Love, Take One

Scene 2

The rain was still heavy, still very much demanding of everyone's attention, as Bo left the library and idly wondered where she should go. Home to study was the correct answer, but it evaded Bo like a forgotten memory. Instead, she dodged puddles and used her near empty rucksack as an umbrella to make her way to the theater.

Xander, her current boyfriend of sixth months, was rehearsing for his latest role as Roger in the stage performance of Rent. He was a sophomore, like her, but where he fit university life like he'd been born and bred there, in comparison, Bo was a foreigner.

He'd be busy for hours, she knew, but with nothing else to occupy her time she'd simply watch his busyness. She was soaked through when she got there, her blond hair glued to her face and her once opaque shirt now obscene. Quickly, she crept in from the back of the hall mid-song, finding and stealing Xander's hoody for warmth and modesty. The professor/director was seated among the rest of the cast in the front row and Bo opted to sit behind him. Professor Peters didn't approve of an audience premature of opening night, but obviously he approved of Bo. Or, more accurately, he approved of her genes.

Bo's father was the one and only, late Brennan Gable, actor of immaculate talent in all areas of the arts, but largely successful in movies. He was on par with the best, floating high above the world on a pedestal he'd earned through epic choices, roles and awards. He'd been at the height of his fame when he'd died of liver failure at just forty-two years old, eight months after her mother. In the six years it had been since his death, he'd never fallen from the top.

Her father's notoriety had had an impact on Bo her whole life. Of course, though, she hadn't recognized its effect; it had been normal to her. The good and the bad. The luxury, the glamour, the infrequent father figure in her life and seeing his face on billboards and TVs and newspapers when the only place she wanted to see him was at home. Normal. The media intrusion, paparazzi at their door and in their face on every outing was an everyday hindrance. It was as much a part of her life as her father's 'habits', and while frustrating, it had never occurred to Bo that it was not okay. It was not what she wanted.

When her parents passed within months of each other, she was left alone at fourteen. It was in the impact of their deaths that Bo realized her normal was not everyone else's. When she was whisked away to live with her grandparents in Minnesota and was gifted the freedom to roam without the invasion of cameras and their seedy owners, it was then she become conscious of the life she'd been missing.

It was a bittersweet realization, knowing she'd been both born lucky and ultimately cursed. This thinking had followed her to college. Luckily, she was rarely recognized anymore. She was a far cry from the orphaned teenager she'd been four years ago; her Goldilocks hair cut bluntly at her shoulders and her babyish freckles covered daily with makeup. Now, though, if one were to look closely, they'd see the obvious resemblance to both her parents. She was tall and modelesque like her mother, very much a woman at twenty years of age, but she was fair and blue-eyed like her dad, sporting the same joker's smile. The only people to identify her on sight were those in the business, and since Xander's professor had once upon a time been Brennan Gable's fan and friend, he was very much in the business of knowing who she was.

"What do you think?" he asked, turning in his seat and regarding Bo like she was capable of critiquing amateur dramatics. He nodded to the stage as the final chorus of 'Light My Candle' was sung between Xander and his acting Mimi, Luella. Bo was incredibly capable of critiquing, but with Luella's face in her boyfriend's hands her analysis would be nothing more than a bitter girlfriend rant.

So she shrugged.

It frustrated Professor Peters. It always did. He wished for Bo to own the same charisma and talent of her father. More than that, he wished she had the same drive. Sometimes, so did Bo. Mostly, though, she longed to be seen as her own person, rather than as a mere shadow of her father.