted to portray. Alana now felt that the play was stitched into the back of her own mind. Perhaps she could have done a one-woman show and played all the parts.
But her acting days were over. And she’d promised to throw all of her energy into ensuring Sarah had a wonderful career. But for Alana, that meant protecting Sarah. Alana had been thrown to the wolves’ time and time again. Being famous hadn’t done her many favors. She hoped that if Sarah got off on the right foot, she could protect herself from future predators. She could be stronger than Alana ever was.
Alana drove Sarah to the Nantucket Port, where they boarded the ferry and set out for their Manhattan adventure. Sarah took a selfie of the two of them on the top deck of the boat and captioned it: On my way to Manhattan! Wish me luck!
Alana took a picture of them, too, but didn’t post it anywhere. She liked to keep her memories to herself.
“Everyone says that you have to build a social platform if you want to be anyone these days,” Sarah explained as they slipped back into Alana’s car. “People have to already know who you are if they hire you for performances and films and stuff.”
“That sounds exhausting,” Alana said. Putting yourself at the mercy of an audience was enough of a task. Knowing that the entire internet could also watch your every move was terrifying.
“You were just discovered from a painting, right?” Sarah asked.
Alana wrinkled her nose at the memory. It was true that Asher’s painting of her had launched her modeling career—and her romantic life. It had taken her away from Nantucket and into the traumatic horrors of fame. But she was still grateful she hadn’t had to curate a social media presence. At the rate she’d partied in her twenties, it was unlikely her social media presence would have been coherent, anyway. She’d probably have launched a few scandals.
Alana and Sarah reached their Midtown hotel at a quarter past three and parked in the below-ground parking garage. Their hotel room was quaint with a single room, two double beds, a large television, and a coffee maker. Sarah set down her bag and went to the window to look at the view all the way down Fifth Avenue. Alana’s heart thumped. She watched Sarah’s expression, knowing that it was filled with optimism and endless hope. If Sarah didn’t get this gig, she would be heartbroken. But the odds were always against actresses. There were just so many of them. So many beautiful, talented girls whose hearts were on the verge of breaking.
“Let’s go out on the town!” Alana suggested.
They changed into dresses and jackets and stepped outside into the thrumming chaos of the biggest city either of them had ever known. Before long, they were shopping, hopping in and out of little boutiques and vintage places, looking through swimsuits for the approaching summer season, buying ice cream and licking it as they ran around. For these blissful hours, Sarah seemed to forget her nerves for tomorrow’s audition. This meant that Alana was doing her job right.
Just before seven Alana announced she had a surprise. “Follow me,” she said as she ducked into the Empire State Building.
Sarah walloped with laughter and ran after her. Alana removed her phone to retrieve the tickets she’d pre-ordered for the top of the Empire State Building. They bypassed the line that wove through the bottom floor and out onto the sidewalk. They went up and up in the elevator, and Sarah squeezed her hand. Alana wondered what it would have been like to raise Sarah from girlhood. She loved her so tremendously after only two years of knowing her. Alana imagined that a lifetime of love would have killed her. It would have been too much.
They stepped into the caged enclosure at the top of the Empire State Building and went immediately to the bars to peer north. They were wordless. Most everyone else this far up was quiet, too. There was just something sensational about being so far above a city of millions. You genuinely felt so small, like your little life didn’t matter so much, and all your endless fears and worries were for nothing.
“You won’t take my baby,” Sarah breathed through the bars. “I won’t let you.”
A shiver went down Alana’s spine. This was one of Sarah’s character’s first lines in the play. She wanted to run lines for her audition. And she wanted to do them dramatically here above the city.
“You know you aren’t ready for something like this,” Alana returned the lines of the character’s father. “You’ll be back in the institution in a week.”
Sarah clenched her jaw. Her eyes churned with anger. Alana was suddenly terrified of her. Her acting was too good, too charged, too emotional. She was an exposed nerve.
A few people around them noticed their scene and paused to listen and watch. It wasn’t clear that Alana and Sarah were “acting,” and many people assumed they were having an argument about Sarah’s very real baby and Alana’s very real belief that she was too insane to care for her child. One older woman stared at Alana so angrily that Alana finally broke into giggles and touched Sarah’s shoulder.
