“Here we go,” Frida said. “Stick close to me, Devin.”

“You got it!” I said. I hooked my arm in hers.

We entered the building into a narrow hallway lined with folding chairs that led to a closed door at the end of the hall. Already, there were a dozen girls and their moms and dads sitting in the chairs. A woman with short, white-blond hair and silver glasses was walking around with a tablet, and she approached us as we took our seats.

“Name,” she said, in a flat voice.

“Frida Rivera,” Frida replied, and the woman tapped the tablet screen. Then she looked at me.

“Oh, I’m not here to audition,” I told her. She just stared at me, which made me nervous. “That’s okay, right? I mean, it’s okay if I hang out?”

The woman didn’t even answer me. She just moved on to the next person.

“Well, she wasn’t very friendly,” I muttered to Frida.

“It’s not an easy business,” she replied. “You need to have a tough core to do it, like I do.”

We sat down. “It’s pretty competitive, I guess?” I asked.

Frida nodded, then motioned to a girl across the hall from us a little ways down. She had wavy hair, the same auburn color as Frida’s.

“That’s Luna Murillo,” Frida whispered. “She goes to a lot of the same auditions as I do. When I got the Mall Mania movie and she didn’t, she moved to New York for two months to study acting with this top teacher there.”

“Wow,” I said.

“Yeah,” Frida continued. “And then she landed the guest role on Middle School Witches that I lost last month. But I am so not worried about this commercial. Because she might have had fancy acting lessons, but I have you.”

“I have nothing to do with it,” I told her. “Your mom’s right. It’s all about you and your talent. You can do this!”

Frida shook her head but took a deep breath. “I’ve got this.”

After that, we waited for a pretty long time while the other girls went into the room behind the door, one by one. When Luna went in, Frida didn’t take her eyes off the door for one second. She came out after five minutes and stopped as she passed Frida.

“Don’t even bother going in there,” she said. “I nailed it.”

“Yeah, well . . . that’s what you say!” Frida replied.

Luna walked off, and I gave Frida a puzzled looked. “ ‘That’s what you say’?”

“I know, I should have had a better comeback,” Frida said. “But that girl makes me so nervous! I bet she did do great. Maybe there is no point in me going in there. Maybe I should—”

“Frida Rivera.” The blond woman called Frida’s name.