Rachel stared at the room full of other auditionees, four dozen girls between 18 and 26 all vying for the same three chorus spots. The chorus. With no solos or lines or skill and virtually no chance of even being noticed by the reviewers or producers or anyone else worth mentioning. And this was only one batch of them; there had been another open call the day before, and from the tag pinned to her shirt and how exhausted the director's assistant running the whole process looked, she was guessing that it had been just as many or more.

For three spots. Three insignificant, meaningless, yet potentially-life-changing spots.

She had been the star a week ago; not just the star - the muse. She was going to be the basis of a dozen future roles, all of which she would play brilliantly to rave reviews. She was going to be a surefire Tony nominee and have her own concert bookings on Mondays because too many people wanted to see her. She had been the entire origin of the creative process for someone, and now...now she was number 113.

She just couldn't figure out how it had happened, let alone so fast. How Cal could be so completely in love with her one day, and the next-...

The entire thing had happened under her nose, too. She had witnessed it and told herself...she had sworn up and down that he really was just talked to that willowy blonde about a part in his next production because he was in the process on writing something with a bit part for a Swedish milkmaid. After all, the girl might have been attractive enough but there was no way she had even half of the talent necessary to attract Cal's attention. He hadn't just showed interest in her after her audition for nothing, Rachel told herself up and down at the party as she watched her boyfriend work the room and laugh everything the blonde said. She was clearly more talented and therefore she had no reason to be worried. None at all.

Then midnight came, and as everyone else was ringing in the New Year and downing flutes of champagne, he was nowhere to be found. And now here she was, eight days later, sitting in a room of other girls practicing their songs and demi-plies to warm up while a man with a clipboard shuttled them out in groups of ten for vocal auditions while that- that blonde stood on her stage and read her lines and sang her songs, getting direction from her-

...ex-boyfriend, she supposed.

She just didn't understand how this could have happened. How he could have picked someone like that over someone with her obvious talent and skill. Would that girl even be able to able to show the kind of emotional depth the role required? Would she even appreciate Cal's genius as a director? Would she give him everything she had?

...Would he break her heart, too? Was this just what Cal did? Should she have seen this coming a mile away?

But how would she have known? Rachel wondered. Cal was so genuine, so entrancing, so honest as an artist. How could she ever have known that this would happen? It must have been a fluke, some crazy mistake on Cal's part, because there was no way-

"Hey! One-thirteen! You coming or not?" She blinked, shaken from her thoughts by the irritated bark from the doorway. She glanced around and saw that the crowd in the room had dwindled down to only six other girls and herself; her group was up. She stood, hurrying quickly past the assistant into the hallway. He led the line of ten girls down from the holding room to backstage, and she wondered why this was happening to her. To her, of all people - hadn't she suffered enough on her path to becoming a star? Hadn't she put in her dues enough to just be discovered already? Why shouldn't she get the shot she deserved? Why should some other girl get her ticket to stardom?

She didn't understand why no one else could see how talented she was. If even people in Lima could appreciate her talent, what was wrong with the directors of New York that they would rather talk to some blonde thing who couldn't hold a candle to her natural abilities? Why should she be relegated to the meaningless chorus call for a spot she neither wanted nor would get when she was destined to be a star?

"Next!" barked a voice from the house, and the first girl in the line marched proudly onstage. Rachel couldn't see her, but she could hear a confident voice begin to sing about washing the man right out of her hair; barely two lines in, the director called, "Thank you! Next!" and Rachel's stomach clenched.

She'd thought she was done with this, with having to prove herself quite so hard. She was supposed to be able to just-

"Hey!" She turned her head quickly at the sound of a friendly voice and found herself staring at the sandy-haired tenor from a few months earlier, the one who had tugged her into the stairwell and gazed at her with those intense eyes. "Rachel, right?" He flashed his perfect smile at her, row of bright white teeth gleaming in the dim light of stage left.

"Right," she replied. "Bobby," she recalled, and he grinned more broadly at her recognition.

"I haven't seen you around lately - did you get something?"

