The 2 Minute Engagement

Chapter 3

Chapter 3
Lucile

2015

"Thank you for coming." Auntie Jacque smiles at Kim, JJ, and me when we show up to the small studio for the practice for Annie, Lynn, and Andra.

"Yeah," JJ nods simply. "How long will this take? I'm flying out to Chicago to see Chance for a few days."

"And I'm going to Philly to see Bry," Kim says, talking about her new best friend. "He wants a quick break from Empire."

"We won't take too much of your time," Auntie Steph rolls her eyes. "Just go over a few songs with them. Show them your workout regiment. We're just assessing what they need to do to start getting ready."

"Okay." I say before following the into the studio.

At 15 almost 16 years old, Annie, Lynn, and Andra are sophomores in high school so we have to work around their schedules. They can only come up to Boston every other weekend and even then they have to do homework before they can do anything related to the movie.

I can't believe they hired high school children before us. They don't even have high school diplomas. We already have our Bachelor degrees in International Studies, Economics, and Business at 24 and 23.

When we walk into the studio, Lynn, Annie, and Andra are stretching as our first cousins once removed— Michelle, Lori, and Nicole— watch them. They smile when they see all of us.

My mom and aunts go to hug their cousins as we watch. We spent a few weeks in New Orleans every summer since we were eight and nine but we never really got close with our cousins like our moms wanted us to. It just never happened.

Auntie Jacque instruct the three Carbon Copies on how to stretch and warm up. Mom shows them how to properly warm up their vocals as Auntie Steph gets ready to show them some of the choreography for the songs that will be used in the movie.

"Get ready for Schoolin Life, Down, Doo Wop, Run the World, Runnin, and In My Feelings." Auntie Steph tells us as our uncle Brooke (who isn't our actual uncle like we thought as children) walks into the studio.

"I just came to watch and tweak some things." Uncle Brooke says as he sits down.

Mom walks over to the radio and plugs her phone into the aux cord to start the music. "Watch Jackson, Kim, and Lucy first. Then try to follow."

Mom starts the music but Uncle Brooke stops her. "AC," is all that he says. Kim and JJ smirk at me knowingly.

"What about it? It's on full blast. It feels great." Andra says sweetly.

"In order to be SJC, you have to work like SJC," Uncle Brooke says. "Nicole, turn that AC off."

Nicole jumps up to turn off the air conditioning unit. The room warms up very quickly. "Okay. You can start, Mom." Kim nods to Mom.

We dance to all six songs like we've been doing since we were small kids. The Copies look at us as if we have ten heads each.

"We'll go through each song one at a time so you can get a feel of them." Auntie Jacque smiles at them and they smile back nervously.