The Tiger Catcher

“I most certainly do not.”

Josephine gave his forearm a good-natured pinch. “You said you were Ernest in high school. You must know something from Wilde by heart. I did.”

“Am I you?”

“What you are is number 50. You have ten minutes. I suggest you start practicing.”

“Josephine, I’m not reading.”

She stopped listening. They sat next to each other, their arms touching, her bare leg pressed against his khaki trousers. She was mouthing something, while his mind stayed a stubborn blank. Anxiously he stared at the stage. He was nervous for her, not for himself. He knew that despite her shenanigans he wasn’t going up there, but he really wanted her to get the part. A large sweaty man with messy hair recited Dante from the first canto. After four lines he was stopped. A bird of a woman followed. A pair of identical sisters got seven lines in before they were shooed off the stage.

“If you can get through your monologue,” Julian said quietly, after watching the others, “you’ll be all right. Here’s a hack for you. You’re rehearsing, not auditioning. Act like you already have the part.”

“But I don’t have the part. How the heck do I do that?”

“You act,” he said.

Her number was called. “Number 49. Josephine Collins.”

“Wish me luck,” she whispered, throwing Julian her bag and jumping up.

“You don’t need it. You have the part.” Julian watched her let down her long hair and become someone else on the stage, someone who projected without a microphone into the 6000-seat amphitheatre, someone who didn’t speak in a breathy femme fatale voice, someone with a British accent. She stood tall, eyes up, chin up, her body in dramatic pose, and shouted up into the empty seats.

What power is it, which mounts my love so high,

That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?

The mightiest space in fortune nature brings

To join like likes and kiss like native things—

The casting crank in the front row stopped her. “Miss Collins, what is that you are reading for us?”

“Shakespeare, sir, from All’s Well that Ends—”

“This is an audition for Paradise in the Park. You’re supposed to be reading for either Beatrice or Dante.”

“Of course. I was showcasing my abilities. How about this”—she lowered her voice to a deep bass, looked up, beat her breast—“through me you pass through the city of woe, through me you pass into eternal pain—”

“Thank you—next. Number 50. Julian Cruz. Mr. Cruz, have you prepared some Dante for us?”

4 (#ulink_5e42a389-4506-559c-a7cc-cb04b7c7f908)

Gift of the Magi (#ulink_5e42a389-4506-559c-a7cc-cb04b7c7f908)

BACK AT HIS CAR, THEY LINGERED. SHE CALLED HIM chicken for telling the director he had nothing prepared, and he agreed, not wanting to take her home. She tied up her hair and put away her fake glasses. She looked like herself again, simple and perfect. The ends of her sheer blouse swayed in the breeze.

“I wish it wasn’t so late in the day,” she said, glancing at the hills around the theatre. “We could take a walk up there. I could show you something.”

“Show me anyway,” he said. “Wait—up where?”

“What, you agreed too fast? No, no backsies. I’ll have to show you another day.”

“Okay—when?”

She laughed. They leaned against his gray Volvo, drinking from the same water bottle. Julian’s thoughts were racing. “What’s your favorite movie?”

“Dunno. Why?”

“Come on. What is it? Titanic?”

“Ugh, no, I don’t care for all that dying in icy water, don’t care for it one bit,” she said, peering at him through slitted eyes. “Apocalypse Now.”

Julian did a double take. “Apocalypse Now is your favorite movie?”

She stayed poker-faced. “Sure. Why is that surprising?”

“No reason.” He fake-coughed. “I’ve never seen it.”

Now it was her turn to do a double take. “You’ve never seen Apocalypse Now?”

“No. Why is that surprising?”

“Because it’s such a guy movie. We should watch it sometime.”

“Okay—when?”

She laughed. They lingered a bit longer.

“Listen—I gotta head back,” she said.

“I thought you were hungry,” Julian blurted. “What do you feel like eating? We can go anywhere. My treat. I may not know about Vietnam movies, but I know my L.A. food. Are you in the mood for a taco? Factor’s on Pico? A pizza? Marie Callender’s coconut pie?”

Her mouth twisted as she struggled with some internal thing. “Don’t think I’m nuts,” Josephine finally said. “But I feel like breakfast for dinner. Hash browns?”

“I know just the place. Best hash browns in L.A.”

“Am I dressed for it?”

“For IHOP? Absolutely.” Julian opened the passenger door.

“You know what they say,” she said, getting in. “When the guy opens the door for you, either the girl is new, or the car is new.”

“Ha,” Julian said. The girl was new.

“So who do you stay with when you’re in L.A.?” he asked. They were sitting across from each other, their second plate of hash browns half eaten between them on the blue table.

“My friend Z.”