A/N: I wrote this as a kind of fun catharsis. Any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Any resemblance to actual professional orchestral audition procedure is, sadly, pretty accurate. Except the personnel managers usually aren't so easy on the eyes.
oooo
I: Exposition
Astrid Hofferson steers her tiny rental car up to the curb. She presses on the brake pedal, and the car comes to a halt in a pile of wet April slush. She fumbles for the gear lever, puts the car in park. The digital clock on the dash says 7:45. Distrustful of smalltown cell service and wifi, she pulls out the map she's printed in advance and checks the cross street.
Yep, this is it.
She leans forward, squinting through the car's front windshield at the huge, rather decrepit-looking brick building on the opposite corner of the nearby intersection. Old-fashioned brass lettering glints in the early morning sun, spelling out Berk Municipal Centre for the Arts. The building matches the rest of the town: in need of an overhaul, an infusion of fresh money and fresh vision.
Berk, North Dakota is, by conservative estimate, a hundred miles from everywhere. The place doesn't even have a regional airport; she flew into Fargo yesterday, where she rented the car, and drove in last night and checked into a cheap hotel. Not that this place appears to have anything resembling an expensive hotel. How the town manages to sustain an orchestra that can pay its musicians the advertised salary, she can't imagine.
That said, she's not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. This is her thirtieth professional audition; her fifteenth for an ensemble that pays anything close to a living wage. Orchestras are having financial difficulties all over the country. It's a noxious mixture of problems: out-of-touch management, a stagnant economy, dwindling support for the arts. And competition for the shrinking number of decent jobs is growing ever hotter. Expensive conservatories keep churning out qualified graduates with great chops but loads of debt. With six years' worth of college loans and a nineteenth-century French cello to pay off, Astrid can't afford to be picky about where she lives. She's twenty-eight years old. Most of her non-musician friends have long since graduated and gotten full-time jobs, and/or started popping out babies.
Like the majority of her graduating class at the D. Nadder School of Music, Astrid isn't married yet, nor does she plan to have kids any time soon. Hell, she doesn't know if she'll ever be able to afford to retire. Right now she barely has enough money to keep feeding her parrot, Stormfly. Never mind children, or a house, or any car made after 2010.
She hasn't had the time to date much, anyway; she's been spending the years post Master's degree practicing orchestral excerpts, flying from one audition to another, teaching lessons, freelancing with mediocre regional groups, and working as a barista. The point of all of it being to eventually win a job that gets her a decent apartment, good health insurance, and a simpler tax return. A job that lets her play the music she loves, without the stress of wondering whether she'll be able to afford her car's next scheduled oil change.
On the advice of one of her professional mentors back home, she's given herself until age thirty to keep living this way, from paycheck to paycheck. Some people take fifty auditions before winning The Job, she's been told; like that's supposed to make her feel optimistic. But she's running out of time, and she's running out of patience. If this audition doesn't take, she's going back to school for something else; exercise science, maybe. She likes working out. When she was ten, her mom made her choose between cello lessons and karate class. It was tough. Sometimes she wonders if she made the right decision.
She sighs and sticks the street map back in the heavy canvas bag she's packed full of audition day stuff. She checks through the contents one last time. There's the massive binder full of sheet music, that will be reorganized as soon as she finds out what she's supposed to play on the first round. There's the box of granola bars, some string cheese, and two bananas she bought last night at a convenience store around the corner from her hotel. Bananas are supposed to be good for calming nerves. She doesn't know if that's true—she feels jittery no matter what she does, short of swallowing a massive dose of beta blockers, but her friends swear by bananas. Anyhow, they've become part of the audition routine and she's not going to mess with it today. She made it to the finals last time, in Charlotte, so she's doing something right.
Granted, it's probably the six hours of daily practice she's been putting in, and the endless recording of herself on her phone's video camera, but the bananas aren't hurting anything as far as she can tell. Plus they're cheap and don't require a prescription.
In the bag is also a bottle of water. A pack of painkillers, in case she gets a sudden headache or the tendinitis in her back perversely decides to act up after a year of remission. A package of Kleenex. A comb. Sanitary napkins. A pair of black patent-leather flats that she'll change into in the green room, or in her dressing room, if she's lucky enough to get a private space to warm up before the audition. At about half the auditions so far, she's just been thrown into a big holding pen with ten other people, all of whom sounded better than she did.
