I open my eyes and move around the circle. Quinn smiles and shakes his head as I glide past.

“I think she means to tangle my eyes too. No, faith, proud mistress, hope not after it: ’Tis not your inky brows,” I say, running a fingertip over Nathan’s, “your black silk hair,” I add, my hand raking through his waves. Mike elbows him and I see him blush. “Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream, that can entame my spirits to your worship.”

This is the part I love about acting—when I totally escape into the character—someone who’s not me. I let Rosalind have me, body and soul, as she tells us about how foolish men are. But as she finishes by telling Pheobe to stop pining over her male alter ego and take what she’s got right in front of her, my real life creeps back into my thoughts.

Just like in Shakespeare, when you fall head over heals in love with someone you don’t even know, it’s never going to end well. Love killed Juliet when she was thirteen. I made it all the way to fourteen before it nearly killed me.

JESS IS GOING to get this one. I can feel it. Chalk it up to karma or whatever you want. It’s just for a tiny, short-run off-off Broadway show, but if it does well, there’s the possibility of going on the road. LA and maybe Vegas. Vegas could be kind of fun. They’re taking three for the chorus and she was by far the best. Me, not so much, but I’m not surprised. It’s the read where I usually shine, and there’s no read for this part. At least this time, I’m spared the humiliation of getting rejected right in front of everyone. They’re not posting callbacks until tomorrow. It’s not until I grab my bag that I notice Brett in the back. He’s talking to the director.

“We’re still on for tonight?” Jess asks me, pulling my attention away from trying desperately to read the director’s lips.

“Yeah. Club Sixty-nine, right? On Ludlow? Ten?”

“Perfect. Mind if I invite some other friends too?”

I give her a quick, sweaty hug, so I can watch over her shoulder without being rude, as Brett knuckle bumps the director. “It’s your party. Invite whoever you want.” I pull back as Brett makes his way to the stage. “Gotta go, but see you tonight.”

I turn and Brett is waiting at the bottom of the stairs. “What did he say?” I mutter as I make my way down.

He shrugs. “He might be able to find something for you.”

I can’t help myself. I leap off the last stair onto him and wrap my legs around his waist, grinning like a moron. “Thank you!”

He grins back. “Don’t thank me yet, babe. But I like the enthusiasm.”

He turns for the side door with me still clinging to him like a monkey, but then I see the director giving us a look. I slide off Brett and try to appear . . . something other than crazy.

“See ya, Tim,” Brett calls with a wave as we head for the door.

The director lifts a hand. “I’ll text you about the audition.”

“What audition?” I ask once we’re on the sidewalk.

“Something he thought you might be better suited for.”

Great. “Which means he’s not giving me a part.”

We weave through the crowded sidewalk toward the subway and he loops his arm around my waist. “You don’t know that.”

“So what’s this other thing?”

“It’s a recast for someone who got knocked up in When You Least Expect It. Says he’ll get you on the audition list.”

I feel my eyes go wide. “At the Elektra? Are you shitting me?”

He grins as he wends us through a swarm of high-school kids in matching orange T-shirts who are clogging the sidewalk. “As far as I know, no, I am not shitting you.”

“But that’s off-Broadway. Open run!”

“Last I looked.” He’s all smug now, trying to hide his self-satisfied smirk.

But then reality comes crashing down on me. “I’m not going to get it.”

He tugs me to his side. “Tim says the dancing is less choreographed for that one so they’re basically looking for someone with a hot body, because there’s a partial nude . . . which you have covered,” he adds, squeezing my ass, “and a voice, which you also got.”

“When is the audition?”

“He just heard about it so he’s not sure. After Thanksgiving, maybe. Said he’d talk to the director and get you on the list, then let me know.”

I’m not even going to let myself believe I might get this. But . . . holy shit!

We jump on the subway, but when we get to Columbus Circle, I stand. “I’m gonna get some tea and run an errand. I’ll be home in a while.”

“I’ve got rehearsal in a few hours. Don’t keep me waiting too long,” he says with that sexy smile and raised eyebrows.

I climb the stairs and head up Central Park West to Sixty-second Street, where my feet slow. I stand on the corner and stare at the building. The West Side YMCA is in a really old brick building just up from Central Park. I’ve walked past this intersection a thousand times, but I’ve never had a reason to turn up Sixty-second. I don’t have a reason now either . . . at least not one that makes sense, but I do it anyway.

“What am I even doing here?” I ask out loud, but that doesn’t stop my feet from carrying me over the threshold. Through a second set of wooden doors is a reception area. I almost turn around, but instead, I head to the desk.

A young Asian man is behind the counter, laughing into a cell phone. I wait a few minutes until he hangs up. “Can I help you?” he asks.

“Um . . . maybe. There’s a guy who I think volunteers here . . . Alessandro Moretti?”

He just looks at me a second like he’s expecting more. When I just stare back, he says, “ ‘Here’ is a big place. You’ll have to be more specific.”

I shrug. “I don’t have anything more specific.”

“You can try the gym,” he finally says, looking at the screen of his cell phone. “Take the elevator to the third floor.” He waves his hand at the corridor as he sticks the phone to his ear.

I turn and head in the direction he indicated and find the elevator. When the door opens on three, there is a desk with another Asian guy who could be the last guy’s brother. “Hi,” I say as I step up to the desk. He lifts his face out of the book he’s reading and stares at me blankly. “Do you know if there’s a guy named Alessandro Moretti that volunteers here?”

Finally, something registers on his face. It might be curiosity. “Yeah.”

When he doesn’t elaborate, I ask, “Do you know if he’s maybe here? Now?”

He sets his book facedown on the desk. “He’s here.”

After another awkward beat, I lean on the counter. “Do you think maybe I could see him?”

He points to a staircase. “Up one flight. He’s in the basketball gym.”

I find out that’s not as easy as it sounded when I get up one flight and find a weight room first, and then a pool. I look around both places for someone who looks like they might belong here. I finally see an older Hispanic man who is probably a custodian coming out of a locker room.

“Um . . . hi.”

The man looks up at me and smiles. “Hello.”

Why am I nervous? I force myself to stop fidgeting. “Where is the basketball gym?”

“If you go straight through the women’s locker room,” he says, indicating the door just down from where we are, “you’ll find it on the other side.”

I catch myself worrying my lower lip and make myself stop. “Thanks.”

He smiles again and turns for the stairs.

I weave through the women’s locker room and push through the door at the other end into a gym with a running track on a mezzanine above it. There’s a group of four black kids shooting hoops at one end, and in the corner under the mezzanine is a guy in a wifebeater, loose black athletic shorts, and boxing gloves, punching a hanging bag. His skin shimmers under a sheen of sweat, and I catch my gaze wandering over the ripple of muscles in his arms as he lashes out at the bag, a blistering rhythm of hard lefts and rights. I’m not sure what that bag ever did to him, but he’s clearly intent upon killing it.