Backstage Love

New York, New York

PJ's POV
"Yes Mom. I'll text right as I get home. Mom, I've lived here for four years, I'm fine." I tell my Mom, with my slightly thick southern accent, as I hop off the subway. I swear she doesn't trust me some days.
I finally get to my apartment that I share with my roommate, Clara. I flop down on my couch, another day another audition. Today's audition? Today it was for my favorite Broadway show Cinderella and I tried out for the female lead of Cinderella . Lord knows I won't get it. It's only my third audition in the city.
I hear the door fly open and the sound of Clara's heels on the wooden floor.
   "How'd the audition go?" She asks.
   "Well, I mean the best part I'll get is a villager."
    "Girl please you can easily get the lead!"
     "All I can do is hope."
  My phone starts ringing, my manager is calling me. I answer it and with no hello she flat out says 'you got it' and I ask questions and she tells me that she'll have everything mailed to me. I hang up and start screaming and jumping around. Thank god we're on the first floor.
   "Jesus. Could you be any louder? You better hope we don't get a nose complaint." Clara complains.
   "I got it!"
    "I told you would! I'm so proud!"
   "This calls for Chinese food!"
  *time skip to morning*
  I wake up to vigorous knocking on the door. I look through the peep hole to see Amanda, my manager.
   "Amanda for gods sake it's 7:00 in the morning."
   "I know, but I thought I would hand this to you personally congratulations. Rehearsals start tomorrow and you have to be at the rehearsal room by 11:00 am sharp."
   "Okay thank you!"
Holy crap, I'm going to be Cinderella in Cinderella! I looked through the packet Amanda gave me, it had a schedule with rehearsal times, run throughs, and it had letter written to me. It said that the crew, cast, and orchestra are happy to welcome me to the Cinderella family. It also said there's is going to be a new Prince. I wonder who that will be?
     Wow, who would of thought, small town southern girl, newly graduate from NYU, would be playing the lead in a broadway role? This has been my dream since grade school.
     "Morning PJ." Clara says. Why is she up?
     "Why are you up? You're not a morning person."
      "I don't know."
       We sit in silence for a few seconds before I start conversation again. "The cast is getting a new Prince. Who do think it could be?"
     "I have no clue," she states, "there's a lot of actors I don't know every single on of them."
     There's my sarcastic best friend 
     "I'm so happy for you!" She happily starts her sentence,"I mean you basically look like the original cinderella."
     I get that a lot. The original Cinderella, Laura Osnes, and I have similar qualities like our light brown hair color, but our eyes are different colors. People say my eyes are dark chocolate brown, however i just see them as mud brown. I'm kind of short, I'm 5'4", yeah Im short.
*Time skip to next day*
I hop off the subway to get to the rehearsal area. By the time I get there it's 10:50, good, i have enough time to stretch even though it's not a very dance heavy show, it is always good to stretch. While I'm stretching I warm up my vocal chords. I hear footsteps enter the room, I don't look up right away since my head is down facing my leg while I am warming up my muscles.
I start to hum the song I was singing before the unknown someone came in.
"No, don't stop singing that was really good." He said. I get up from my previous position and look at who came in. "Hi, I'm Ben, I'm the new Prince in the show. Who are you?" he asks while extending his hand.
I accept his handshake and answer his question, "I'm PJ, and I am the new Cinderella." As I answer my mind realizes who I am talking to. I am talking to Ben Cook. I snap out of my mini freak out.
"Is that a southern accent you have?" he asks while joining me in stretching.
"Yeah, I'm from Nashville, but i've been up here for fours years, so it's not as thick as what it used to be." My mind is racing while staring into his ocean blue eyes. Ben was in my favorite Broadway musical, Tuck Everlasting, I think it should have spent a lot more time on Broadway. I get up off the floor  and take a sip from my water bottle. Soon enough some more cast members come in and we run through all of the scenes that involve Cinderella and/or the Prince.
       The rehearsal didn't last very long but while everyone leaves our director says people can stay a little longer since the place we were practicing doesn't close for another few hours. I stay while everyone leaves so I can work on some of the choreography that I kept messing up on. 
       "Hey I think you've got it down. Do you want to go get dinner or something so we can get to know each other better?" Ben asks, while I am packing up my things.
         "Sure, let me text my roommate first, gotta tell her i'm gonna be late."
         We walk to a nearby restaurant and get seated. I asked him if he has done any other shows before. He talks about all the shows he has done and I have to say I'm impressed from what he did all before he was 20. He then talks about how he got into dancing and tumbling and acting.
      "What about you?" he asks, "How did you get into acting?"
     "Well my babysitter told me about a local theatre in my hometown so my mom signed me up for weekly classes and I fell in love with the entire process and I did theatre from 5th and as you can tell I chose it as a career." He laughs at the end of sentence.
      "Did you do anything else, like dance or gymnastics?"
      "I did gymnastics but stopped because I was young and i didn't like any of the bar stuff. In fourth and fifth grade I was in a dance class but stopped because it wasn't my thing. Through out high school I was a cheerleader and I did speech."
        "Does PJ stand for something?" he asks. Dang this boy has a lot of questions.
          "Yeah, Paige Jane, it was fine when i was young but as I got older I thought it was too girly, so I just told my friends and family to start calling me PJ."
       We continue to talk and I look at the time. I told Ben I had to leave since it was getting late. I thanked him for paying for my dinner even though I didn't want him too.
      I enter my apartment and see Clara watching tv.
     "Where have you been?" She asked in a worried tone.
      "With the new Prince. Who is played by none other then Ben freaking Cook!"
     Her eyes go wide because she, just like me, loves Tuck Everlasting. She makes tell her everything we talk about before I got to bed because tomorrow is going to be a long day.