Backcast

backcast
noun. A backward swing of a fishing line preparatory to casting.
verb, intransitive. To make a backward swing, such as when preparing to cast a fishing line.

He always hated this moment: standing at the podium, looking at the auditorium full of heads and shoulders. Once the house lights dimmed, it was difficult to focus on an individual's face. That was his favorite public-speaking aid--to pretend he was delivering his lecture to one person. It helped to quiet his nervousness. He had noticed that when he could use that technique, he sometimes rose to brilliant rhetoric that surprised even him.

As the shuffling and whispering quieted, he saw an unexpected light a few rows back. It wasn't flame-yellow. It was the cool fluorescent illumination of someone's smart phone. It bathed its owner's face in a pale glow: a young woman. It would have to do.

Inhaling deeply, he focused on her downturned eyes, backcast mentally, then addressed her.

Definitions adapted from The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005 (eBook Edition, copyright 2008), and from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1965, depending on which is more convenient to hand.