I had a feeling that I was going to get a part in Harlem Song.  I don't know where that feeling came from and I don't know why it stayed with me but it did, for a long time.   It carried me through the long waiting  periods in between each phone call from my managers ("They want to see you  again.  It's down to you and two other people.") the phone tag that couldn't  be helped ("When I hear something, you'll hear something.  Trust me.") and  the final call.  There was a blitzkrieg of tedium, of frustration, of backbreaking grunt work. There I was in the trenches, up to my hips in mud, shovel in hand, working and working and working. More restaurant work.  More temping.  An avalanche of bills that threatened to bury me alive.  Always the question: Am I making enough money?   Always the answer: you're not.  Exhausted physically and mentally, I was staying afloat and conserving my strength, hoping  that the waves wouldn't carry me too far out to sea before someone realized that I was missing, sent out a rescue team and brought me safely ashore.

That's when I got my third callback.

When I went in to see the creative team again, the feeling that I would get the part was so distracting that I wondered subconsciously if this wasn't some new way I'd  found to psych myself out before an important appointment.  I wouldn't let  myself believe it because it seemed too good to be true.  Always the question:  What if I'm wrong? Always the answer: you're not.   And this answer would not let me go.

I showed up at Musical Theater Works in an extra-fancy red taffeta dress. I have no idea why.  I sat next to a bunch of chatty white girls who were dressed in dance togs and vocalizing while looking over sheet music.  They sounded like a roomful of Julie Andrews. They looked me over carefully and they smiled politely.  Finally, after initiating a chat with me,  one of them piped up and said, "Are you here for The Scarlet  Pimpernel audition?"  I blurted, "You mean they actually cast black people in  that musical on a regular basis?" The entire back end of the hallway went dead. Very funny stuff.    At that moment, one of the stage managers came around the corner to get me as though her entrance was in a script  or something and the next thing you know, I was in the room and off to the races.

I went through my paces, reading what I was told, singing  what I was given.  Before I knew it, I was standing on the sidewalk in front of the building, trying to remember what happened inside, wondering if I'd done a good job or not.  But that feeling wouldn't leave me.

I went back to my two job nightmare, so numb with the prospect of never returning to work in either place that I blanked out everything that happened.  One night, I was waiting tables and as luck would have it, I was actually having a lot of fun.  To tell the God's honest truth, I usually did when I worked there.  We'd gotten to know each other and had somehow found a way to goof off and still get a lot of work done.    It was a weeknight, busy but not overwhelming. There were a  couple of private parties, a large  group here and there.  It was going to be a good  night for me, moneywise.  I stood at one of the columns in the center of the restaurant and took it all in: the beautiful room, the flurry of white shirts bustling back and forth, the Mexican runners, the Haitian dishwashers, the well-heeled clientele.   I realized that I had gotten to know so many of them and that if I left, I'd probably never see them again.  That's when I had an epiphany:  YOU WILL NEVER HAVE THIS MOMENT AGAIN.  YOU ARE GOING TO DO THAT SHOW.  I didn't realize that there were tears in my eyes until Kathy, the candy-munching waitress that always smells like White Musk, asked me what was wrong.  When I told her, she put her arm around me and consoled me.  Cool girl.

In a matter of days, the feeling came true.