Unlikely Star

New York

The bright sky hurt my eyes. I was still slightly groggy from the plane ride. I was finally able to calm down and take a nap on the flight over, but that was the exact moment the pilot announced we were being our descent. I guess that's what I get for voluntarily sitting with Mercedes and Tina who talked the entire flight.

We had decided to stop for some breakfast before we checked into the hotel. I got a bagel with cream cheese (I know I'm extremely basic). Everyone was filled with excitement. We couldn't decide what we wanted to do first: maybe take a walk down Broadway Street, or take the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. I was discussing with Sam how we should maybe go on some kind of bus tour. I know some of them seriously rip you off, but if we want to see everything we possibly can in a few hours, then that was our best chance.

I was brought back to the main conversation when I heard Puck say, "I want to throw stuff off the Brooklyn Bridge."

"You guys, you know we still have two songs to write." Ugh, I forgot about that part. Writing songs was not my forte, so I just assumed people who could, would. Meanwhile, I would be enjoying a picnic in Central Park with my boyfriend.

"Okay Mr. Bossy Pants. But I think we might have some time for a tune before we leave." Kurt began to sing the chorus to New York, New York by Frank Sinatra. I joined in quietly under my breath, but grew in volume when I heard everyone else start to sing along as well. Although we looked like the biggest, most annoying tourists in the city, but we were having a fun time.

"Guys, I have news." Rachel strutted towards us, silencing our song, killing our fun. "To celebrate our impending Nationals win, I got us all thirteen tickets to Broadway's longest-running show ever, Cats!" I guess it wasn't so bad Rachel came back. I mean I had never even seen a Broadway show before, so who cares if I've never even heard of that show.

Sam leaned in closer to me, "Do you think they release actual cats during the show?" I looked down in his icy, green eyes and realized that he wasn't joking.

"Rachel, you should probably check the dates on those tickets because Cats closed about eleven years ago." Our joy and excitement died back down.

"He did seem crazy. He charged my credit card by swiping it through his butt-crack." Now that was something that never happened in Lima.

***

Being stuck in the hotel room was not my idea of my New York trip. Mr. Schue handed all of us rhyming dictionaries and expected for us to have two songs ready by the end of the day. Looking through the dictionary was not as inspiring as he would've thought. Just looking at those words didn't make me think of an entire song that would beat every other show choir group here, much less a melody for that song. Thankfully Sam knew how to play the guitar and would always be strumming up some kind of random melody that popped into his head. I took it upon myself to have us group up for our songwriting to see if we could come up with something good.

Mr. Schue left the room, saying he had to fill out some paperwork, while we all put our heads down and started to work. Brittany announced that she, Artie, and Puck were able to come up with a song to start us off. I sat down on the bed next to Sam as the opening melody started playing.

~My Cup (sung by Brittany and Artie)~

There was not one person in that room who didn't have a confused look on their face. If that was the best we could come up with for Nationals, then we should just leave now. Sam tried to start clapping along during the song, but I put my hand over his.

"Hold on. Was that song about a cup?" Tina was asking what we were all thinking.

"Yeah, totally."