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said. I didn’t know what possessed me.
    “But you’re going to get it,” said Marshall.
    “Nah. I think I would have heard by now.”
    I scooped up a lemon square and began chomping, upholding the tradition that our every exchange should involve mouthfuls of saturated fats and/or sugary carbohydrates.
    Then, as if sensing I wasn’t on my guard, the phone rang.
     
     

     
     
    Callbacks are the ultimate déjà vu experience, but without any humor or Bill Murray charm.
    My Monday Wicked callback began exactly like the prior week’s audition, with only minor revisions: shower warm-up, with different, less exfoliating body wash, followed by ritual banana consumption, followed by the donning of an outfit that was distinctly not burgundy satin, but cotton and black (a pit-stain shield!).
    Soon I was back in the neon airport terminal. No Lipstick Loop, no fierce bald men, only a bunch of new girls eyeing each other. I wondered how many there were of them, total. Not just in the room, but in the world, going about their days, stacking the odds against me.
    The extent of my guppyhood in an expanding sea of fish suddenly hit me.
    Still, I’d do my best. If likelihood of getting cast was proportional to time and effort spent preparing, honestly? Maybe I did have a shot in hell. I’d worked and worked and worked some more. If I didn’t get it, it wouldn’t be for lack of trying.
    Soon Craig appeared, leading me back to the same room as before, where this time there was no Faux Hawk (and no finger guns). In his place were a bunch of new faces: a tiny girl wearing roman sandals, even though it was winter; a man behind the piano with wet curls, named either Lombardo or Dominick; a man with a shaved head and piercing blue eyes, named Paul, Alan, or Nick (I have a strange deficit for recalling names; it’s one of two reasons I could never be in politics—the other is I hate wearing pantsuits).
    “Okay, ‘Wizard and I,’ whenever you’re ready.”
    The callback packet was the exact same material as the audition, so, amidst the weekend circus of wild commutes to Hee-Haw in dressing rooms that move, I had spent my time building on what I’d already learned with Julie—improving, enhancing, and stepping up my Elphaba game.
    The main goal? Just stay focused.
    Runners, on your marks!
    The vamp of rolling chords began, and soon I was off to a sprint. And just when it felt like my shoelaces might come undone, the finish-line ribbon split across my body.
    “Very nice,” said Paul-Alan-Nick.
    “Could you wait outside for a sec?” said Craig.
    I walked into the waiting room. From all the sweating it felt like I’d given myself a shower, and my body turned frigid. Once seated, I wedged my ice-cold hands under my thighs. Somehow both ablaze with heat and trembling from cold, as I waited for Craig to reappear I felt like I’d been caught beneath the top layer of a frozen lake, where the water below had begun to boil.
    The door swung open and I saw Craig approaching, the camera frame of my view zooming in on his tired face, his eyes crinkling up into what could be a smile or the expression of someone who would have to let me down.
    “Felicia, can you come to a dance call at 3:45 today?”
    “Um, yes.”
     

    Back in my studio apartment I rooted through nests of dirty clothing, dry-cleaning hangers, electric wires, and power strips.
    Where are my dance clothes?
    I’m not really a dancer, and I hate anything that is tight and clingy. But my hope was that some forgotten spandex relic would materialize from the ashes—a haggard, molting phoenix, leftover from my days of high school recitals.
    I looked around my apartment.
    What a crap hole.
    I’d been spending so much time with Marshall—whipping in and out after work, preparing for auditions, or late date nights, trying to give myself salon blowouts—over the past several weeks I’d embraced being an absolute slob. Things never plunged to health-hazard depths, but it