The boys sat back when the first guy walked in, unsure what to expect. He looked clean-cut, almost pretty. He had blond hair cut short, with a neat little swoosh in the front, a polo shirt with a complementary sweater over it, and jeans with loafers and no socks. In one hand he carried some sheet music and what looked like a headshot.

"Okay, dude, so what's your name?" Tommy asked.

"My name is Otis, and I thought I'd start with a little Sondheim?"

Sondheim?

"Well, like we said on the website, we need someone who can sync right up with what we're doing now," Sully began, "so could you sing one of our songs? With us?"

"What, right off the bat?"

"Yeah." Sully gestured to his guitar, and to the rest of the guys with their instruments.

Otis appeared nonplussed.

"Oh my goodness, are you a rock band?"

"Well, we're a mixture of rock and pop, but yeah, I guess you could call us that," Jude spoke up. "Have you not heard of us, then?"

Otis shook his head.

"Why'd you come, then?" Jude asked, tapping the neck of his bass impatiently.

"At school--I go to NYU," Otis explained self deprecatingly, "they told us to audition for absolutely everything we could." He spread his hands out. "So here I am!"

"Let me guess, theatre major?" Sully asked.

Behind his keyboard, Dane smiled to himself.

"Yes, that's right." Otis beamed at everyone.

"Okay, I think you can go," Tommy said. "Thanks for coming, though, it was nice to meet you."

"What? Before you've even heard me sing? I've got nearly a three octave range!"

"Nope, I think we're good," Tommy said cheerfully with a wave. "Could you send the next guy in on your way out, please?"

Otis left, still muttering about his range, clutching his headshots.

The next guy was named Tex, and wore cowboy boots and a hat with the Jack Daniels logo on it.

"So, you ready to sing one of our songs with us, uh, Tex?" Sully asked.

"Sure am, I brushed up on the one called 'Defenseless'."

The boys looked at each other and nodded as Tommy counted off the beat. "Defenseless" was an upbeat, pop number about how a boy felt unarmed and defenseless when in the presence of a particular girl he was falling hard for. It was fun and fast and had a great guitar solo that Sully knocked out of the park, usually.

When it was over, the four members of Peppermint Silk looked carefully at each other before looking at Tex.

"So, you have quite a twang when you sing," Tommy began, stepping out from behind his drum set.

"Amarillo, Texas, born and raised," Tex told them with pride.

"Right," Tommy agreed. "I'm from Mexico, myself, so I know about accents, I'm sure you can hear mine when I talk. I try not to have it when I sing, though, you know?"

"Have you ever considered singing with a country group, Tex?" Jude asked.

"Sure, just can't get a gig," Tex explained. "Figured I'd just get what I could, then try to slide over to a country band after I got established, you know?"

"Slide over," Jude repeated. "Right. Well, thanks for coming, Tex, we'll let you know." He gestured toward the door. "Please send the next person in? Thanks."

"Thanks, guys." Tex gave them a wave as he left.

By dinner time, the boys were exhausted, and ready to tear their hair out.

"Oh my fucking god," Tommy said in frustration. "What are we going to do?"

Sully shrugged. "How could it be this bad? How many did we see today? Twenty?"

"Twenty-six," Jude corrected morosely. "Each one worse than the last."

"Let's go get some dinner," Dane said, speaking up uncharacteristically. "If I don't get some food in me soon, I'm going to eat my piano."

So the boys closed up their work space, hoping tomorrow would bring better things.

It didn't.

"This is un-fucking-believable," Tommy said the third day, exhaustion in his voice. "How could it be this bad? We're in New York City, the capital of the world."

Sullivan ran his hand through his blond hair so it stuck straight up, making him look a little crazy. "For this I gave up grad school and cashed in my trust fund?"

"Hold on," Dane said quietly from behind his piano. "There's still one more, I think." He rose and went to the door, returning with a guy behind him.

"Guys? This is, uh, Pistol," Dane said, a small smile playing about his mouth.

Pistol had an amazing head of black hair that rose around his head and fell half way down his back. he was in a ripped tank top that showed a slat thin torso covered with black tattoos. Black leather pants that looked sprayed on hung low on his hips, and a belt with a skull buckle and high heeled boots completed his ensemble.

"Hey," he muttered to the room.

"Hel-lo," Jude responded in his poshest accent. He accompanied his words with a grin. "Pistol, is it?"

"That's right," he responded, looking around. "What are you, some kind of boy band?"

"Why do you ask that?" Jude had apparently appointed himself spokesman for all of them. "Do we look like one? We do all play instruments and all, and none of us dances or anything, I assure you."

"You all look like a bunch of pretty boys," Pistol said in a gravelly voice. "I should've known, with a name like Peppermint Twist."

"Excuse me, but it's Peppermint Silk," Jude corrected, affronted.

"Even worse." Pistol shook his head as he pulled out a pack of Camel unfiltereds and a Zippo. He lit up, looked around for an ash tray, and, finding none, shrugged and proceeded to ash on the hardwood floor. "I sound better after after a few drags," he explained.

"No smoking in here, dude," Tommy said, pointing at the prominent sign with his sticks.

"No fucking way."

Pistol sighed and dropped his cigarette on the floor, but Dane shouted, "No!" and leapt out from behind his piano before he could stomp it out with his high heeled boot.

