Tina stashed her purse in her locker, her heart skipping a beat as she remembered she had actually gotten her hands on the Mask. Her heels echoed in the dim corridor as she headed to the shared dressing room. Randy, the owner of the Coco Bongo, rounded the corner into the dressing room without knocking and leaned on Tina's open locker door. Tina nervously eyed her purse, a corner of the mask sticking out in plain sight.
"Got some big-wigs coming in tonight, Teen. There's tryouts." Randy said, pulling his stained shirt over his enormous belly. "What do you mean - I already dance here…" Tina said, anxiously curling her hair around her fingers. "Don't worry, sweetheart. No one's taking your job. It's a new show, investors are coming in, they want a hot headliner for this place. Someone they can put on billboards. You should give it a shot, take you off that slot you've had forever." Tina rolled her eyes, mentally scrambling to imagine what she would perform at an audition. "Ugh, they're auditioning tonight?" Tina asked. "Hey, I didn't have to tell you. Lot of other dancers in this place who would kill to have a shot. So the guys are in the back room - drop by there before you go on tonight." Randy banged his hand on a locker to punctuate his suggestion, wandering off to the kitchen without saying a word.
Tina imagined the audition room: the lack of windows, the stares of the men, the old carpeting, her body. Her body not even close to some of the other young dancers here, like Wendy. God, Wendy was something. Tina couldn't remember looking like that when she was nineteen. Tina stared at the mask sticking out of her purse, daydreaming again about running around like Stanley when he wore it. Was it worth wearing for the audition, just for fun? They wouldn't recognize who she really was. Maybe it might give her a little extra help…Tina touched the mask, feeling energized just by running her finger over the wood. No, she thought - it wasn't her. She was better than that. Plus, it was still the middle of the day, and she remember Stanley was only ever able to put it on at night.
Tina marched deep into the depths of the Coco Bongo, finding a couple girls sitting on fold-up chairs as they played with their phones and waited outside the door marked 'Auditions'. None of them gave her any indication of what to do, nor was there someone there waiting to greet her, so she took a deep breath and swung the door open and stepped inside. Her anxiety had built up the room to be quite different: there were only two people sitting behind a plastic conference table, buried in stacks of head shots and empty styrofoam cups. In the middle, Tommy Jonas. Tina vaguely recognized him; he was a large man in his fifties, grizzled, with a short dark beard and tiny glasses that sat on his huge features. To his left, sat Craig, his young assistant, arguably better groomed than he was. Despite being behind the table, Craig didn't seem comfortable in his own skin, nervously playing with the buckle of his black briefcase. His Italian features and Tommy's ruffled but experienced demeanour lent a air of credibility to what was usually a seedy enterprise.
Tommy leaned forward, his chair squeaking. "I'm Tommy, the producer. That's Craig. So I'm going to stop you right there -" Tommy said, sticking out his huge hand as Tina froze in the middle of tightening the strap of her heel, strategically exposing a bit of her thigh. "We've already seen enough blonde bombshells like you today. Kid, honestly, I know you got better things to do today, so I'm not gonna waste your time. We've seen your type." Sensing Tina's impending heartbreak at not even getting a chance to audition, Craig piped up: "It's nothing personal, you just don't have the look." He softly withdrew his hands from his briefcase and buried them in his lap, leaning forward as he waited for this painful moment to be over. Tina blinked back tears. "Randy, he sent me. He thought you guys might like me, is all." Tommy exhaled, clearly tired of this routine, and took a moment to reassure her. "Sweetheart, the club loves you, no question. We're just looking for a star."