In retrospect, she wasn't sure why she believed the man who sat at the bar sipping rum and Cokes all evening. She'd seen him before, but only two or three times - he wasn't one of the regulars - and something about his suit seemed just a little too slick. But his compliments were less effusively-flattering than most of the smooth operators she was used to at the club, and he sounded so genuine when he said she sounded great (she did, especially that night; they had a new bass player, and he knew how to pull something out of her she couldn't explain but could feel as she belted out the songs). Then he mentioned his cousin had a job at a record label and needed a secretary.

She was insulted at first - what girl wanted to be a secretary her whole life? - but the man pointed out that it was how most of the women on the radio got their starts. It was how Motown worked, he'd said, and she knew that part was true. A girl, especially a girl who wasn't a stunning beauty but could sing her lungs out, got a job at the label, worked hard, learned what the decision-makers liked, then made a single that blew everyone away.

Besides, she told herself, the extra money couldn't hurt. The apartment was getting too crowded - it really was only meant for two people, and with four there now, especially since Ricky tended to keep night hours which meant when she got home practically the entire group was still up... it wasn't a good place to live longterm. It was more fun than she'd expected, and Ricky wasn't half bad the more she saw of him - he was still a lot to take in large doses, but he could make all of them laugh from practically nothing, and he made fun of all the same things about Rachel and Kurt that she did.

And he made Kurt happy, and she did like that.

But four people crammed into two New York-sized bedrooms and one tiny living room wasn't any way to live, certainly not for long. Plus the apartment was kind of a long way from the club, especially after midnight, and a place further uptown, even into Harlem, would be nice. Just a little place of her own, where she could unpack her clothes instead of living out of suitcases, and leave the table as messy as she wanted, and sleep in peace without Rachel doing vocal warmups at all hours. But none of that was possible with just the money from the club; it was enough to chip in for Kurt and Rachel's apartment and help buy groceries, even enough to save up a little bit now that Ricky was chipping in despite Kurt's protests, but it wasn't enough to shell out for her own room every month. So the promise of a steadier job, with a normal paycheck instead of a handful of cash at the end of each night, was appealing on its own once the idea was put in front of her.

Five months of living on her best friend's couch was her limit, she decided on her way to the interview. And if she could do that and be on her way to the career she really wanted all at once? What could be better?

And then summer brought the Heat Wave.

The first time she heard the song, she sat staring at the radio for a solid three minutes - not because of the song, it was simple and catchy like everything else. But the voice singing the song...

It wasn't wispy. It wasn't thin and sweet, and it definitely didn't sound like the girl singing it looked like Rachel. The voice was big and sounded like she should have been singing a great gospel song instead of the "yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah" parts. She sounded...

...She sounded like Mercedes. Not exactly the same, they hit notes a little differently and everything, but the style was similar. The soul of it was similar, the depth and richness and the way she wailed on notes. She sounded like what Dinah Washington would have sounded like if she were trying to make the Billboard charts. She sounded amazing and sassy and strong even though she was singing about how being confused and taken by a boy the way every other girl on the radio was. She wasn't pining like those other girls, for one thing, and the vocal power of the "yeah-yeah"s was...

Well. It was exactly what she'd been trying to find for as long as she could remember: Someone who sounded the way she did. Someone who was allowed to sound like she did.

The single arrived in the mail three days later, with a note from her big brother:

If you haven't heard these girls yet, you have to. Listen to the lungs on her!
Now go get yourself a record contract, Munchkin!
-J

As she slipped the note off the top of the record, she found herself staring at the picture on the cover. Three girls stared up at her - one grinning, one smiling, and one at least a little annoyed by the photographer from the looks of things. She could certainly appreciate that girl; she remembered too well standing in front of podiums for hours with a crick in her back and an ache in her cheeks from smiling for too long and makeup running and hairspray everywhere, in an ugly black dress.

These girls wore white. Maybe not white, maybe in colour it would be a pale pink, but it was very light against their dark skin. The photo was sharp, the girls' broad noses showing up as clearly as their dark eyes and teased-up hair. These weren't the Ronettes, who were supposedly mixed but always looked so washed-out in pictures that you couldn't see who they looked like - or anything but the shape of their face and their thick black eyeliner and ponytails. These Vandellas looked...well.

They looked black.