“I think we’d better stop. We’re freaking everyone out.”
Sarah giggled and wiped the real tears that had fallen from her eyes.
“But that was great,” Alana told her. “You’ve got this. I can’t imagine that anyone is better than you.”
“Is it wrong that I believe that, too?”
“You’re the only person who matters in this situation,” Alana said. “You have to believe in yourself when nobody else does.”
* * *
Sarah’s audition was held the next morning at ten-thirty. Alana walked her to the theater, hugged her tightly, and watched her disappear through the dark red double-wide doors. It wasn’t clear how long the audition would take, and Alana had decided to hang around the Broadway area, maybe with a cup of coffee and a book. Her stomach was flipping. She felt just as nervous as she had when she’d had to audition herself.
Alana turned to walk back into the glow of the May morning. A figure approached, but she couldn’t make out any of her features because of the dark interior. And then she heard, “Alana? Alana Copperfield?”
Alana froze with surprise. She would have known that voice anywhere. “Ginny Richards?”
Ginny got close enough to show her iconic smile and big head of red curls. Alana threw her arms around her and inhaled a whiff of her perfume. It was different than the one she’d worn in their twenties. Softer and more grown-up.
“What are you doing here?” Ginny cried. “I thought you moved to Paris!”
Alana pulled back and winced. “I moved back to the States two years ago. Asher and I are divorced now.”
Ginny wrinkled her nose. “Everyone I know got divorced the past few years. Seems like an epidemic.”
“I usually feel sad about divorce, but not when it comes to Asher and me,” Alana said. “We had a toxic relationship. And, of course, he was cheating on me. No surprise that such a prominent and successful and rich man had someone else on the side, I suppose.”
“Cheating on Alana Copperfield? Who could be so stupid?” Ginny gasped.
“You’re very kind,” Alana said with a laugh. “I’m about to remarry, though. I’m very happy.”
“And you’re in New York?”
“No! I just brought my soon-to-be stepdaughter to auditions,” she said. “I wanted to warn her about the theater business, but she’s certain this is it for her.”
“How old?”
“Nineteen. Basically, the same age I was when I came to New York to model.”
“That must have been around the time we met,” Ginny said, furrowing her brow.
“And now I’m almost forty-seven!” Alana said.
“I already am!”
Alana sizzled with electricity. Just looking at Ginny dropped her far, far back in her past, to a life of wild parties that went till dawn, auditions on dark theater stages and laughter that echoed through city streets that had only belonged to them. She hadn’t thought of Ginny in years.
“I have to run,” Ginny said, eyeing the double-wide doors. “I’m auditioning, too.”
Alana raised her eyebrows with surprise. “For which role?”
“Theresa,” Ginny said.
“That’s a fantastic part,” Alana said. “I know the play by heart by now. I’ve been running lines with Sarah for months.”
“No chance you’d like to audition, too?” Ginny asked.
“No way. My days of acting are over.”
But as she said it, Alana’s heart leaped into the air and dropped back down again.
“Let’s catch up tonight,” Ginny said. “I have no plans. Here’s my card.” Ginny leafed through her purse and handed it over. “Text me. I’ll take you and your daughter out!”
“Stepdaughter,” Alana corrected with a big smile.
“Same difference.” Ginny winked and disappeared through the door.
Alana retreated from the theater building and wandered around Broadway as her thoughts hummed with surprise. Ginny was still acting! She was still auditioning! What did that mean? Did it mean she was still fighting against women her age for a smaller number of parts? Did he mean she was short on cash and grabbing money wherever she could? Or had she actually been semi-successful in an industry that had threatened to eat so many people alive?
Alana ordered a cup of coffee and an oatmeal raisin cookie from a corner shop and watched the passers-by from the window. Being in this part of town meant spotting numerous actors and dancers or wannabe actors and dancers. They’d come from all over the world to try to make it here. “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere,” was the famous line, and it was true. But Alana hadn’t made it past her glossy magazine modeling days. She hoped Sarah would make the cut.