Parallel

dress that looks like it belongs on someone’s grandma.
    I glance down at the magazine in her lap and see Bret smiling up at me. Despite the ubiquity of publications with his face on the cover, I haven’t seen a picture of him in over a month. I made the mistake of Googling him the day after my birthday and spent the next four hours gorging on celebrity gossip and Nutella. Even though I was ambivalent about the experience while I was living it, it was hard to see pictures of my cast mates—especially Kirby, who was an unknown just like me before she was cast in EA and now is everywhere —and not feel a pang of regret for my old life.
    “I mean, there’s no way that tan is real, which means someone had to spray it on him,” the girl next to me is saying. She holds up the magazine to give me a better view. “Can you imagine that conversation? ‘Sir, please lift your junk so I can chemically enhance the shade of your nutskin.’” She laughs. “I’m Fiona, by the way,” she adds, sticking out her hand. There’s a tattoo of a leaf on the inside of her wrist.
    “Abby,” I say.
    “So what other plays are you going out for?” Fiona asks, closing the magazine and slipping it into her bag. Just like that, from testicles to theater.
    “I only know about this one,” I admit, feeling like a fraud.
    “You need this, then,” she says, pulling a printed blue flyer out of the bag. “It’s a list of all the shows this semester. And if you’re serious about the acting thing, you should totally join the Dramat,” she tells me.
    “That’s a drama club, right?” I should just tape a sign on my forehead that says I AM AN IMPOSTER.
    “Abby Barnes?” a male voice calls.
    “That’s me,” I say, and stand. Don’t be nervous, don’t be nervous, don’t be nervous.
    “Kill it!” Fiona whispers, making bullhorns with her fists.
    Legs shaking, I climb the steps to the stage, joining a guy with man-boobs and wire-framed glasses. He wears an overconfident smile aimed squarely at the third row, where the director (an Indian guy wearing a bright pink Team Jolie T-shirt) and the producer (a hefty blonde in lavender barrettes) sit clutching coffee cups and iPhones.
    “Ready when you are!” my stage mate bellows.
    The director smiles serenely. “We are not deaf, and the characters we’re casting aren’t deaf,” he says. “Inside voices are fine.”
    “Great!” Still shouting.
    The director and producer exchange glances. Fiona gives me double thumbs-up.
    “Anytime you’re ready,” the producer calls. “And again, no need to shout.”
    Unfortunately, the shouting is either his normal speaking voice or a stage affectation he won’t abandon. Either way, he maintains it for the duration of the audition.
    I do my best not to let him throw me off. He’s reading the part of Erysichthon, which actually is quite fitting, given his size. Cursed by the gods with an insatiable hunger after cutting down a sacred tree, Erysichthon eventually eats himself.
    “We’ll post the cast list on the theater door at seven,” Lavender Barrettes tells us with a bland smile, halfway through our first scene. “Thanks for auditioning.”
    “Thank you !” Shouty shouts.
    There is no way I’m not a casualty of this disaster.
    Fiona and I walk back to Old Campus together. “You were amazing,” I tell her, meaning it. She went right after me and knocked it out of the park as Demeter, goddess of the harvest. We stayed till five to watch the rest of the auditions, and none of the other girls were anywhere near as good.
    “So were you!” Fiona enthuses.
    “Ha. Hardly.”
    “I’m serious,” she says. “You totally kept your cool, even as flecks of spit ricocheted off your face.”
    “Fiona!” a male voice calls. A hulk of a guy in a shirt that could double as a bedsheet is waving from across the courtyard. His forearm is the size of my thigh.
    “Be right there!” Fiona shouts. “My boyfriend,” she explains. “And yes, the size thing is an issue in bed. I once tried to straddle him and pulled my hamstring. Hey, you wanna eat with us? We’re going to the Doodle for burgers.”
    The idea of making small talk with Fiona and her boyfriend while I mentally obsess over my audition is even less appealing than the thought of eating a greasy hamburger right now, both of which are infinitely more appealing than the mental image of her straddling him, now seared into my brain.
    “I’d love to,” I lie, “but I promised my