They were on the cover of a single looking like who they were. Looking like her, like her friends back home - the girl at the top with the big grin looked like Marla, a girl she'd gone to church with back in Lima from the time she was a baby right up until the day she left. And they looked nothing like the Melodics, that was for damn sure.

They looked like who Mercedes had wanted the Melodics to be. And they sounded like she wanted to sound. Or...like she already sounded, but like she wanted others to be allowed to hear. If voices like theirs could be on the radio now, could be on an album cover without trying to hide their faces so ignorant white kids would still buy the record...then why not hers? She was certainly as good as they were, she just needed the right person to let her fly.

And she just happened to have access to all the right people now.

Unfortunately, every girl in town who looked or sounded like her had the same idea.

Every morning when she arrived at her desk at exactly 9:03 - 3 minutes late but still 20 minutes earlier than her boss, so he'd never know - there were already at least two potential acts waiting in the lobby. More often, she had to squeeze past at least fourteen people in the space that was built for five - three groups of three or four girls each, plus management. Over the course of the day, she saw easily another 10 groups, plus a handful of individual singers looking to be placed in groups at the very least, given a solo contract at the most. A lot of them started as church groups, but more liked jazz and blues, and every one of them seemed to think the same thing she did: Heat Wave wasn't just a song. It wasn't just another catchy summer hit that the radio would play next year leading up to Memorial Day. It meant something. It was a sign that things were changing, that things may have taken too long to get right but they were heading that way now.

Except then they weren't.

It wasn't anything overt Mercedes could point to, anything that said for sure things weren't what those eager girls in the waiting room were expecting...but it didn't look any different to her than when she had been through it the last time. Every group they put under contract sounded just like the old ones, and the photographs looked the same, and the voices were just as small as they'd always been, all of which led her to a realization as she sat at her desk, working her way through a list of phone calls she needed to return to the managers of girls who thought they were going to be the next Martha:

She might have a job, but it wasn't going to get her to stardom.

At least, not here. What they were doing at Motown sounded different - she heard a few of the managers talking about how Berry Gordy had a whole set-up out there that made New York look small-time, with all the same charm school classes and in-house writers like A&M or like Phil Spector had over at Phillies, but bigger and better for new artists. They toured all the time, and they didn't just cover the same songs once they belonged to the label like everyone else did. And...maybe more importantly...

...They didn't try to not be coloured. They were - and they were proud of it. They made music that sounded like gospel and rock mixed together, and they didn't try to make their girls - or boys for that matter - look pale. They were always cleancut, they had to be, but it wasn't like this. The entire management was different out there.

Maybe she should leave, she thought as she hung up the phone from politely declining a manager's request that she schedule him to see her boss again. Maybe...if New York wasn't where she could be a star, maybe she should go out to Detroit. See if she could get the same job out there and work her way up. She didn't mind working for what she wanted, or starting slow and small - she'd done that already, and it wasn't so bad.

It wasn't so bad because she also had the club, she reminded herself. She had a stage of guys backing her up who treated her like a talented little sister, she had a crowd of people who came out to see her - some even only came on nights that she sang...or so they had told her. She had no way to check that. But she could stand the boring, day-to-day struggle - and the dullness of the office job - because she had somewhere she could just let her voice out and do whatever she wanted. She didn't have to be someone for anyone else up there. If she liked a song and the guys knew it, she could sing it - and she had yet to find anything the guys couldn't learn in a day or two. If she wanted to sing Heat Wave, she could bring it up to them tomorrow and she bet Gary and Ralph would already know it and could teach the rest of the band. If she wanted to follow it with some Ella, she could do that, too, and there was no one to tell her what her next song should be or what image she needed to project so people would like her.

People liked her for who she was up at the club. And anyone who didn't could leave whenever they wanted.

And maybe...maybe for now that was what she cared about more. Was it any good to have an entire gymnasium cheering for her if they didn't like her, they just liked who Rocko or someone like him told her to be? Was that worth it? Was it worth being someone else to have a few more people hear and maybe like her voice?

Or was she better off staying where she was, and doing what made her as happy as she could imagine being, even if it didn't get her on the Billboard charts?

The more she thought about it, the clearer the answer was. She thought at first that she needed to put herself first, then her music, then fame, but as soon as the words were in that order... she was her music. Or at least, she was her music - if she was singing her way, with her songs, in her own voice? What could be putting herself first more than putting her own voice out there?

