I still couldn‘t quite believe it when my parents were telling me goodbye at the airport. First, they’d normally never ever let me be thousands of miles from home alone for a whole week. Second, I was going to the city of angels, Los Angeles. Third, I went there for an audition for a Disney show. That was everyone’s dream, at least has been once.
The flight took hours, but I didn’t care. I’ve always loved flying. We were chasing the sun, flying further to the west and the more tired I got, the weirder it was to have the sun shining through the windows. The endless landscape the clouds were creating on their upsides always amazed me. The hills, mountains, deserts and lakes that made you look back down on the ground were just like a whole different white world. The plane soon was going down to land again and I got all excited. It didn’t take me long to recognize downtown LA from above and just minutes later we touched ground again. I checked in, got my suitcase and went to the exit, where a man with a sign saying my name was standing. We exchanged a couple of sentences and he was sent to take me to the hotel, the other girls that were auditioning were staying at. Driving though LA I didn’t want to blink once, because I was afraid to miss something. I didn’t know what exactly I had expected, but it was even better. The car suddenly turned left and stopped in front of a massive posh looking hotel.
“This is not the hotel, is it?” I asked, rather convinced this was just a joke of the driver.
“No this actually is it.” He replied.
Wow was all I could think of getting in the hotel in my sweatpants, a worn out shirt and old converse, totally not fitting for such a seemingly expensive place. Still I checked in, was greeted nicely and given a card for my room. I got up to it. It looked very nice. I haven’t ever been to a hotel until then, but I figured it was really nice for a hotel room. And the most important: It had a comfortable bed and a big window with a beautiful view. That was all I needed.
I started unpacking my clothes. I was told the auditions would last for five days, so it was also sort of a workshop. I tried to be optimistic, like I promised to Riker and tried to really believe in Ross’s last words before he left at the premiere, but I still only took as many clothes as needed for the week. I still had that thought of possibly having to leave sooner than planned creeping in the dark places of my brain. And I wanted to be prepared for a possible disappointment. I didn’t want to be all whiney in front of some important directors. Maybe if they saw, I could handle some disappointment, they might want me for a different show, if I was good enough.
Might, if. Those words were following me and always have. I used to always think “what if” and got my expectations up really high and was let down each and every time. So now I was always thinking “what if not” just to be prepared.
A knock on the door distracted me from my bad thoughts. I went to get it and instead of finding a person I found an envelope with my name on. This was getting more and more like something like ‘America’s Next Topmodel’. I imagined Mr. Seifert standing in front of me and another girl with a paper in his hand: ‘Mouna, I’m sorry, but you aren’t going to get a photo from me today.’ While opening the envelope and smiling at my imagination. I got the letter out of the mysterious envelope and read it. It was from Mr. Seifert and I imagined him sitting in front of a desk, typing on his pink laptop, wearing a wig, make up and pink nail polish. I had to shake my head to get that image out of my mind again and concentrate on what he wrote. It was about the first day of the so called ‘workshop’ and that I was supposed to prepare for being a shy girl working at a bookstore. What an interesting part that would be, if the character would actually be that on the show. It also said there was another girl, who was already casted as a crazy Austin-fangirl, that would be our best friend on the show and was there to help us with the scene we’d play on the next day. Another sheet was in the envelope. The lines for the scene we’d play tomorrow. We were allowed to do some little changes, but it had to have the same base content. That was it. Nothing about someone possibly already leaving tomorrow. Nothing about what more specifically would be happening. I mean, it couldn’t just be a whole day for that one little scene. I tried to ignore that fact, I was used to not knowing everything or things not being very organized (which I thought this probably wasn’t) from theater. Theater people are just a crazy unorganized bunch of people that were usually late. That was possibly similar for film and TV people.