He sounded so genuinely happy at the thought that she had done well for herself, gotten a short-run show, a reading, a callback even, anything that would have broken her out of this neverending audition circuit...No one else understood that the way he could. He was trying to find the same escape route to stardom, after all. Kurt just rolled his eyes and made tea, said something about how unsurprised he was, then went back to skulking around his room, completely unsupportive. She couldn't call her mom and tell her how little success had come her way, not after her mom cautioned her against moving out here in the first place, and she didn't really know anyone else here. She knew Mercedes, but the two of them had never really gotten along in the same way they each got along with Kurt, and she had met a few of the other girls who were on all the same auditions she was, but they were her competition and it was a cardinal rule of auditions not to let the competition see any weakness.

But Bobby wasn't her competition. He wasn't someone she needed to impress. He was a fellow thespian who could appreciate the heartache she was going through - not only for herself and her relationship, but for the loss to her career as well.

"I did, but it was ripped away. The director found someone else, and he-"

Bobby's eyes went wide and he looked like he might choke for a moment. "Wait. This wasn't that production down in the Village that Cal was running, was it?"

Her eyes widened in surprise that he knew. She'd only met him once, she would have assumed that, while he would have been aware of her potential star-turn eventually, it was premature for that. "Yes, how did you-"

"You're that girl?"

"What do you mean?"

"The girl on his arm. He always casts the girls he's trying to date in his shows - what happened, did he find someone else?"

The way he said it, so casually and matter-of-factly, as though this were something everyone knew, was baffling. She didn't understand how he could just say something like that, like it was a simple fact of life on Broadway, like that was how it just worked. Like that was something she should have known -

Like that was how it was at all. It wasn't, she was sure of it. "That wasn't what happened," she replied firmly.

He smiled faintly, but patronizingly, like Kurt had when she'd told him about the breakup, and opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it, as though he wanted to fight her but didn't want to be the one to say it, and when he spoke again he simply said, "Okay."

Okay? Okay wasn't nearly good enough because he was wrong. Cal had- well, if not loved her, at least felt strongly for her. Felt fondly for her, and respected her talent and natural charisma. "It isn't. He cast me because I was exceptional. He told me he wanted me to be his muse."

She had never felt silly saying that before, but the way Bobby looked like he was about to laugh when she said it made her suddenly feel very young and like maybe-...

...Was that what had happened? Was that why she had gotten the role?

No. No, that couldn't be it. It wasn't. She refused to believe that was why she had been cast. If that were why, it would mean her vocal talent and glittering personality meant nothing and she was just some pretty face waiting for the right guy to notice. She absolutely would not accept that theory. "You know what? I don't have to prove anything to you. But I'm going to go out there and earn my place in the chorus fair and square."

"Next!" came the voice from the front of the house, and Bobby simply smiled and held out his arm, as if to say 'after you.' She fixed him with a stern look and strode out onto the stage.

He was wrong.

Maybe he thought he was right. Maybe he wasn't trying to be malicious; after all, she wasn't competition for him, either - all roles, even boring chorus spots with no solos or intricate choreography, were divided by boys and girls, so they would never be going up against one another for the same place. But maybe he did have a girlfriend who was trying for her place in the chorus. Or maybe he was just vindictive - a bitter actor who was jealous of her success, however shortlived. After all, he hadn't gotten any callbacks or readings or been cast in anything, if he'd been around enough to notice her absence. But she was going to make sure he knew that he was wrong, that she had been cast for her talent and her talent alone.

She flashed her best smile and launched into the song that had garnered her the last role. She emoted brilliantly on "So In Love," channeling the beauty and depth of feeling with ease. If anything was going to earn her this place, it would be that song.

Strange dear, but true dear
When I'm close to you dear-

"Thanks. Next!"

The piano stopped short as soon as the words left the director's mouth, and Rachel stared at him in surprise. "I wasn't finished." That wasn't how this was supposed to go. She was supposed to be able to finish her song because she captivated the room. She knew she was that good, she had- she had stage presence, she had an incredible voice, her tone was fantastic, her emotion was genuine and pulled from the depths of her soul, how could he just say no to-

The director looked up from his sheets, regarding her first with curiosity, then a stern lowering of his brow. "I know. Thank you. Goodbye."

"But- but I sounded fantastic. You can't just ask me to stop after two lines, that's taking away-"

"Honey, I've got a lotta girls to see and not a lotta time. You're not what I'm looking for - and with that attitude, you're not gonna make it long in this town. Get back on the bus back to Illinois or wherever you came from. Next!"