She bet if she asked for a raise at the club, she could get it. Not a big one, just enough to afford her own place so she could quit her day job and go back to singing more nights up there. She doubted they'd give her a hard time for it; up there, they knew she was worth every penny.

* * * * *

Kurt wasn't sure if the series of small, relatively insignificant assignments he'd been given after he was done combing the archives for what he called "The Quintessential Main" were meant to be vaguely insulting and a sign that he couldn't be trusted with additional tasks, or if his hand selection for the duties was instead a sign that Don trusted him - and wanted to keep him away from Stu - but didn't have anything pressing to put him on for now. He wasn't arrogant enough to be certain it was the latter, but he chose to believe it was. After all, if he'd done such a horrible job, he figured that no amount of 'family' status could keep the man several steps above him on the company ladder from throwing him back into the cutting room. Besides, the opportunity to meet different people within the assorted levels of production could only be an asset, especially since the vast majority of the people he met seemed to like him well enough. Not all of them expressed it quite as effusively as John did - though no one expressed anything quite as effusively as John - but as far as he knew there weren't any complaints about his work.

There shouldn't be; he worked efficiently and carefully and brought his own flare to things, but after two years of Stu breathing down his neck, he'd become wary.

But after searching the archives, Don had sent him to work as a fabric runner for a couple weeks while one of the usual runners was out for some kind of surgery Kurt didn't remember the details of, which had sent him scurrying up and down the halls to take pieces from the cutting room up to the sewers, then half-finished garments up for fittings and design adjustments and back again, then finished garments to be altered...all of which had been exhausting but oddly fun, especially as a few of the seamstresses old enough to be his- well, if not his grandmother, then certainly his spinster aunt - had taken a shine to him and showed him what made a particular cut of dart all wrong for a certain shape. Not only had that information come in handy for Ricky, whose discovery of Kurt's sewing abilities had been followed quickly by insistence that Kurt make him something "to bring all the boys running to me and not those other queens", but knowing more places in the building helped him immensely when Don asked him to help reorganize the tailoring studio, which hadn't been used much in the past decade except for a few older wealthy clients here and there who wanted the same garments they'd been getting from Mainbocher since the early 1930s. And once that was set up - though there was no additional staff there yet - Don had sent him to work with the art department for a week while their usual junior assistant was on vacation, where the broad-faced Italian who had worked there since coming out of high school criticized his sketching and drawn proportions for at least an hour a day. Suffice it to say, he had changed the ratio of waist to hips significantly on his drawings since then - a development Ricky liked because he said it "gave him more to work with."

He wasn't sure he understood Ricky's love of gowns. Sometimes it seemed like a costume - and Kurt did admit he'd played dress-up plenty as a child, especially before his mom had gotten sick. He liked the ways the skirts twirled when he spun around the living room to Broadway soundtracks, was all. But after she died - and certainly by age 9 or so - the costume box had been put away and there were no more dresses. He could appreciate a beautiful dress on the right person, and he'd certainly tried to steer first Rachel and then Mercedes into more flattering, more appropriate skirts - though between Mercedes' love of bright colours and loud patterns, and Rachel's obsession with plaids, that was often a tall order...but the idea of wearing one himself wasn't appealing, no matter how many of his jackets might have appeared less-than-masculine and even if he did own at least half a dozen beautiful silk scarves that made lovely ascots. Ricky, on the other hand, seemed to vacillate between liking the glamour of a dress, thinking it helped him bring in more income, and enjoying the fact that he wasn't supposed to do it. And if he had thought that finding a dress that fit right on Rachel, who had no curves, was a tall order, then creating a dress that would make Ricky look like anything but a boy in a dress was impossible...but he was learning. And Ricky was so appreciative... That much he could understand; he'd seen the boy's wardrobe, and it consisted of about four "normal" outfits (at least by his standards, though he was sure most people found them eccentric), a set of curtains that had been resewn with crude hand-stitching into a column of fabric that hugged no part of Ricky but his hips and had a tendency to slide down his chest, and a gown that he guessed had been dragged out of a dumpster at some point judging from the ragged patch on the side and the number of sequins it was missing.

He wasn't sure he would ever like what Ricky did. But seeing the way his eyes lit up as he saw the light blue number Kurt made - painstakingly and with a storebought pattern, much to his own disappointment...whatever it was Ricky liked about it, Kurt would keep trying to help. And maybe where Ricky went once the dress was on wasn't so bad, even if he couldn't imagine finding it anything but horrible. Maybe he didn't need to understand every single thing about his friend in order to understand him. And as long as Ricky kept coming home at the end of the night, safe and sound and sharing jokes...Kurt would have to learn to live with the rest.

