CHAPTER 7

The odds were stacked like a mountain, God only knows how many rules we broke, and we cut it so fine that the guy at the desk refused to register us. Begging and pleading wasn’t working either. If it hadn’t been for three more girls turning up after us and arguing up a storm, I’d be sitting on the steps outside the Fortuna Theatre right now, crying my eyes out.

Instead, I’m standing at the back of a queue of preening girls and prickly stage mums. They’re sizing each other up, evaluating their chances. Seems like every last one of them is perfectly turned out and immaculately dressed. Then I spot a girl biting her nails, looking up at her mother every couple of minutes like she’s a prison officer. I smile at her. Her smile is brief and sad, like she’d rather be anywhere but here. I can kind of relate. Five minutes in the toilets was barely enough time to sort my scraggly hair or blot my oily skin. The dress is fabulous but the girl inside is trash. Suddenly I’m yearning for Mum so bad, I think I’m going to cry.

‘Will you stop doing that to yourself?!’ Billie chides as the last three girls join the back of the queue.

‘You lost me.’

‘Worrying. Look, you know your lines, your improv piece is brilliant, your face was made for close-ups and you said you wanted to be an actor more than anything in the entire history of wanting things. And we made it in time!’

‘It’s not that simple. These girls are quality, you can see it in the way they stand. They’ve had years of training and they probably have friends in high places. Why am I putting myself through this, B? Not only do I have to outshine all this talent, but I have to make the casting directors think outside the box too.’

‘I feel your pain,’ Billie confides. ‘I didn’t tell you this before. In primary, I wanted to play Dorothy so bad in the school play but got shot down for being “a boy”.’ The finger quotes Billie is so fond of are out again with a vengeance. ‘I was a coward. I am a coward. You’re not like me, Salma. You’re a fierce queen.’

I shake my head. ‘Next to this lot, I’m like something that got stuck to a glass slipper.’

‘Really? Show me one other girl who went through hell and high water to be here. You don’t need a stage mother to do the talking, like these other girls do. Your talent will speak volumes. Go out there, Salma; go before those judges and whatever prejudices they’re holding on to, and send the other girls sashaying away.’ Billie snaps their fingers. ‘Because you were born for this. Shantay, you stay.’

‘You’re making me cry!’ I hug Billie.

‘Oh my God, they’re so fake!’ whispers one hopeful but I take it in my stride. She may look like classic Cinderella, but she has the heart of an ugly sister. The glass slipper can only fit one of us, but even if it’s not me it won’t mean I have to give up my acting dreams. Hollywood’s full of stories about casting directors remembering a reject for a different role that came up later. The trick is to be memorable. And if this mad, bad and dangerous day has taught me anything, it’s that I’m seriously unusual.

‘Babes, you’re on!’ Billie says.