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“All right.” He chuckled, too. “We'll think of something else.”

I was still laughing.

“What's so funny?”

When I could catch my breath I told him. “I expected you to smoke a cigar and pinch my cheeks, to roll your eyes at me and make some lewd proposition. I've been dreading that all the way from California, and I get here”— the funny bone was struck again—“I get here and … Tom and you and Virginia and my red hair.” He, too, began to laugh at the absurd situation. Tom joined in.

Saint Subber said impulsively, “Stay for dinner. Virginia, we'll be another for dinner.” For all his theatrics, or maybe because of them, I knew he was a strong man. I had always been more comfortable around strong people.

After a dinner of frogs' legs (I had never eaten them before and had to ask if they were eaten with a knife and fork or with the fingers like spare ribs), he told me to come to the theater the next morning and not to sing any special material, because Truman Capote was going to be at the theater and “Truman hates special material.”

I thanked them both for their hospitality and went back to the hotel to telephone Mom. “Do your best tomorrow” she said, “and don't worry. Remember, you've got a home to come back to.” I spoke to Clyde, who sounded fine, and hung up and went to bed.

The Alvin Theater was on Broadway and I had been asked to go to the stage door around the corner. I walked quite cheerfully among the crowds on the sidewalk. I had stopped at a music store and bought a copy of “Love for Sale,” for no reason except that it had been on display and I had heard it sung so often. If Truman Capote did not like special material, I would sing a standard for him. I noticed only after I had turned the corner at the theater that a line of Negro people stretched around the block headed in the direction I was taking. I exchanged smiles with some of the young standees and gave good mornings to some of the older women with pleasant faces. The line stopped at the stage door. I had never auditioned in New York and thought maybe all Broadway shows had their tryouts in the same theater.

I knocked at the door and Tom opened it. I would not have been surprised if I had been given a number and told to take my place in line. Instead, he said, “Oh, Miss Angelou. Please come in. I'll tell Saint you're here.”

He led me to a corner and excused himself. The blurred forms inside the theater became more visible. There were over a hundred Negro people lined up along the backstage wall, waiting, alert.

Tom waved me over and whispered, “Saint will hear you now. Have you your music?”

I said, “Yes.”

“Give it to me,” he said, “I'll take it to the pianist. Do you want to run over it with her?”

I did not think so—after all, it was only “Love for Sale.”

“Just a minute and I'll call your name. Walk right through here.” He showed me to the wings and an entrance stage left. “The pianist is in the pit. You nod to her and she'll begin.” Just like the old Purple Onion days.

“And there's nothing to worry about.” He added, “Truman Capote is out there and Saint and Yip Harburg and Peter Hall. Do your best.”

I waited, trying not to think about trying out and thinking about New York. The Apple. I would make it and send for Clyde, then we would spend afternoons in Central Park, perhaps not as nice as Golden Gate Park, but then … I would find a lover, too; among all those millions of people there had to be a man who had been waiting for me to come along and cheer up his life. I would not think about trying out. Just wait until my name was called and then go out and sing.

“Miss Angelou, Maya Angelou.”

I walked out in front of the velvet curtain. The lights were bright and hard and white, and the theater seats, only dimly lighted near the stage, darkened into oblivion. I saw a small clump of figures in the distance. On the right side of the orchestra pit a woman sat patiently at a grand piano.

I took my position, thinking of Lloyd Clark: “Stand still, stand perfectly