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DAHLIA
“He’sdead?” I scream, forcing the tears from my eyes by thinking about how sad I’m going to be if I don’t nail this audition. On command, the wet streaks stream over my cheekbones and drip off the tip of my chin. I have a great ability to cue emotional responses on a whim, and I’m hoping that unusual talent serves me well now.
“Of course he’s dead,” my male counterpart hisses at me. “That’s what happens when you cross the mafia. Too bad you’ll never live long enough to learn that lesson.”
I jump to my feet and run stage left, clutching my hands to my chest as soon as I hear the popping sound of the prop gun. The fear of breaking a kneecap doesn’t even give me pause as I drop down against the hard stage surface and let my body crumble dramatically. The male lead comes and stands over me as I stare up at him with eyes so wide, they start to sting. “I will always love him,” I choke out defiantly with my last breath, before closing my eyes and letting my arms fall limply from my chest.
For a few seconds, there’s nothing but deafening silence, and I’m afraid to open my eyes again. I don’t want to meet a disappointed look on the director’s face. The last Broadway audition I did was for an off-kilter rendition of an old cult classic, and when I finished my audition, the director made a face that looked a little like she was going to be sick. If that happens again, I’ll positively die of embarrassment.
My one saving grace for this audition is that I naturally fit the part. Not only am I Italian and very familiar with the mafia, even though I’ve never actually been a part of a crime family myself, I find the whole “criminal underworld” vibe to be entirely enthralling. Partly because my mother always forbade me from asking questions about it, and partly because it just seems as if it oozes with a dangerous sex appeal.
If there was any audition that would ever give me the chance to finally be able to seize my dreams of becoming a Broadway actress, this would be the role. But considering the awkward silence hanging palpably in the air, my heart sinks. Until someone starts to clap. Before I pull open my eyelids, I imagine it’s the director’s assistant, a young gangly guy who kept staring at my ass as I walked into the audition. But when I finally open my eyes and sit up, I’m stunned to see that it’s the director himself applauding my performance.
“Bravo, Miss…” He looks down at his clipboard to recall my name. “Bravo, Miss Limone. Stunning audition. The part is yours.”
“Wait, really?” I blurt out without thinking.
The director looks slightly stunned at my surprised reaction. “Yes, really,” he says. “Have you never been given a leading role on Broadway before?”
Leading role? Shit, I’ve never been givenanyrole on a Broadway production before. All of my acting gigs have been off-Broadway, black-box-type gigs. This is my dream, a chance of a lifetime.
I shake my head and he looks down at his clipboard again to catch my first name. “Well, Dahlia,” he says with a smile. “The part’s yours if you want it. My vision is to make this production as realistic as possible, and I feel that both your aesthetic and your visible acting talent make you absolutely perfect. I want this production to soar into mainstream conversation, and I need a powerful female lead to do that for me. Do you think you can handle the part?”
“Absolutely!” I gush without hesitation.
“Great. See you back here tomorrow morning bright and early,” the director says casually, as if he hasn’t just changed my entire life.
I barely even remember the subway ride back to my apartment because I’m still on a tangible high from the audition. “You did what?” my mother gasps through the phone when I call to tell her that I got the part. It doesn’t register with me at first that she isn’t ecstatic for me. After all, this is my biggest success to date, and my mom’s always been my most adamant supporter. She’s stood by me through every teary-eyed aftermath of a failed audition, and every starry-eyed, hope-filled attempt to get back up again. She knows that a career in Broadway is the endgame for me, and this is what we’ve been waiting on all along.
“Dahlia, this isn’t the part for you,” she says to my dismay.
“What? Mom, what are you talking about? This is the perfect part for me.”
“It’s not you, sweetheart, it’s this production. This play is no good at all. It’s dangerous.”
“Dangerous? Mom, what are you even talking about? It’s a theatre production, not an actual mafia hit.”
“Trust me on this one. You need to drop out and wait for a better role in a different production. The mafia world isn’t something to be made light of, or to prance around on the stage impersonating.”
“I’m notprancing,” I say indignantly. “I’m acting. And this isn’t a light production, it’s more like a tragic romance, a dark and intensely provocative love story. It’s likeRomeo and Julietset within the crime syndicate.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” my mother says impatiently. “And that’s exactly why you can’t be a part of it. This isn’t Shakespeare, Dahlia, it’s the real world.”
I roll my eyes at her even though she can’t see me. “Shakespeare was in the real world, Mom,” I say.
“You know what I mean,” she barks at me.
I love my mother, and she’s always been my biggest supporter and best friend, but I honestlydon’tknow what she means this time. I don’t understand why she’s getting so upset over this.
“It’s not good to make light of dangerous things.”
“It’s literally just a play,” I try one last time in an attempt to make her see reason. I just want her to be happy for me. I want her to see that this is my big chance. But my mother doesn’t budge. I don’t know why, but for some reason she seriously doesn’t want me taking the lead role in this Broadway production. By the time I hang up with her, I’m heartbroken and don’t know what to do.
I stare at myself in the mirror as I change into more comfortable clothes. Maybe I did just get the role because I look the part. I do look like aprincipessa, with my long dark hair and jade green eyes. But just because I’m full-blooded Italian doesn’t mean I’m mafia. I’m sure the director hired me based on more than just my appearance. Maybe he saw a talented, aspiring actress with her starry-eyed dreams standing in front of him, and decided to give me a shot.
I throw on some jeans and a well-worn T-shirt that’s been softened through use, and pace around my rent-controlled apartment. I spent most of my childhood in an apartment like this too—a rent-controlled capsule run by a slumlord in East Harlem where my single mom practically sold her soul in order to pay for me to attend a performing arts high school. Not much has changed except that I managed to get out of East Harlem. Ever since I can remember, the one fear my mother always instilled in me was a crippling fright of the criminal underground. To be honest, it’s probably a bit extreme, but I’ve never really questioned it until now, since it’s never really interfered with my life until this audition.
