"Enter!"  The voice called to her, sharp and crisp.

            Madelyn's head shot up and she glanced quickly around the room.  The darkly-furnished waiting room with its heavy curtains blocking out all hope of natural light, was startlingly empty.  She was the final one to be considered for the position.  There were certain drawbacks to being last in this situation.  Saving the best for last…hmph…She knew what usually happened to the final person.  Thank you, we'll call you, don't call us.  She had been both first and last in these situations and this was certainly a disadvantage.  "Thank you," she said as she drew herself to her feet, a pale hand reaching out to pick up her cello and bow, another grasping the music tightly, bending the already tattered pages.

            The man nodded at her as she passed, the smile forced, grim.  She knew she must look a fright.  Her hair, once carefully pinned up, now hung loosely down her back in blue-black chaos.  She had given up on it hours ago, after the long flight and the short nap she had taken in her run-down hotel room.  When she had reapplied her make-up, her eyes in the bathroom mirror had been shadowed, the dark circles prominently displayed against the white skin.  Cover-up only went so far.  Her inability to hide those circles and the fine lines that had only begun to appear in the past year was just one more thing she couldn't handle today.

            Tossing her hair over her shoulder, she strode into the audition room, her posture erect, her hands fidgeting around the instrument and music.  She sat in the chair, placed the music on the stand, and raised the stand to the right level.  The last auditioner must have been rather short.  She wouldn't know for she had paid little attention to the other auditioners as she waited.

            "The Beethoven excerpt first."  The tall, rail-thin man she knew to be the symphony's conductor waved one bored hand in the air as he spoke.  She nodded, placed the peg on the bottom of her instrument in a small groove in the hardwood floor, and raised her bow to the instrument.

            As the bow crossed the strings, the first note emerging from deep within the soul of the instrument, she closed her eyes.  This excerpt she knew from memory.  The notes were only a crutch, something she didn't need, something she could shut out in order to get into the heart of the music . . . something that could help her to concentrate, focus, keep her mind away from the thoughts plaguing her.  Her eyes shot open and her blurred vision cleared as she focused on the written music. 

            It floated through her head, the words harsh and dissonant to her sensitive ears.  The voice was still there, tense, strained.  Can I come home and just once not hear that damned cello, and then he would storm into the bedroom they had shared for the past year, slamming the door shut.  It was a constant balance she needed to strike.  Too little practice and he was on her to improve, standing over her shoulder as she practiced, pointing out mistakes, inconsistencies, a glitch in the rhythm, a note out of tune.  Too much practice and he hated the mere sound of her instrument.  "Robbie, dammit," she had said, setting her instrument down gently and chasing after him.  The door had been locked when she arrived and she had slammed her hands hard into it, the tendons snapping unnaturally, the pain reaching out to twist an angry hand around her wrist.  "Dammit, Robbie…Let me in!"

            He flung the door open and glared at her for a moment before walking away.

            "So that's it then, Robbie?" she said to his back.  "No chance to talk about this?"  Of course not.  There never was.  Why did she even try?

He just looked at her, hazel eyes narrowed, and ran a hand through his unruly auburn hair.

Madelyn sighed.  "I need to practice Robbie.  This audition . . ." 

"…is important," he finished for her, his voice higher pitched and slightly nasal in a bizarre imitation of her own. 

"It is."

"You'll leave here," he said and retreated to the chair in the far back corner of the room, his favourite sulking place.  She had had this argument so many times she could almost hear his voice floating through her head.  You'll leave, you'll abandon me, you don't love me anymore.  Here we go again.

"You knew this was never a permanent position for me."  She couldn't stomach this oft-repeated argument anymore.  Turning away from him, her back straight and stiff, she walked away.  It was a statement she had needed to make.

The Beethoven excerpt came to an end, the memory dying with it.  She studied the panel of judges as they exchanged looks and small whispers.  Smoothing a hand across her hair and wiping it on her velvet pants, she waited for their next instruction.

"The Strauss."  The only woman, a tiny bird-like creature, leaned forward so that her quiet voice could be heard above the buzz of the harsh fluorescent lights.

Madelyn inclined her head toward the woman, bending her swan-like neck in acquiescence.  Their eyes met for just a moment and the woman smiled in understanding, her dark eyes as haunted and shadowed as Madelyn's grey, almond-shaped ones.

The Strauss was over almost before it began.  She cringed when the cut-off words came.  Thank you, we've heard enough.  True, the beginning was the most difficult part of the Strauss excerpt, but did they stop her because of that, or because they really wanted to hear no more?  She had practiced it for hours, drilling the movement of bow and fingers into her head until they moved together in an irrefutable fluidity.

A large, burly man who sat far back in his chair, lengthy legs crossed at the ankles, the enormous bulk of his shoulders dwarfing the birdlike woman and the almost-effeminate man sitting beside him, was the next to speak.  "Mozart."  The one simple word dropped heavily into the room, bringing with it all the love, the terror, the tenderness that name invoked.

