"You got the part." Rosenbaum was smiling.

"You’re jumping ahead."

"Sorry."

"It’s okay." Melanie grinned. "Where was I?"

"Auditions?"

"Good a place as any."

*****

I did it. Edith had to drag me through it, but I did it. I walked in, and they asked me to fill out an audition sheet and hand it in. Then we went into the room with everyone else and waited our turn to go out on stage. I almost had a heart attack. Amanda Sommers was there.

At that point, I decided not to look at her or care about her. It seemed like she had forgotten all about me. I should do her the same courtesy. Well, she didn’t pay a single moment’s attention to me, and that was great. It came my turn to do my audition.

I did my number and then I read two scenes with another girl I didn’t know. And I read them big. I thought about Jareth looking in the mirror over my shoulder, thought about Dolly Levi, the words ‘a force of nature’ spinning through my head. ‘No uncertainties.’ I put the mask on my mind. And it was true. My face changed, my movements. In my head, I was Dolly Levi.

I had been a bundle of nerves all day. And they evaporated. They were just gone. Dolly was there. It was the weirdest, most wonderful thing.

Two days later, the list for the cast went up.

I didn’t want to go see it. I flat-out refused. Carol finally dragged me down to the Fine Arts building and made me look.

Amanda Sommers was standing in the crowd of people eyeing the list. She grinned, looking at me for the first time since we’d gotten to school. "Hey. Looks like you’re going to be the star of the show."

Carol looked at the list. "OhmygoshMelyou’reDolly!" she cried.

Amanda sauntered away. I looked at the list. She wasn’t even Irene Malloy. She was the little shop girl. Edith was going to be Irene. And you wouldn’t have believed it. David Barnes was going to be in it! He was playing Cornelius. He was there looking at the list too.

"David?" I asked hesitantly.

He gave me a huge hug. "Melanie! I didn’t know you were here! I’m so glad to see you again."

I nodded. "I hear you’re playing Cornelius."

"Yeah! That means we get to dance." He grinned and winked at me.

I felt dizzy with success. I floated off to lunch. I couldn’t keep my head on anything for the rest of the day. People kept congratulating me. I felt like I had won the big game or conquered the evil forces or something. That night in my room, Jareth was there.

I danced around, singing "Love is Only Love" and he caught me up in his arms and twirled me until I was really dizzy and I fell back on the bed.

"It’s too perfect," I said. "It’s too perfect, something’s going to go wrong."

"Nothing will go wrong," he assured me.

He didn’t take Amanda Sommers into consideration, perhaps. Or maybe he did, but he underestimated her. At any rate, she became the leading problem in my life within the week.

*****

"What did she do?" asked Rosenbaum.

"What did she NOT do?" Melanie snorted. "She re-christened me ‘fatass’, and let me tell you how thrilled I was to see that nickname back in order. She was out to wreck me, and wasn’t above wrecking the show. She felt like she’d gotten a crappy part, so she didn’t care. She made everyone miserable. I remember when we were doing measurements for costumes." She shuddered. "And rehearsals, god, it was a nightmare. She refused to learn any parts she had to say with me. Absolutely refused. She spent every scene we had together trying to steal it. She’d yawn and fidget like a pro every time I had a line."

Rosenbaum leaned forward. "What happened to her?"

"What do you mean?"

"Jareth didn’t…?"

Melanie laughed. "Oh yeah. He got her. He fixed that girl’s little red wagon."

"Nothing permanent, I hope?"

"Amanda…well, she was all about image. Who she was in her spare time had nothing to do with what people thought she was. For instance, the disheveled girl walking back into Carrie Ng’s backyard for a drunken tryst with Nathan had nothing to do with the pretty, polished, put-together girl who always had her homework assignment done or at least a valid excuse, and was never…ever…late. Jareth knew that. He knows things about people that way. It was what he saw when he first saw Amanda. So that’s where he struck. And he was just in time."

"Just in time?"

"We were three weeks into rehearsals. Amanda had realized that she was going to get thrown out of the show if she didn’t straighten up and fly right, at least in front of the faculty directors and all that, and so she reverted to doing quiet things. My playbook came up missing and I had to dig up the cash for replacing it. The side of my first costume developed a mysterious tear and had to be re-sewn. Amanda got a lot of fat jokes out of that one. David and Edith usually came to my rescue. They were great. But Amanda’s sneaky stuff was going to get worse, I knew it. And I was starting to want out of the play."

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