STEPPING Out
THE STORY SO FAR: Vicar’s daughter Carrie has long-held dreams of stardom and a life on the stage but after a confrontation with her father makes it clear what he expects of his daughter, she decides to escape her restrictive life and seek out a position with the performers in the popular Yakov’s Variety Show. Having spent time with the girls in the show earlier in the day, she is given an introduction to Mr Yakov himself and, with the help of dancer Belle, convinces him to give her a chance. Despite never having danced or sung professionally in her life, Carrie has secured her dream role. There’s no turning back now!
Carrie had slipped out from the digs she shared with the other girls while they caught up on their sleep after last night’s performance. She was pretty tired too. But a fierce desire to make herself unsackable drove her to work even harder than the others. She had no intention of screwing up her chances with Mr Yakov.
‘You need to relax,’ Belle had told her, at the end of her first week. ‘You know what you’re doing. If the old man wanted to get rid of you, believe me, he’d have done it by now.’
Belle spoke so irreverently about Mr Yakov. It was as if she were discussing an old family pet.
The janitor had let her inside the theatre this morning, grumbling about being interrupted in the middle of his work. She wondered if that was him now, coming to spy on her.
That movement was coming from the pit – a stool scraping, the piano lid being lifted,