As he walked toward his latest office-home - a broom closet-sized space that made him think he wasn't supposed to have anywhere to go at all but Don had carved something out for him - he wondered if Ricky might wear something shorter if given the chance. He could picture him looking really nice in a dress like Anita's in "America" - and even though Ricky would probably give him a deadpan look and ask something like "Vonny, why do you think I'm your own personal West Side Story?", to which he would reply, "Because you think I'm your own personal Sound of Music?", he was pretty sure that between Ricky's long, pretty neck, and a more flared skirt to help give the illusion of shape, and the pale pink colour, it would look pretty great. Or maybe he would just start planning how to wrangle Ricky into more stylish coats as it got colder, because the red with the fur was looking pretty threadbare, and pants would be more practical...

He smiled as he saw a portfolio on his desk - another assignment of some kind, he was certain. Which was good, because any time Don told him he needed to redistribute thread among the sewing rooms, it was obvious that Don didn't really have anything for him to do. He flicked on his desk lamp and ran his palm over the smooth black cover before flicking it open. The front page was a memo detailing how many of what types of items Mainbocher had sold in the past five years; knowing it was important to someone but likely not to his work, he flipped to the next page and stopped as he saw his sketch.

Not his sketch, technically. It had been redrawn by someone with a much better hand for drawing - he had a good eye but wasn't a person with much sketching experience, which explained why he had been drawing the chest too broadly for a woman's pattern until he was chastised for a week. But it was definitely an ensemble he had come up with, looking more elegant on a croquis with smooth, effortless pencil lines, in a larger scale, on clean white paper instead of in the margins of his notepad as an illustration of a point he'd been trying to make about jacket proportions. There was no mistaking it, though - the combination was his, the length of the jacket sleeves was definitely his, the fabric swatches glued beside the sketch weren't quite what he imagined but were very, very close... he ran his fingers delicately over the ivory silk satin as though it might vanish beneath his fingertips were he to press too hard, and he couldn't help but smile at the richness of its texture. Turning the page, he found a dress that wasn't his own design but did exemplify exactly the changes he'd told Don they should make: structure, shape, moving closer to vintage Dior than vintage Chanel, all in luxurious fabrics with impeccable tailoring. Another page and he found the cape-backed jacket he'd drawn in detail, paired with an interesting and understated knee-length pencil skirt, with a variety of muted grey wool tweeds - and a beautiful sapphire blue silk suggested for her blouse (a bold move he wouldn't have suggested for such a conservative look but would have absolutely put together if he had his own house). Page after page, 10 or 15 in all, from elegantly understated suits to stunning gowns, all with clean lines and rich fabrics in conservative colours. All with a timeless simplicity but enough interest to know precisely whose house it came from. All designed to make Mainbocher look like what Givenchy hoped to one day grow into.

It was absolutely perfect.

As he flipped the last page, he found a folded piece of paper wedged against the binding edge. Curious, he pulled it out; it felt bulky beneath his fingers, and when he unfolded the paper he could see why: Inside was a polaroid photograph of a light grey slub-silk dress, covered by a jacket with an oversized turndown collar, on a dress form. He could tell from the background that the form was lined up with all the others for the upcoming Fashion Week exhibition, likely waiting for a fitting on the woman who would wear it in the show. Waiting for the woman who would walk it past Diana Vreeland at Vogue-

He couldn't breathe all of a sudden, a wave of giddiness almost overtaking him, and his fingers quivered as he hurried to unfold the note and read it.

Kurt -
I thought you should see this before I presented it to Main and the rest of the top design group next week. Take it to the Art Dept. so they can reproduce it. Great job, and thanks for your help!
-Don
P.S. The next time a junior designer position opens up, you're at the top of my recommendation list. We need more people like you around here.
The one that's likely to come up first would probably be in Evening - do you have any experience with gowns?

Kurt wasn't sure his cheeks had ever hurt from grinning so hard before.

