“Who cares what you feel like?” Mike’s voice was as sculpted as her arms. “You do what you’re told. You especially do what you’re told when I tell it to you.”

“What if I don’t want to? It’s a free country, even in jail.”

“Hah! You’ve been spending too much time in the library. You’re in my jail, and you’ll do what I say. Or I’ll let everyone else do what they want with you, and believe me, it won’t be pleasant. You didn’t like those women putting their hands all over you, did you?”

“It wasn’t so bad,” I read stiffly. The directions said I should be pouting, but the way I saw it, they were lucky I was doing this at all. “At least they’re prisoners like me, not some nasty pig guard.”

Whack! Jane made a smacking noise by clapping her hands together, hard. “Okay, so in the scene, Big Red slaps the prisoner, and then we move into the action. Why don’t you two play it out in front of the mirror so I can see more of the angles?”

I stayed glued to my chair. “I thought this was a reading.”

Jane smiled. “It’s a run-through. I have to see how actresses use their bodies. Don’t worry, Trixie. Mike knows what she’s doing, and you just have to stand there. After all, she’s the one who’s auditioning, not you. Unless you’d like a part!”

“No!” I said. “Um, Jane, could I talk to you for a minute?”

“I don’t like to break the flow of a scene,” she said.

“Only a second?” I wheedled.

“Okay,” she sighed. “What is it?”

I looked at Mike. She was smiling pleasantly. I wanted to ask her to leave the room, but didn’t feel I could. “Is there any way, do you think, that I could just read the lines sitting down?”

“Trixie,” Jane snapped, “where’s that list we were keeping?”

“On your desk,” I said nervously.

“Get it.”

I did.

“What does it say?”

“I will not wear red—”

“No, not that. The next thing.”

“I will not waste time contradicting Jane.”

“Right. Now underline that. Twice. Now write down, ‘I will not make Jane repeat herself.’ Okay. Now get up and do the scene, for God’s sake.”

I felt totally humiliated. Mike held her cool smile. I heard Jane say, behind me, in a kinder tone, “I know you haven’t done this before, and that it may be embarrassing. But it’s just a scene, and we’re all professionals here. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said.