Day 11

Staggering and breathless, Henry ran like a deer into the audition building with Klára right on his heels. They would have been closer to on time if Klára had not panicked about the state of her face until his mom put some makeup on her. The girl had been convinced that they wouldn’t even give them a second if she looked “horrible”.

 

The bookkeeper looked up from where he had been just beginning to put his things away. “You must be our last slot,” he dryly commented with a quirked eyebrow. “You have excellent timing.”

 

“Missed the…bus,” Henry panted while Klára grappled with the keyboard in her shaking arms. She was wearing one of his mom’s old dresses from when she was a teenager; it was a little big on her. “We still good? Not too late?”

 

Smiling and shaking his head, the man jotted something down into his book before gesturing for Henry and Klára to wait in the tiny lobby before vanishing into the room behind him. There was a short conversation and then he was back with a broader smile. “Alright, you guys are all set. Head right through this door and do your best, okay? Good luck.”

 

They thanked him quietly as they shuffled into the room, and when Henry looked at the people waiting his jaw dropped. “Holy s**t, you’re Bob Dylan!”

 

Klára looked up quizzically at Henry’s enthusiasm, and the man sitting at the table, with curly dark hair and a surly expression, laughed. “I get that a lot, but no. Bobby couldn’t make it to auditions, but he and Prince are gonna try to make it to the show, even though they have nothing to do with the process other than sponsoring it.” Henry forced his breathing to slow down, patting his chest a little to calm down his heart rate. He looked at Klára and found that she had already set up the keyboard and stand as deftly as any seasoned stage crew member. “You guys ready?”

 

Henry nodded meekly, still a bit embarrassed by his faux pas, and now increasingly nervous about the fact that he had forgotten to read the rules. “How much time do we have? We’ve got a couple of songs that we’ve been practicing…”

 

Dylan’s look-a-like smiled apologetically. “Only one song, so you better pick carefully.”

 

Already his mind was frozen. He scratched the back of his head and turned to Klára. She was mouthing something to him but he couldn’t make it out. “What?” he asked, ducking closer.

 

Klára’s breath was warm in his ear, and her voice soft. “I know you’re proud of what you do, but we need a cover song if we wanna make it.” Henry’s stomach turned over with disappointment that no one would hear what he could really do, but he nodded and cleared his throat.

 

“Okay,” he sighed. “Okay, yeah, let’s do, uh, the one we learned last night, okay? That one,” he decided against his better judgment to go with “Falling in Love With You”. They knew that song better and were good at it, but something just felt right with this new one.

 

Bob Dylan’s twin cleared his throat, and Henry turned to him with is eyebrows raised. “You guys ready?”

 

They nodded simultaneously as Henry pulled Annabel from his back and rapidly tuned with Klára as his guide, plucking the correct note on the keyboard and telling him if he was off. She really had a marvelous ear for music. Then he started to play and she started to play and they opened their mouths to sing and every single judge leaned back in their chairs with impressed expressions on their faces.

 

The song ended and the silence rang out in the room. Already, by the looks on their faces, Henry knew they were in.