Pistol watched in surprise as Dane picked up the butt with finicky fingers and carried it outside. He returned, gave Pistol a look of distaste, and took his seat behind the piano once again, his personality disappearing as he sat.

"Man, you guys are wound a little tight, huh?" Pistol observed. "So, we gonna do this or what?"

"I don't think we need to," Sully said, not unkindly. "I just don't think this is going to be a good fit, Pistol. No offense, dude."

Pistol looked around and grinned. "Nah, none taken. You're probably right. Besides, I'm violating my parole just to be here, I'm probably going to be back on the inside before any of your gigs, anyway." He gave them a wink as he turned to go. "Nice meeting all of you, good luck."

"Same to you, mate," Jude replied.

He waited until the door closed before collapsing into a chair.

"Christ on a bike," he enunciated clearly. "What the billy blue blazes are we going to do?"

"Listen," Dane spoke up quietly. "We still have another day of auditions left, don't we? And we can extend the auditions, we arbitrarily set them for one week for no reason, you know? We just said one week of auditions, one week of rehearsal, it doesn't have to be that way."

"What's the point of extending auditions, they've been a shit show," Tommy pointed out. "Longer auditions means a longer shit show, in my humble opinion."

This made Sully laugh.

"Ok, how about this?" He began. "How about if--"

The door opened, and Pistol stuck his head back in the room. "Hey, you guys know there's another person waiting out here?"

"Really?" Jude consulted the clipboard and shook his head.

Pistol nodded.

"Whatever," Tommy said. "Send him in, please, Pistol, thanks."

"Sure. Later, man."

The door opened, and a girl walked in.

The four members of Peppermint Silk sat up and stared, first at her, then at each other.

Sullivan was the first to recover. "Hello, may we help you?"

"I'm here for the audition," she responded, closing the door behind her. She stood, waiting to be told where to go and what to do next. She appeared to be in her mid-twenties, not tall, with brown hair and brown eyes. She was an unusual combination of mature and youthful, to their collective eye; she had a very nice, adult figure, but she was dressed like a teenager in jeans and sneakers, and wore no make up. She had the confidence and assurance of someone older, but her voice had the purity and tone of a child. She looked around at the four guys and the room with curiosity but with no nervousness whatsoever, completely at home in her skin.

"But it's--the audition is--are you sure?" Tommy spoke up. He looked accusingly at Jude. "Didn't you put that we needed a dude on the flyer?" he nearly hissed.

"Course I did!" Jude responded, but he looked uncertain. "I must have. At least, I think I--"

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Tommy cut him off. "You obviously didn't!"

"Sorry, we need a male lead singer," Sullivan said smoothly to the girl. "The person who put the flyer together neglected to include that piece of information, but yeah, we're looking for a man."

The girl blinked, long lashes making even this action dramatic. "Oh. But you're Peppermint Silk, right? Your old singer was Marshall McLoskey?"

"Yes?" Dane spoke up. For the first time all day, except when Pistol was about to ruin the hardwood floor, he seemed interested in the proceedings.

"Well," the girl continued, taking a few steps into the room, "it's just that I've heard a lot of your stuff, and Marshall and I have about the same range, that's all. He's got maybe two notes on me in the lower registers, but I've definitely got him beat in the upper ones for sure. I don't see why you need a male singer is all I'm saying." She lifted her shoulders in the faintest shrugging motion. She accompanied this by lifting her right eyebrow as she looked around.

"Our old singer, Marshall, as you pointed out, was a guy, so we just think it would be best if we stuck with what's worked until now, I guess," Sully explained as he, too, looked around. To his surprise, he wasn't met with agreement and nods. His bandmates were looking back quizzically, even questioningly.

"Right guys?" he asked, nodding encouragingly.

"I don't know, Sully, I guess there'd be no harm in letting her sing a couple with us." This astonishing statement came from Jude.

"We could try it, I suppose." This from Tommy.

Dane nodded.

"Okay," Sullivan acquiesced. He looked at the girl. "What would you like to do? You said you knew some of our stuff?"

She nodded as she considered. "How about Sunny Girl?" She suggested. It was one of their new ones.

Everyone nodded.

Tommy counted off the beat, and Dane played the four measure intro on the piano before the girl began singing.

Things were standing still
Nothing giving me a thrill
Then, suddenly, the world is a-whirl
Sunny girl, sunny girl

Clouds everywhere, rain in my face
Happy days, gone without a trace
Now my flag of joy's unfurled
Sunny girl, sunny girl

By the end of the second verse, the boys in the band were looking at each other in amazement. This girl could sing. And, even though the song was about a girl, there was no strangeness at all. Her vibrato was strong, and there was not even a hint of having to strain or reach for the high notes like when Marshall sang. There was, however, a rusty power to her voice on the high notes, a kind of Janis Joplin quality.

All of them were waiting for the last note, which went a little low, to hear what she would do with it. Shockingly, she went high, two octaves high, to be exact, well into her head voice, sounding a lot like Pat Benatar, her vibrato ripping up into the rafters, giving them goosebumps.

Tommy held the roll on the cymbals longer, until he could see she was getting ready to close the note, waited for her cue, and ended when she did on a rousing upbeat.

Wow.

"What's your name?" Dane asked.

She smiled at the four of them, a thing of beauty.

"Momoko. Momoko McDaniels."