It was a rejection she'd gotten countless times before, but she needed this. She needed to know that Bobby was wrong and that she was as talented as she knew she was, that that was what she was being judged on, and if that wasn't it-

...If that wasn't it, then what exactly was she supposed to do?

She held her head as high as she could as she strode offstage. Bobby was staring at her incredulously, unable to believe she'd had the nerve to try to convince the director he was wrong like that - no one did that. No one unless they were either extremely arrogant, extremely new at this, or both; the two did tend to go hand-in-hand. As girl 114, a brunette with a red dress and a familiar fierce determination in her stride, brushed past them to take her turn, Rachel felt ridiculous. She had been accused of being overly zealous her entire life by a lot of people, but it was the first time she'd been unable to brush off the statement and declare that genuine enthusiasm could never be too much. She felt-...

...She felt foolish. Not just for the way she had yelled back at the director, not just because Bobby was looking at her like she'd lost her mind, but for everything. For believing what Cal said, for thinking it would be that easy.

"You sounded great," Bobby offered; it didn't mean much, and they both knew it, but it was sincere and it did help to hear. She smiled faintly, and he added, "Even if your A was flat."

"No it wasn't-"

"Okay," he said again, smiling faintly, and they fell into comfortable silence as the girl onstage began to belt out "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better". By the time she made it to the third line, the song choice felt like a slap even though she didn't actually know this girl.

"Apparently she can," she said quietly, wondering when Kurt's sarcasm had rubbed off on her. She prided herself on being an upbeat and positive person, and his dark wit were beginning to bring her down; she needed to talk to him about that so it couldn't fester anymore.

Bobby laughed softly and put his hand on her shoulder. "C'mon, don't say that. Ok, look - this is what we signed up for, isn't it? The girl up there? Last year she understudied as Reno Sweeney over at the Orpheum. Now she's up for the same ridiculous three chorus parts. You'll get your break. You have so much confidence - it takes a lot of that to try to talk back to a director. Either confidence or being crazy," he teased, and she smiled faintly. "Are you going to the call for the one with the funny name by the guy who did Gypsy?"

"A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum? Of course." An hour earlier, she would have made it sound as though she wouldn't be available. After all. if she got this job she wouldn't need to go on to the next. But if this wasn't going to happen (and clearly it wasn't), she needed to get used to the fact that Bobby was right: this was where she was for now.

But hopefully not for long.

One-fourteen ran past, alerting everyone happily that she had gotten a callback, and Rachel grinned as even Bobby couldn't help but roll his eyes at the display. "Looks like you're a little jealous, too."

"Me? Oh, I'm just happy on your behalf. After all, if she's here, she won't be there next week."

Well. There was just a bright side to everything.

* * * * *

When Mercedes had envisioned becoming a famous singing star - which was pretty much her whole life - she thought about all the people she would have working for her. There would be a person to pick out her clothes (probably Kurt) and a team of people to dress her in them, make sure she had her stole, and fix her shoes when they came unbuckled. There would be a makeup girl, and a girl or two who did her hair so she didn't have to, and all of them would be directed by her and make her look exactly as she wanted but without her having to do anything.

There were two points to being famous: everyone knowing who you were and wanting you, and not having to do boring things yourself. And after years of having to do her own hair in the morning, she was ready for it to be someone else's turn.

That wasn't what it was like.

"Then he took us to this guy whose whole job it is to tell us how to look like young ladies. He's gotta be fifty." She reached into the bag and snagged a few Fritos, eating them all at once as she shook her head. "He brought in all these people, it was crazy."

"For what?" Kurt asked. He wasn't nearly as interested as he knew he should be, but he was trying. He did like makeovers, and this sounded like a lot of people were going to manage to tame the things about Mercedes he had wanted tamed for years. He had been saying since they were 11 that leopard print was tacky, to the point where it had become such a comfortable conversation for them that it was the fight they had when something else was wrong. He had never liked that particular hairdo on her and she always wore more eyeshadow than he thought was flattering on her. But it was hard to listen to the makeover story when he wasn't the one doing it, and when it was emblematic of her career going places while his had improved only to the place it had been last fall. He was back to silks and ugly printed cottons instead of tulle, and he was considering that the biggest victory he had a right to hope for.

And that was pathetic. And he knew it.

It was hard to be interested in anything these days.