At least they had at the time. She knows by now how much a person's playing can deteriorate on the long walk from the warmup room to the audition hall. Hence the obsessive practicing, and the bananas.
She sticks the rental car keys in her purse and exits the car. Pulling her cello from the back seat, she sends a silent prayer of thanks out into the universe that she and her instrument made it to Berk at all. The airline attendants at the connecting gate had nearly prevented her from boarding with it this time, even though she had bought an extra ticket (under the name "Cello Hofferson") and had printed out the airline policy that stated large instruments would be allowed in the cabin as long as they fit in the overhead or the owner had paid for an assigned seat.
She could check it in the hold, they'd suggested; her first pissed-off impulse was to bark "Are you kidding?" and laugh in their faces (she hadn't, of course, it might have jeopardized her position on the seating list). Astrid would rather travel in the cargo hold herself than allow her baby to be tossed around by baggage thugs who wouldn't know a priceless handmade cello from a twenty-dollar Walmart ukulele. She might refer to the instrument affectionately as her "axe," a term her previous teacher had coined for the thing due to its penetrating tone, but f-ck anybody else who thinks they can treat it like one.
Heck, the cello has more personality than most of the (admittedly few) guys she's dated. She avoids hooking up with other musicians. Half of them are just as poor as she is. The other half bat for the other team. Almost all of them are crazy.
Slinging the cello case onto her back and her audition bag over her shoulder, she crosses the street and walks around the side of the performing arts building. Interrupting the ancient brick wall is a huge, ugly metal door, slathered in an industrial shade of beige paint. The words "Stage Entrance" are stenciled over it in black. She hauls the door open, and a rush of warm, dry air hits her in the face.
Great, she thinks. Backstage will be hot; most likely the stage itself inside the hall will be cold. It'll throw her tuning out of whack and make her fingers stiffen up. But she's prepared for that. It's happened several times before, and the thought no longer throws her into a panic as it did the first time it occurred. Whatever conditions she faces will be shared by everyone else who plays today.
She walks through a maze of backstage hallways, past lockers and maintenance closets, following the taped-up signs that say "Berk Philharmonia Cello Auditions." She pushes past a set of double doors and enters a wide foyer. Near one of the walls there's a table set up, covered with paper printouts and copies of sheet music. Behind the table sits a tall, very hefty young man with scraggly blond hair and a red mark on the side of his neck that suggests he practices a lot. He's wearing a t-shirt with a sideways, bumpy alto clef screen-printed on it above the words "got cleffage?"
Yep, that's Fishlegs, thinks Astrid. Still fat, sexual orientation still ambiguous. Still fiercely loyal to his chosen instrument, and nerdy to the core.
Astrid has known Felix "Fishlegs" Ingerman since high school. They first met at a summer camp for young musicians. Fish was the viola player in the quartet Astrid had been assigned to. His theory-obsessed brain and her perfectionism fit together famously, and they've kept in touch ever since: sending notes of consolation via instant messenger after bad performances, congratulating each other on successful festival application recordings. They ended up attending the same school for their Master's degrees, and Fish won his job in the Berk Philharmonia a month after graduating. He's invited her to stay at his place for the audition, but she regretfully turned down the invite. It would have been too tempting to stay up until three a.m. watching stupid movies and drinking rum-and-cokes. If she wants to win this thing, she needs peace and quiet and blood free of intoxicants.
Astrid's here a bit early, and the foyer is empty except for the two of them. Her old friend is engrossed in a game on his smartphone, his broad, nail-bitten thumbs twitching nimbly across the screen.
She walks up to the table and clears her throat. Eyes still glued to his phone, he says, "Hello, can I help you?"
"It's me, asshole," she replies. His head jerks up in recognition.
"Astrid! Oh my god, it's you!" He jumps to his feet, comes around the table and envelops both Astrid and her cello in a monstrous bear hug. "Welcome to Berk! You look amazing, girl. How was the trip?"