With little more than a glance at the man, Madelyn lifted the bow to strings and delved into the request excerpt.  Concentration…it took so much effort to play Mozart's music . . . a master, a genius, and yet his music sounded so simple at first hearing.  It required a light touch, a complete lack of tension, to produce the delicate, almost unearthly perfection of Mozart's music.  As the melody she produced soared, she could almost hear the rest of the orchestra moving with her.  The multiple recordings she had listened to were all there underneath her, one turn of phrase from the Szell, another from the Bernstein or Ormandy.

"Mom, you'll never understand," she had said, the phone held in one hand, her cello held loosely in the other, as the recording of Mozart's Symphony No. 35 played softly in the background.

"Robbie's always been good to you.  Why would you want to leave a great job and a great man for someplace new?"  A pause.  "Chicago?  Dear . . ."

"Mom."  Madelyn had sighed.  The "big city," a place of untold dangers, of muggers, of rapists, of shootings, of gangs.  She had heard it all from her mother, to whom leaving the small town Madelyn was currently living in for Chicago was a disaster, when Madelyn had first told her excitedly about her chance to audition for one of the greatest symphonies in the United States.  It was an honour to even be considered good enough to audition for the Chicago symphony.  "The Chicago Symphony is wonderful.  It's a step up in the world . . ."

"But you'll no longer be principal chair."

"I know, Mom, you're right.  But . . ."  Why did she bother to explain?  "Never mind.  And Robbie, Mom?  He hasn't been treating me right lately."  She whispered the last, letting it fall quietly into the air.  If she didn't say it loudly enough, it would cease to exist.  When had things started to take a turn for the worse?  She could barely remember when she had gone from being blissfully happy to this sad, restlessness where she hurt and cried so often.

"What do you mean, dear?"  Her mother's confused voice did little to alleviate her pain.

"He just hasn't Mom.  He's been mean…"  In mid-sentence, she stopped, her ears suddenly becoming aware that the trumpet music coming from the other room had drifted away, leaving only the Mozart recording and her own harsh breathing as the sounds in the room.

"Are you talking about me?"  The voice had a humourous turn, and yet there was steel beneath the droll words.  Robbie stood in the doorway, leaning nonchalantly against the red-trimmed doorframe, one thin eyebrow arched high, cradling his silver trumpet in his arms as if it were the child he never planned to have.

"Enough excerpts," the only man who hadn't spoken yet said.  He waved one hand delicately in the air, his strange, cat-like eyes focusing on Madelyn as she scrambled to retain her composure.  Another excerpt cut off and this time she almost didn't hear the man, her mind floating elsewhere, her body relying on muscle memory as she had performed the excerpt she had played what surely must have been thousands of times before.

"Bruce," the birdlike woman spoke again, her voice clipped and exact.  "There is still another excerpt."

The large, burly man leaned forward and turned tired eyes to the woman.  "Mary, we've heard enough excerpts.  I'm sure Ms. Baine would play the Debussy with the same proficiency as the previous three."  His eyes flitted momentarily to Madelyn.

She winced.  What did that mean?  She heard no sarcasm beneath the voice, but she suspected he was too much the consummate actor to betray what he was truly thinking.  This was a situation he had no doubt been through countless times before.  The fact that she hadn't made it through all of the prepared excerpts could easily speak to their tiredness.  The auditions, like they usually did, had carried on long past the allotted time.  It could, however, speak to a lack of interest in hearing much more from her.  This last thought she tried to push from her mind.

There was a lull in the conversation as all eyes turned to Madelyn, skewering her with their varied gazes.  "Th…the Shostakovich?"  She winced at the hestitant tone.  It was a horrible way to precede the concerto.

The effeminate man nodded at her, his eyes blank, the expression on his narrow face neutral.  The others sat back slightly, the burly man crossing his long legs at the ankles once more, the birdlike woman wrapping her arms tightly around her, the conductor smiling slightly, the type of smile one could envision on a tiger shortly before it leapt in for the kill.

Madelyn was not reassured.  Taking a deep breath, she played the opening notes of the exposition.  The jaunty melody, full of wide leaps that spanned the range of her instrument, filled up the silence, the nonexistent orchestra taking its silent role.

A bassoon melody rising underneath the cello had brought Robbie racing into the room, his face an odd shade of red, his eyes narrowed.    The Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1 blasted from the surround-sound speaker system they had put into the living room several months ago.  Madelyn hadn't been able hear his voice over the music, and perhaps that was just as well.  From the steady darkening of his features, the one vein throbbing in his pale forehead, she knew it was nothing she wanted to hear.

Turning away from him, Madelyn continued to pack, taking each piece of clothing and carefully folding it to fit in the suitcase.