He knew that sounded ridiculous...and more than a little pathetic. He knew it was the sort of statement that Rachel would toss out to try and prompt him to respond to her dramatic nature, which was why he hadn't said it out loud yet. The downside was that Rachel and Mercedes kept talking at him as though he cared...and he wanted to, he did. He just...couldn't.

It was hard to care about Rachel lamenting the tragic and untimely end of her relationship and how this meant she would be alone forever when he'd been alone for so long. It was frustrating to listen to Mercedes talk about how hard it was to get along with people when he could go literally an entire week at work without anyone but the girls in the front office saying so much as 'hello' to him. Things were slightly better than Christmas, and he knew he should be happy Rachel was back around because it had been unspeakably lonely in the apartment when she was at Cal's every night, but instead it seemed...

...It was rude to say that the only friends he had were more effort than he had to give; he knew that. He just...couldn't.

He knew he should want all the details of Mercedes' makeover - what clothes they were putting her in, which precise shade of blue or pink because some would make her look fantastic and others would make her look like she thought she was a billboard in Times Square. What exactly they were doing to her hair to make her face look less round. What designers they had her - or the other girls - wearing and whether she could get him an 'in' with those lines because if he had to cut out one more hideous jacket he might scream. But that required a level of energy he didn't have. He had exactly enough energy to feign listening, which took a surprising amount of effort, and to sit ramrod straight on the couch; it felt stiff, but it helped keep everything else in check and kept him from looking as exhausted as he felt.

"They're changing my hair - again," she stated. "Bigger on top and shorter on the sides. They're cutting Shirley's off, she cried for two hours." She was clearly expecting a bigger reaction than the "Mm," and raised eyebrows Kurt gave her, and she gave him an odd look. Kurt just hoped she didn't start making it about him. It would be a nice change, but he certainly didn't have the energy to edit his narrative of the past few months; if he could speak at all, it might all come tumbling out.

He was pretty sure he couldn't talk about it at all at this point, so he didn't think he was in too much danger.

"They're putting us all in dresses."

"As opposed to...?" Kurt asked dryly, and Mercedes glanced down at her pink pedal pushers and back up at him with a look that said 'really, fashion-boy?' He tilted his head slightly in acknowledgment of her point, and asked, "What's the overall concept?"

"A lot of dark colours." Mercedes waited for him to say something, because she wanted to. She wanted to ask if that was normal or if they were doing what the disgruntled photo shoot assistant had said. They did put them in black a lot - she thought it was because it was classic, and all kinds of women looked good in black dresses so it suited their group where no one had the same shape. But the more they did it, the more it seemed like it really was true, they really were trying to make them look lighter. They looked paler against black, especially with those big flashes or bright lights...was that why? And was it strange that she felt uncomfortable with it?

Maybe it was just because of the rest of the conversation that it felt like they were trying to make her something she wasn't. Maybe she was thinking too much about everything because of one stupid comment. And maybe they hadn't even meant that the way it came across.

She wished Kurt would say something. Even if it was telling her she was crazy. Anything. Because right now at home it was all about Shirley and her hair and Eva not wanting to give up her red nailpolish and Regina wanting taller heels, and none of them seemed to get what she felt like this was all about. It was the kind of thing John's friends would jump to, or that one radical girl at Spelman who thought everything was unfair...and everyone thought they were annoying for a reason. They couldn't stop talking about being black until it was all there was about them, and that was one of many reasons she had hated school. If she had moved to New York only to become that person anyway?

"You do look stunning in black," Kurt replied.

"Plus it's not leopard, right?" she joked, and he looked up suddenly, studying her carefully. She seemed okay, she didn't seem agitated, but he didn't know anymore.

"Well, it is hideous and doesn't photograph nearly as well as you like to think. Besides, I thought you said this was all about creating a sweet and wholesome look - leopard looks like you're trying to be wild."

That was another thing that didn't make sense to Mercedes. They were - with the exception of Eva - pretty good girls. They all went to church without Rocko trying to force it, they all called their mothers at least once a week, they didn't smoke or drink - much...they were good. They were wholesome. Why did they have to pink up their cheeks more to make it look like they were? And didn't black dresses make them look less sweet? The girls back home who wore black were usually up to something - like Sandy Lopez when she wasn't wearing her cheerleading uniform. Who was going to think they looked sweeter in black? Shouldn't they be in pink or floral or something? She didn't really like floral, but it made girls look nice.

