Sixteen year-old Avery Taylor has just jumped from social obscurity to the most coveted role in America. When her brother joined THE GUYS, an up-and-coming boy band, her parents insisted they hit the road with them. Avery is plucked from her quiet a...
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Floor to ceiling mirrors were made for girls with long legs and blossoming curves. That way, when they watch themselves move in the mirror they could admire their perfection from every angle.
I scowled into the wall-to-wall reflective glass, self-conscious and yet completely aware that no one else was looking at me.
Even if they were looking, it's not like others ever see the you that you see in the mirror.
Who had the genius idea to install fluorescent lighting and then cover the walls with mirrors? Only a prima ballerina could withstand that type of harsh criticism on her body. For average body-types like me, the studio felt more like a House of Horrors.
My parents and the other auditioners' families mingled as though they weren't fraternizing with the enemy. We'd been holed up in an empty studio space for over an hour after it became apparent that there were too many of us for the tiny lobby.
Based on the music thudding through the walls from the adjacent studio, my brother's final audition was still going strong. I never quite knew what to expect from Aiden's auditions. Sometimes he emerged after three minutes with no more reassurance than "we'll let you know."
This audition was different though. Behind that closed door was Leo Burrows, a well-known music producer with a knack of assembling power groups. He'd selected Aiden from over three hundred young men in a St. Louis music hall and invited him to Florida for a second audition two weeks ago. Of the thirty guys they'd brought from auditions around the country, only eight remained for today's audition. Before he'd gone stealth-mode in the lobby, Aiden divulged that Leo liked to run through a number with different combinations of dancers, swapping out one guy for another to see how the group looked and sounded together. I could only hope that Aiden was spending more time on the dance floor than standing against the wall, watching five other guys steal his dream.
Behind me, my mom carried on a conversation with two other mothers, putting them at ease with her kind words. "We're moving here from Kentucky if Aiden gets a spot, so we'd be happy to keep an eye out for your boys too."
We're moving here from Kentucky.
I want this for Aiden. I had to keep reminding myself that, otherwise, I'd be back in that trusty old storage room looking for a vomit bucket and hiding from the possible change coming my way. When I stopped to think about leaving behind the farm, a sense of loneliness settled in my chest. No more Sunday dinners with my grandparents around our dining room table. No more sneaking out to sleep in the barn next to my horse Penny. No more walks in the woods with my grandpa or baking lessons in my nana's cozy kitchen. For my entire life, I could look out my bedroom window of our farmhouse and see the warm, inviting lights and chimney smoke of my grandparents' cottage.
Moving to Florida would mean an eleven hour drive instead of eleven steps to their front porch.
The mirror I stared into couldn't hide the red of my nose or the mist in my eyes. Quick swipes under my glasses and a deep breath stopped the tears from spilling over, but I kept a vigilant watch to make sure no one else could tell that I was getting emotional.
