Seeing Stars by Diane Hammond Read Free Book Online Page A

weep by the end, and there was almost always a snuffle or two in the house even if actual tears weren’t produced.
    “That’s what we wanted to talk to you about,” Angie said. “We don’t want her to do that one.”
    “Why?”
    Angie and Laurel exchanged quick glances. “We just think another monologue might be better,” Angie said.
    “Can she cry on cue?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then that’s the one I want her to do. It’s the toughest piece I have, and if she can pull it off, Evelyn Flynn, the casting director who’s coming, will remember her. I’ve been trying to get that woman to come to one of my showcases for years, so don’t blow it.”
    The two sighed as one, but acquiesced. “All right,” Angie said. Probably thinking Mimi couldn’t see, she took Laurel’s wrist in her hand and pressed. Laurel nodded: All right.
    “And I want to see her do it before the showcase.” To Laurel, Mimi said, “Are you off-book?”
    “Yes,” Laurel said faintly.
    “Well, I want you to work on it with Dee before class. I mean that.”
    Angie and Laurel both nodded and turned to go.

    “E YES ON THE PRIZE, DARLING,” SAID A NGIE UNDER HER BREATH.
    Laurel nodded. “I know, but—”
    Angie just shook her head and said firmly, “Eyes on the prize.”

    “T INA M ARIE !”
    As Mimi came into her office she caught the little dog squatting in the corner. Bullet-proof Tina Marie simply looked at Mimi over her narrow shoulders and shrugged, as though to say, So? I’m undisciplined. It’s my nature. What can you do? Knowing a lost cause when she saw one, Mimi just sighed, pulled a gallon jug of Nature’s Miracle from the top drawer of her file cabinet, and dumped some on the spot, where it mingled with urine of yore. It was true that the dog, like the rest of Mimi’s operation, was undisciplined. Go to the house at two o’clock in the morning on any given day and you might find Mimi popping Orville Redenbacher’s in the kitchen, or Allison cleaning out a closet. And what was wrong with that? Mimi had gone to San Francisco during the Summer of Love, had seen Janis Joplin in concert. She was an old rebel, messy as much by philosophy as by her nature. Allison was the tidy one, an island of order amid the chaos. She did her own laundry and often Mimi’s laundry, too; kept her cosmetics in a musical jewelry box with a dancing ballerina that her mother had bought for her, evidently, when Allison was young, and in which she also kept a surprisingly extensive inventory of earrings, inexpensive bracelets, pendants, and charms.
    Allison imposed some of that order on Mimi, as well. Mimi remembered to color her thinning hair only because Allison reminded her. Sometimes she’d tease the girl by telling her she’d decided to just say to hell with it and let it grow out, as lusterless and gray as a cardboard egg carton. As it was, whenever she let it go too long Allison would take it upon herself to buy Mimi’s L’Oréal hair color and dye Mimi’s hair in the kitchen sink. Mimi loved the feel of the girl’s long fingers working around her scalp, making sure the chemicals were evenly distributed so they’d take the way they were supposed to. They’d had a disaster or two before Allison coaxed Mimi into buying a timer. When Mimi argued that they could just as easily use the timer on the stove, Allison said it had been broken for as long as Allison had lived there—didn’t Mimi know? But, of course, Mimi didn’t know, because she didn’t cook very often and when she did, as a point of pride, she followed no recipe or instructions, which made their rare at-home dinners unpredictable and, as often as not, featuring a dessert course of takeout Chinese.
    In the three and a half years that Allison had been living with her, Mimi had seen the girl grow a foot and test her wings on some of the younger girls to see what power she could exert over them, getting them to tell her each other’s secrets. On the whole, Mimi was not averse