* * * * *

By the time Rachel stepped on stage, she was certain she was going to wow the director. For one thing, she looked amazing - she had finally figured out how to get her hair in exactly the style she wanted, and while she wasn't completely sure about the colour in the bathroom mirror every morning, it did look great under stage lights. And more importantly, she wasn't going into the audition blind and hoping they liked her; she'd had help. Kurt might have known clothes - okay, fine, he did, and he had helped her pick a dress that was easy to throw on over her dance clothes that would give her the sort of sweet-but-glamourous look she wanted to convey. But he was worthless with a makeup brush and just rolled her eyes when she asked for help. Ricky, on the other hand...

She didn't know how he got so good at makeup or why he had so much, but he was amazing. And even if she was pretty sure he was talking about her under his breath in Spanish at least half the time, the way she looked afterwards was worth it. She had even checked out the audition beforehand to be sure that stage makeup was what she wanted - Ricky had asked her how close the people would be, how good she needed to look, because apparently it made a difference whether she was on-stage or in a small rehearsal-style room with the director nearby. She guessed it made sense, too, so they would know what the lighting would be like on her face and how to make her nose look good. Well...less-bad, anyway.

Actually, by the time Ricky was done with her, she looked pretty great if she did say so herself. With a strong, dark blush and plenty of mascara to draw attention up to her eyes and out to her cheekbones, it would help deflect attention from her nose. And stage lights made her nose blend in a little better anyway, all of which helped elevate her confidence. As far as she was concerned, Ricky could help her get ready for every audition from now on.

She stepped out into the blinding lights, smiling proudly as she walked over to hand her sheet music to the accompanist, the gold heels Ricky had found for her somewhere clacking satisfyingly on the stage. She had decided on "Whistle a Happy Tune" for today, though she knew from a few of the girls who had gone ahead of her that they were handing out songs to learn for the callbacks. That sounded ideal to her - she hadn't gotten to put her stamp on a song that wasn't well-known before, and she couldn't wait. The director couldn't help but think she was right once he saw her, once he heard not only her voice but her ability to interpret and create a song with the sort of emotional depth that a Broadway performance truly required.

Crossing to center stage, she smiled broadly out into the auditorium, giving her eyes a moment to adjust to the light. "Hello, my name is Rachel Berry and I'll be singing 'Whistle a Happy Tune' from the classic musical 'The King and I,'" she stated in her clearest voice. Beyond the stage lights, she could see the director sitting in the middle of the sixth or seventh row with a thick half-used-up legal pad on his lap. She gave him a moment to see if he would nod for her to begin or if he wanted to ask her anything first; when he didn't look up, she looked over and nodded for the accompanist to begin.

He had barely played two bars when the director called out, "No! Thank you very much."

"Wait, but I hadn't even started yet," Rachel stammered, eyes wide. No. This wasn't happening again. She looked perfect, she couldn't possibly look any better, and he hadn't even heard her sing a note yet, how could she-

"You're not what I'm looking for."

She'd had enough. She'd been fighting it for two years - two years of being told she wasn't right, she wasn't good enough, of only being called back when it turned out that the director wanted to sleep with her, of not being allowed to- she couldn't breathe anymore, she'd been away from an audience for so long, she hadn't been cheered on since moving to this- this stupid city that she had loved the idea of her entire life. She couldn't breathe or stand or think clearly because nothing she did was right and there was no one willing to help her be right, and even Bobby got to be onstage while there was cheering now - sure, he was only in the chorus, but that was better than anything she'd managed, and- "How can I not be what you're looking for?" she demanded, her voice bordering on shrill from the start. There was silence, all of the stagehands and people running the audition stunned by her outburst, but she kept going. "I- I have the right hair, I look great in this dress, I look fantastic onstage and you haven't even heard me sing yet but I'm outstanding. Why-"

"Because you're not right for the role."

"What does that even mean? Okay? Everyone keeps saying it-"

"It means..." His voice was calm and even as he stood, removing his glasses and pushing them up onto the top of his head. "...that you aren't the right look for this role. More than that, you don't feel right for it."

"Why not?" she asked. "What about me could possibly look wrong for this?" She had done everything right, she had cut her hair and made it lighter, she had done everything she could to distract from her nose, she was standing with her good side closest to the director's sightline, why-

"We need an ethnic girl for this."

That stopped her cold. They needed an ethnic girl? But that should have meant she would be perfect! "I am," she replied, eyes wide. "I am, I'm-"

"Not Italian a few generations back." He rolled his eyes. "Only in New York does that count as 'ethnic.' No - we need a Jewish girl."