"Fish. What the eff. This place is out in what my grandmother would call the sticks. I almost thought I'd driven past it on my way in from the airport. There's like nothing here. I feel like I'm in the middle of the Yukon."
"I know, right? It's crazy. Don't worry, though, there's great karaoke at the local bar on weekends. I'll take you there after your first concert with us this season."
"Shut up," she says, whacking him in the alto clef. "What are you trying to do, jinx me?"
"Nah, you're so awesome, there's nothing I could say that would mess you up at this point. Here, let me check you in before I forget." Fishlegs grabs a pen and writes an X next to Astrid's name on the printed list. "And here's the page with the list of excerpts for the first round. You can have this copy, there's one for every player."
"Thanks." Astrid takes the sheet, folds it over and sticks it in her bag. "I've been in email contact with the personnel manager—uh, Harvey Haddock?"
"Yep. He just called me, he says he's running a little late but he's on his way. He had some emergency with his pet chameleon. Had to take the thing to the vet."
Oh, brother, is the thought that goes through Astrid's mind. Typical audition day. You never know what kind of weird thing will go wrong. She makes a mental reminder to tell her mom about it during the obligatory post-audition phone call, after she's back at the hotel for the night.
"Can't wait to make his acquaintance," she says. "Harvey Haddock. Sounds like a name out of a 50's movie. How long has he been with the orchestra? Since before I was born, I bet. What is he, seventy?"
Fishlegs gives her a strange look. "Not exactly. He joined us three years ago, as our second bassoon, and then he took over as manager after Diane left for the Arkansas Phil. Anyway, don't knock him, he's awesome—he saved my ass, my first year here, by coming to get me when my car died on the way to a concert. Also he's funny. He's a total lightweight when it comes to beer, and his karaoke skills are hilariously sub-par."
Sounds like a nice old dude, Astrid thinks. Bet he has some rich gossipy stories to tell. He's probably played in pickup orchestras for all the greats; he'll have seen so many Grammy winners walk onstage high or hungover with their pants unzipped.
Fishlegs checks his phone. "Okay, it's eight o'clock now, and your audition's supposed to happen sometime in the nine a.m. hour. I can take you to a practice room right away, and you can come back here at eight forty-five and we'll draw numbers to see who goes first. Sound good?"
"You bet," says Astrid. It's pretty standard audition procedure. Either you're assigned a specific time, or you're put in an audition block with four or five other players and the order is assigned at random.
It shouldn't really matter either way; you know your shit by now or you don't. You'll have a good day or you won't. You slept well, or you didn't.
She takes a deep breath, hikes the cello case further up her back and follows Fishlegs down the hall toward the practice rooms.
oooo
At eight-forty, she straps her instrument into the propped-open case and grabs her purse. She feels a little paranoid about leaving her stuff unattended in a practice room, but completely packing up everything and carrying it a hundred feet to the foyer just to draw a number out of a hat seems absurd. She closes the practice room door firmly behind her and traverses the ancient tiled hallway, dressed in her black concert pants, a loose satin top, and her yellow Converse sneakers. The audition panel won't see her in today's round, but these clothes (except for the sneakers, which she'll change out of) are what she's used to performing in.
Routine, routine, routine. Control what you can, let go of what you can't. That's the mantra.
Strains of familiar music drift through the doors of the other practice rooms as she walks by. She saw twenty names on the check-in list when she arrived, and they all will have practiced the same exact stuff. The only variation will be in which of the three listed cello concertos each applicant will have picked, in the hope of wowing the panel with their stunning technique and sensitive musicianship.
Some of the players sound like they know what they're doing; a couple of others probably should have saved themselves the trip. They'll be eliminated after the first excerpt, if they're lucky enough to get that far. If the panel is feeling indulgent, they'll listen to everything on the first round's list of pieces. It'll give the poor sap in the hot seat a feeling of anxious optimism, only to be crushed an hour later when that player isn't among the one or two people from their group that make it into tomorrow's semifinal.
If they pick anyone, that is. To satisfy union guidelines, applicants are shielded from view in the first rounds to avoid non-musical bias in the judging. But there's nothing in the bargaining agreement that mandates hourly quotas, or that prevents players from being left in the green room for hours to chew their knuckles and cycle desperately through their music playlists, only to be sent home at the end with a polite "Thank you for coming, but we're sorry to tell you..."
