Wanting Sheila Dead(3)

“And the government,” Andra said.

The girl next to her turned and stared, but there wasn’t any time to do anything about it. A wave of energy seemed to ripple through the crowd around them and everybody was shoved suddenly forward. Andra wobbled on her ankles. Then she stumbled first forward and then to the side. Somebody far in the back started screaming. It didn’t sound frightening, or pitiful. It just sounded stupid.

“For God’s sake,” the girl who had looked at Andra said. “What are they doing back there?”

“Screwing around,” Andra said.

“I don’t think they should be screwing around,” the girl said. She was wearing a light windbreaker jacket and a very odd hat. It had a brim like a baseball cap, and a band that went around the head, but nothing that went over the top. What the hell use was that going to be? It was raining. The girl’s hair was getting wet.

“They ought to open the doors,” the girl said. “It’s ridiculous out here. Somebody’s going to get sick and end up suing.”

“I think it’s only a couple of minutes,” Andra said.

“I think they should let everybody into the building as soon as they open the doors. They won’t, of course, because they enjoy the ritual of it. It’s part of what sells the television program. It’s still a damned stupid thing to do. I’m Grace Alsop, by the way. I’m from Connecticut.”

“I’m Andra Gayle.”

This was not true. Andra was no more “Andra Gayle” than she was a natural redhead. She took the hand that was not holding the newspaper on her head, and turned it over and over in the rain. The girl beside her made her very nervous. It was the way she talked, and the way she held her body, and the clothes she wore. It was an atmosphere. Andra looked down at the ground. Grace Alsop was wearing plain little ballet flat shoes that looked more expensive than Andra’s mother’s last phone bill.

Of course, Andra’s mother hadn’t paid the last phone bill. Andra’s mother never paid bills, and never had paid bills, in all the time Andra had known her. Andra had started to pay the bills when she was old enough to quit school and go to work. This month, she hadn’t paid them because she’d needed the money to come here. Her mother was back there in Morris Heights, living without electricity and shooting up heroin in the dark.

“You’ve got to wonder, don’t you?” Grace said.

“Wonder what?” Andra said. She knew, now, what bothered her about Grace. Grace Alsop smelled like money.

“Why people come to audition for something like this,” Grace said. “Look at how many there are. I hadn’t expected there to be this many. There has to be a couple of hundred girls just on this part of the block alone.”

“There were more than that,” Andra said. “There were tens of thousands of audition tapes. Didn’t you send an audition tape?”

“Well, yes, of course I did,” Grace said. “But I thought that was just—”

“Just what?”

“Well, you know, just to weed out the people with mental health problems, or things like that,” Grace said. “They must get a lot of crazies, don’t you think? I mean, on American Idol you have to be able to sing, or something. And on America’s Next Top Model you at least have to look like a model. But with this. Well. You don’t have to be anything, do you?”

“You have to be female,” Andra said.

“Yes, you do. Did you ever wonder why that was? My friends back at school say that they’re just trying to pick the next Paris Hilton, or something like that, the next person who’s just famous for being famous. Which is pretty funny, if you think about it.”

“Is it?”

“I think it is,” Grace said. “I mean, the Hilton sisters are famous because they have lots of money. I’ll bet nobody here has lots of money. Do they really think they’re going to make a career out of having people pay them to go to parties?”

“I don’t know,” Andra said.

“Don’t you?”

Grace stepped away a little. Andra was suddenly aware that this other girl was looking her up and down, really looking at her, and for the first time. There was a light in those pale blue eyes that was not very pleasant.

“I’m just here on a dare,” Grace said. “I’m going to law school next year. Lawyers actually do make lots of money, if that’s the kind of thing you’re into.”

Grace turned her back to Andra and eased off a little into the crowd, and Andra wrapped her one free arm around her waist.

Grace was right, she thought. There were hundreds of girls here. There were too many girls. Andra had thought that the audition tapes would be the thing that weeded out most of the competition, so that when she showed up at the Milky Way Ballroom there might be fifty or sixty other girls, and then a fast whittling down to the thirty and the twenty and the fourteen. Instead, there were girls everywhere, and some of them were pretty, and some of them could probably do something other than just stand there and look cute.