"I am!" she replied, seeing her chances go up by the minute. "I am, I'm that girl - I'm Jewish, ask me anything."

"We need a Jewish girl who looks it," he replied, sounding exasperated by the conversation. "If we didn't, we would have stuck with Mary Martin in the first place."

She didn't even know what to say to that, but the emotion she had been storing up to use for a meaty, wrenching role over the course of the past several years welled up suddenly, and she could feel tears start to prick at the back of her eyes. Not many, not hard, but it was all so defeating - she had done everything she thought they wanted, she wanted to be Mary Martin so they would be able to see her talent, and now he wouldn't even hear her sing because of who she looked like? "I'm sorry," she offered as she turned away for just a moment to dab at her eyes, hoping it wouldn't make her mascara run too much if she caught it early. "I came like this because the last few roles they said I was too ethnic, I-" An idea occurred to her. "What if I go clean up and come back and try again? My hair grows fast, it'll grow out quickly, I can wear a wig until-"

"You know how I said you're not the right feel for it?" He flashed a faint, sad smile, then thought a minute and walked toward the front of the stage. "Come sit a minute." It was an odd request, but she walked to the front of the stage and sat carefully, legs dangling over the edge. She was still above him in this position, but not by as much. "Look, you seem like a sweet girl. But sweet isn't what we need here. Fanny's...she's scrappy. She's a fighter who has to struggle to prove her talent to everyone she meets, and she doesn't compromise. She talks about being a bagel on a plate full of onion rolls - she's proud of it. She thinks it's a selling point. While I don't doubt you can relate to how many times she gets turned down...I don't think you have the chops to play a girl selling her qualities. Fanny wouldn't change her hair or whatever else-"

"Shade her nose," Rachel filled in quietly.

"Exactly," he confirmed with a faint smile that made him look at least a little kind even as he was crushing her hopes for the role. He paused a moment, then asked, "How long have you been trying to make it?"

"My entire life," she replied softly. She couldn't remember a time when this hadn't been what she'd wanted more than anything. She was sure that there as probably a time she cared more about food and storytime, but she couldn't imagine thinking of herself and a future and not seeing a Broadway marquis. It was all she'd ever dreamed of.

"How long here?"

"Almost two years."

He nodded slowly. "Can I give you a little advice?"

"Please," she replied quickly, her eyes bright. Maybe he could help, because clearly she was doing something wrong in all of this if someone with her talent couldn't even land a chorus role.

"Every kind of girl wants to be a star," he stated matter-of-factly. "I've seen every type and size and style of girl and voice just today, when I'm looking for something specific. All of them can sing. All of them. The girls who can't get weeded out of musical auditions pretty quickly. So after that, it comes down to some kind of an inner spark. An 'it', an x factor, that girls either have or they don't. Today...I'm sorry, but you don't. But I have to wonder if you really don't, or you've just gotten so beaten down and tried so hard to turn yourself into someone that you're not that you've lost what makes you special." She tried not to sniffle so she stared at her hands in her lap instead, and he patted her knee gently - not like Cal would have, more like a kind uncle. "You can't be any good at being someone else until you can be yourself and be comfortable that way. Everyone in this business is a dime a dozen - Jews, gentiles, we've got 'em all," he winked, and she managed a watery laugh. "Get comfortable with yourself first, and you'll be right for someone, for something." He patted her knee again, then headed back up the aisle toward his seat.

Rachel stood, smoothing her skirt and subtly dusting the back to brush away any stage-dust, dabbing at her eyes again. Maybe he was right - maybe there was someone out there who would recognize her for who she was, just as she was. Not like this, though. Not with Ricky's makeup caked and running all over her face, and hair that sat on top of her head like a pelt, and a song that was too upbeat and sweet for her to really do anything with. She wasn't right for everyone, but if she tried it would just keep being hit-or-miss: if she showed up trying to seem ethnic, it wouldn't be right if the director wanted a blonde...but if she showed up like this and the director wanted an ethnic girl... The only way to keep from blowing the jobs she would be perfect for was to just be herself. "Thank you," she called with a weak but sincere smile as she collected her music.

He returned the smile, then added, "By the way, Mary Martin's nose is bigger than yours. Never stopped her from being a star. Her nose may be big, but her talent's bigger."

Rachel grinned. She might not have the role, but she was pretty sure that was going to become her new personal slogan.