She was supposed to keep talking about leopard, but she needed to know if she was completely wrong or not. If Kurt thought she was crazy - well, crazier than they usually thought each other were - she'd let it go. But it felt too weird to just drop, and Kurt might be able to help figure out why. "We had individual consultations, too. How to talk and walk, act, present ourselves," she started, and Kurt looked curious, confused. "They want me to change my name."

That got Kurt's attention. That was new. They had changed her hair more times than he could keep track of, and dress styles changed every year. But name...that was big. That wasn't really changeable once you were in the public eye, so if Mercedes stopped being Mercedes she couldn't really go back again. "Why?" he asked. "It's not like you're Archibald Leach or anything - is there another Mercedes Jones out there?"

Mercedes shook her head and looked awkward before admitting, "They said something about it not having enough appeal, and that if we're going to the trouble of making our image better, it would be a shame to ruin it with my name."

Kurt blinked. He didn't know what that meant, but it felt...wrong. It felt like there was an insult lurking just beneath the surface, but he couldn't put his finger on precisely what. But what was he supposed to say? Tell her not to do it and throw her career out the window over it? "Plenty of celebrities have changed theirs. Doris Day's last name was practically unpronounceable. And would anyone think Frances Gumm sounded like an international star the way Judy Garland does?" he pointed out.

"That's what I thought you'd say," Mercedes replied, but it didn't make her feel better. Kurt didn't seem any more comfortable with it than she did, he looked like he couldn't put his finger on why it was wrong either, but it was the same thing he'd been saying for the past year: Do whatever it takes to get ahead. She knew he meant well, that he would do anything he could to get out of that stupid basement cutting room, but it seemed like there had to be a limit somewhere. She couldn't just change everything about herself and still be herself when she was a star...could she? She used to think that was how it worked, but the more it felt like it would never end. If she took the new name and wore the black dress, then what was next? When they put out their first album, she knew they wouldn't get to pick the songs, or where they sang, or- anything.

She just never thought it would be like that.

This whole time, she'd been looking forward to being able to send her parents her first album, to show them what she was doing with her life and why it was better than going to a school she hated. Why living her dreams was worth crushing their dreams for her. She wanted to believe it would all be worth it once her names were up in lights.

But what if it wasn't her name that was up there?

She couldn't send them an album that listed "Mary Johnson." They had named her, they had picked it and called her that her whole life. It was their name, too. What did it say if she wasn't that anymore? They couldn't even brag about her if they wanted to - "Hear that on the radio? See that record? That's the Melodics. My daughter's in that group." "Oh? Which one is she?" "Mary Johnson - I know my last name's Jones, they changed hers. But it's okay - just listen to her sing!" It made her feel queasy to think about it.

But if she didn't change it...what did she have to show for herself? Rocko wouldn't keep her in the group if she didn't go along with it, and then what could she send home to prove to her parents that dropping out of Spelman had been worth it? That her dreams weren't some ridiculous fantasy, they really could come true?

"You're right," she told Kurt. "It's like eating nothing but soup before the photo shoot. It's not right, but it gets me where I need to be. Right?"

Kurt swallowed hard as she looked at him, everything about her crying out for confirmation that she was doing the right thing...and he didn't know if he could tell her that she was. It was just a name, just a stage name; he had no doubt that if Rachel had a strange last name, she would have changed hers like half the other Jewish stars in town. If his own surname were a little more German, he would have changed it - even though that couture designer who was fizzling out was going by his real name now instead of Roland Karl, there was no way he himself would have ever chosen to use a Swedish-German last name that the press spelled three different ways. (Logerfeld? Lagerfelt? Lagerfeldt? No one even knew which it really was, and names needed to be instantly recognizable in the public eye.) But the reality of it felt...wrong, somehow.

"Well, you'll always be Mercedes to me," he replied simply with a forced smile. "And just think - I'll be able to say I knew you when. Not just before you were a star: I've known you so long that I knew you back when you were Mercedes." She returned an equally-forced smile, and he decided to take the conversation to its logical conclusion. "Buy any hideous new leopard lately?"

It was a comfortable diversion, and they both took it. What else was there to say?