44: Book Six by Jools Sinclair Read Free Book Online

in there. They want me to audition again! I made it to the second round, Abby Craig! Don’t pinch me, you’ve inflicted enough damage to my poor body tonight, but it’s like I’m dreaming!”
     

 
    CHAPTER 15
     
    It was too cold for David to sit outside in the back, even with the fires going in the pits, so we sat at a table in the corner of the main room. It was crowded.
    “Yuck,” David said, scrunching his face as he looked over the menu. “I forgot that I don’t like their appetizers here at all.”
    “Let’s go with the chips and salsa,” I said. “I don’t think they can mess that up too bad, right?”
    “Yeah. Okay. I probably won’t be able to taste anything anyway. Not with the smell of that spaghetti still in my nostrils. Am I still walking around with it?”
    He stuck out his shirt sleeve for me to sniff.
    “No,” I lied.
    When the waitress brought our order, I lifted my glass.
    “To Detective Slocum.”
    “Let’s hope so,” David said, chugging back half the glass.
    We drank and ate as David talked about the role and some new details he was going to add to the character in the next audition.
    “Do you know how many others were called back?” I said.
    “I think it’s a pretty small group compared with the original number they started with. Maybe a dozen.”
    He let out a long breath.
    “It’s hard, isn’t it? Going after a dream,” he said. “Not as easy as they make out.”
    I sat back and let his words sink in for a moment. And then a thought occurred to me. I didn’t really have any dreams. None that I was going after anyway. I seemed to be living life day to day, week to week, not much more beyond that. Working, getting my paycheck, playing soccer. Running. Trying to sleep.
    “What are you thinking about, Abby Craig? You have the oddest expression on that delicious face.”
    “Just that I used to feel that way, you know about soccer. I had dreams. But I don’t anymore. It’s kind of weird, that’s all.”
    He drank some more beer.
    “I think with everything that you’ve been through, your dream must be to get through a day without having one of your episodes. I think that’s good enough right now. Maybe when things settle down, you’ll think of something. I’m sure you don’t want to stay at Back Street forever, right?”
    “No,” I said. “But I still don’t know what I want to do.”
    “You’re young,” he said. “You still have years to figure that one out.”
    “But you’ve always known, right? That you wanted to be an actor.”
    “I have,” David said. “But I just hope it’s not a pipe dream. Like some poor stupid salmon swimming upstream with almost no chance of making it back home. There are like a million others like me out there and thousands of really good ones. Look, I’m working at a coffee house to pay the bills.”
    “Not for long,” I said.
    He smiled, the beer beginning to dance in his eyes.
    “So what’d you think about tonight?” he said. “I thought it was kind of nice. And kind of sad.”
    “Yeah, it was good,” I said. “It sure makes you think about things. All those people, not having enough money to eat. It’s crazy.”
    “Don’t get me started,” he said, starting. “It just makes you wonder about the nature of progress. Technology never stops. We find better and better ways to kill people. But our hearts, Abby Craig… Our hearts are still 10 sizes too small.”
    I let him continue.
    “I feel the sorriest for the older kids. A lot of the little ones are too young to understand. But those damn teenage years are hard enough without having to go through this on top of it.”
    David finished his beer and ordered another.
    “It’s so weird, isn’t it?” he went on. “The different lives everybody leads. Those houses up on Awbrey Butte are not that far away. You know, some of them are still priced at more than a million dollars. And those swanky condos are just down the street.”
    I remembered when they were