Astrid knows the sting of rejection well at this point. She typically deals with it by crying in her rental car for a few minutes, followed by treating herself to an expensive drink. And if there's time before her flight leaves, she goes to the local zoo if there is one.
She somehow doubts miniscule Berk, North Dakota, population "who-the-hell-is-funding-all-your-concerts-anyway," has anything resembling a zoo.
She pushes open the door to the foyer. Speaking of zoos, a bunch of cellists have clustered around a thin figure dressed in a sport coat and jeans who is standing by the table, holding a clipboard. She walks over, and the group opens to admit the newcomer. The guy with the clipboard looks up, eyebrows raised in greeting, and Astrid feels a weird zap go through her nervous system, like she's stuck her finger in a light socket.
Within a fraction of a second she's taken appraisal of his features. Thick shock of reddish-brown hair, choppily cut. Wide green eyes with dark lashes. High cheekbones; sharp but masculine jaw. Long straight nose, childishly turned up at the end. Thin, sensitive lips.
Who the heck are you, is on the tip of her tongue, when she notices the nametag stuck to his lapel. It's one of the standard preprinted ones, that says "Hi, my name is—". In the blank is written Harvey, in black sharpie; it's been crossed out, and underneath is the word "Hiccup," in quotes.
Shit. Her old, crusty personnel manager isn't old and crusty, he's a pasty-skinned Millennial with freckles scattered across his nose and eyes the color of seafoam. And a bizarre nickname.
Hoping she hasn't been caught staring at his face, she glances downward quickly, and that's when she sees his feet. On his right foot, he's wearing a yellow Converse sneaker, just like hers. What an adorable coincidence. On the other—
Oh. Yikes. That must have hurt.
Unless he was born with it.
Without it. Ergh.
She's taken twenty-nine auditions, she has a Master's degree in violoncello, and she's practically memorized the book "The Inner Game of Tennis." But none of those things have prepared her for all of this.
Hot blood is suffusing her face and she decides the clipboard is the safest place to plant her attention. Past the clipboard she can see the XKCD t-shirt he's wearing under the sport coat.
No wonder Fishlegs likes this dude, she thinks. They're like nerd kindred spirits.
Maybe five seconds have passed since their eyes first met, and she's aware that the guy is now looking at her curiously, one corner of his mouth quirking upward in vague amusement.
"You must be Astrid," he says. His voice is young-sounding, with a trace of adolescent squawk. She suddenly wonders how old he is, exactly. He's got good skin under all the freckles—he probably doesn't smoke or drink much. He could be anywhere between twenty and thirty.
She doesn't care. She's here to win a job, not to flirt with a cute, nerdy piece of man-meat. Keep your head in the game, girl.
"Yeah," she says. "Astrid Hofferson." Like her last name isn't on the clipboard next to her first name.
"You're in the nine o'clock hour, right? We're just about to draw numbers for the order. Ready?"
He reaches over to the table and picks up a baseball cap (Minnesota Twins—she wonders if it's his) with folded-up pieces of paper in it. Whichever one she draws will determine her place in line for the lions' den. He shakes the hat conspicuously, like anyone cares about achieving a true random distribution of numbers, and holds it out to the group.
Astrid pulls a paper from the hat and unfolds it. Number one. No big deal, she tells herself. She's practiced her ass off for this; she's played in every ordered place possible over dozens of auditions, and it's never seemed to make a difference. She'll get fifteen minutes for a final warmup. It's plenty. Then she'll go knock 'em dead behind that curtain.
"Who's on first?" quips Harvey/Hiccup/whatever his name is. The rest of the group looks at him blankly.
Oh, he's a jokester, is he?
"I don't know," she says, skipping to the punchline with the appropriately frustrated tone, and he grins at her for getting the reference.
And he's got nice teeth.
Damn it, Fishlegs, why didn't you warn me about this guy. If I lose this audition, I swear I will never forgive you.
oooo
It's not over 'till the fat lady sings, as it were. To be continued...