A sharp popping sound greeted her ears just seconds before the Shostakovich recording was cruelly cut off.  The silence that followed was deafening in its own right, her ears ringing with the remembered music, every sound amplified in the unnatural quietness.  "I was listening to that," Madelyn said quietly, her eyes staying on the task she was involved in, hands moving automatically as she packed the last of her clothes for the overnight trip to Chicago.

"Again?" Robbie asked.  "I told you I was sick of the Shostakovich.  And yet I come home from a long, tiring quintet rehearsal and here it is again."  He waved a hand violently toward the stereo.  "Why can't you ever do anything I ask?"  Slowly, his voice was rising, increasing in volume while it ascended in pitch.

She repeated the same thing she had said countless times before.  "I need to know this cold for my audition.  You know I can't make any mistakes . . ."

"This is all you listen to!"  His voice exploded into the still air, each word enunciated sharply.  "For the past two months, all I've heard is this concerto, the excerpts, your sight-reading practice.  If I dared to put on a trumpet piece or God forbid, practiced 'too loudly,' all I got was 'but Robbie, I need this for my audition.'"  His voice had turned whiny, the normally pleasing baritone register rising cruelly to mock her.

Madelyn turned from zipping up her suitcase to look at Robbie.  He had once been handsome, she remembered, his slick, polished good-looks had only been the icing on the cake of intelligence, humour, and sometimes misplaced sensitivity.  Now his looks had changed, maybe not on the outside, but the inner part, her perception of him, had altered what he looked like to her.  The sneer on his face, the narrowed eyes, the look of disdain.  He wasn't that attractive anymore.  Slightly taken aback by the discovery, Madelyn did little more than just look at him.  Why hadn't she noticed this before?

"I never did like the cello, anyway."  The words were said in such a nonchalant way that Madelyn scarcely heard them, her brow furrowing as she tried to make sense of what had just been said.  "You heard me," he said to her confused look.

"Robbie?"  Her voice was soft, uncertain. 

"Deal with it Madelyn.  We can't all like the same thing." 

"Damn you Robbie!"   Her voice was loud, harsh, her breath coming faster and faster.  "How can you say such a thing?"

"Because it's true!"  He rounded on her, moving closer, stalking her.  "It grates on my nerves, that scritchy-scractchy sound of your bow on the strings, that unsettled tremolo, all the weird sounds you get out of it when you're experimenting.  It's horrible.  I hate it.  There's a reason I gave up the violin and switched to trumpet in the fourth grade."  He was close now, so close.  She could see the redness around his eyes.  He was tired, she suddenly realized, completely and utterly exhausted.

"Robbie…"  She spoke quietly, reaching out one hand to him.  "Let's talk about this when I get back, okay?"  For a moment longer, she looked at him, smiling sadly, knowing the discussion when she returned wouldn't be easy for either of them.  And then she turned, picked up the suitcase, and walked away.

"No!"  She felt his hand wrap tightly around her arm as he pulled her back to him.  "You will not leave right now!"  The words, shouted so close to her face, were almost deafening.  "You will not walk away!"

"I need to get to the airport!"  She shouted the words back, a warm feeling of satisfaction creeping through her body.  "I don't want to deal with this.  I don't have time to deal with you!"  She was crazy, out of control.

Robbie's face twisted, the lips curling into a snarl, the eyebrows drawing low over narrowed and hooded eyes.  "You will deal with me!"  Everything slowed down around her, the trees outside the window moving gracefully in the wind, their long web-like branches making strange patterns to her eyes.  She scarcely saw the hand that came up, but she felt the sting of the open palm as it collided with her cheek, her neck snapping back with the force of the blow.

The thousand-dollar bow fell from her suddenly-limp hand, clattering unceremoniously to the floor, the concerto dying unnaturally.  Madelyn gripped the cello tightly, stared at the bow where it had fallen at her feet.  She heard the panel shuffle and move.  After a moment of whispered silence, she heard their footsteps carrying them out of the room.  No words were spoken as they walked past her.  It was most certainly the end of her chances with the Chicago Symphony. 

A light clicking noise came to her ears.  Too tired to lift her head, too tired to move, to blink, to cry, she stared straight ahead, numbness engulfing her in its welcoming cocoon. She should have been crushed, devastated, but she felt nothing.

A face swam into view, the birdlike woman.  She had remained behind.  For what reason, Madelyn did not know, but there she was bending down to kneel below her so she could look Madelyn in the eyes.  "Do you want to talk about it?" she asked in her quiet, unassuming voice.

Madelyn met her eyes, the warmth of a single tear winding its way slowly down her cheek, and nodded.  "If you want to hear about it . . ."  She blinked once . . . twice.  "But I know what I have to do now."  She reached down, picked up her bow, and cradling it and her cello in her arms, stood.  Her back was straight, the posture exact.  She paused for a moment, looking around the small audition room.  "I know what I have to do."