Page 56 of Am I Allergic to Men?
Theatres. My days, they really are such a wonder and London’s West End does them so well. That sense of grandeur and opulence as you walk in across swirling red carpets and ornate cornicing. I’m silent as I study the foyer and my family watch my quiet wandering eyes. Up the grand staircase, we head through some doors where a stage sits, waiting for its evening performance, the sound of a vacuum cleaner in the distance. It’s beautiful. Grand columns swathed in gold foliage and red velveteen seats, the lighting rigs all pointed towards the stage. Something in me feels numb though, confused.
‘Lucy?’ a voice suddenly calls from the stage where a group of dancers seem to be rehearsing a routine. The voice comes from someone who cups her hand over her eyes to see me. I’m going to take a punt that she’s Ashley. She stands there in a leotard and tights, dark hair tightly pulled back in a bun, lithe and graceful. Her friends shift me and my posse some haughty looks, hands on hips, obviously angry that we’ve invaded their space.
‘Hi!’ I try to say with some animation. ‘We’re just watching, don’t mind us.’
‘Come up here!’ She gestures. I glance at my mum and sisters before I walk the aisles tentatively, my hands brushing along the seats. I inhale deeply. I find access to the stage and get up to greet them. I’m in a T-shirt, cycling shorts and a baseball cap again, and I’ve just been knicker-shopping with my mum in my late twenties, so I’ll admit to feeling just a bit more than inferior.
‘Guys, this is Lucy. We did panto together last year.’
The other girls don’t really respond and I will suppose with the way Ashley air kisses me but keeps her distance that we’re not the closest of friends either.
‘I haven’t seen you at any auditions or dance classes recently?’ she asks me, scanning me from top to toe in judgement. I know girls like her. I want to say all the words too but, for some reason, I’m mute. I can’t tell them what’s happened, I won’t.
‘Oh, I’ve been trying out different things. You know?’ I attempt to reply casually, knowing all of them are confused by my hair.
‘Well, that’s the nature of the beast, eh? You shouldn’t let it get you down. You’re a lovely dancer.’ From her tone, I will hazard a guess that she’s not a friend. A competitor? A frenemy? ‘Is that your family?’ she asks, looking out at the stalls where my family have sat down, weighed down by knickers, no doubt. She waves to them but they don’t wave back. They’re well versed in this form of bitchery. There’s a sad look to my mum’s face.Give her hell. Remember that much, Lucy.
‘So you’re all part of this show now? That’s brilliant,’ I say.
‘Yes. A few months ago I started writing down my intentions and manifesting my true ambitions and it brought me here.’
I want to flick her my middle finger. Manifest this.
‘You had a callback for this. I never saw you at the auditions afterwards?’ Ashley tells me.
‘I did?’ I ask her.
‘Yeah, they were at the beginning of July.’
When I was in a hospital bed, learning to walk again. My heart sinks into my stomach. Was I close to something brilliant only to have my own stupidity and fate snatch it away from me?
‘Oh my god, I have a brilliant story about Lucy,’ Ashley continues. ‘So she got an ensemble part inWaitresswhen it first opened but then you went out to celebrate your first show, got off your face and then fired. Do you remember?’
One, this doesn’t feel like a brilliant story. Two, I don’t remember but I laugh, I’m not quite sure why.
‘I was inWaitress?’
‘Well, you were but then you were so drunk that night you sent a picture of your vagina to the cast WhatsApp group by accident.’ There’s a whole bitchy face smile that comes with that reply. ‘They asked you to leave after that. I’m sure it wasn’t intentional.’
I have no idea any more but the other girls on stage wince on my behalf as Ashley makes me out to be some sort of deviant.
‘It’s very you though. Such a joker but always the bridesmaid, Lucy. Never the bride. You really need to start elevating your work and your attitude. You could be so good.’
One of the other girls looks down to my legs, untoned and unmoisturised. She looks less convinced that I’ll ever be anywhere near her level.
‘Tell me, are you still going out with Adam?’ Ashley asks.
‘Adam?’
She widens her eyes at me, pouting.
‘My Adam? I mean, he was my friend first…’
Oh. That’s where the face is coming from. There is also beef about a man here. I went out with an Adam? Who knows any more? There’s an Adam in my contacts with the aubergine emojis, is it that one? Given her reaction, I hope he was made to choose between the two of us though and this made her fall to the floor and ugly-cry.
‘Ohhh, that Adam! We have some interesting sex at least once a month but it’s not serious,’ I say, toying with her.
She glares me down. ‘Well, we have to get back to rehearsing. I can ask if we can get you an audition here or something but it took us months to get down to the final cast.’
