Title: All that Glitters - Part 1
By: Miki
E-mail: aya_miki@hotmail.com
Rating: G
Genre: Romance
Standard Disclaimer Apply
I tried out today;
Every one tried out.
The judges will let us know
Tomorrow. Ohhh!
I practiced so hard;
I did my best,
And I think I saw one judge smile.
But, ohhh.
Not knowing,
Just hoping,
Pretending not to really care,
Waiting.
Tomorrow, I'll know--
We'll all know
Who made it,
Who didn't.
It's so hard to wait.
(But one of the judges smiled at me.
I think)
By: Helen Cavanagh
I can't believe I'm going through with this. I must be nuts.
I wiped my damp palms on my new wool skirt and took a
deep, calming breath. When I'd arrived at KIRQ-TV twenty
minutes earlier, the receptionist had handed me a sheet
describing the competition rules and told me to have a seat in
the waiting room. I found myself reading the first sentence
over and over again, but I just couldn't concentrate on thewords.
I kept wondering if my wheat blond, shoulder-length hair
looked okay, and whether my new peach eye shadowed
complemented my blue eyes. I hoped my mascara wasn't smudged
under my eyes--sometimes it does that and I look like a
football player who's protecting his eyes from the sun glare.
I could see a distorted, golden version of myself in the
shiny brass lamp on the table next to me. I didn't see any
smudges in my reflection, but I rubbed a finger quickly under
both eyes just in case. Across the waiting room from me sat Mina Boyson. I felt
my spirits sink as I watched her chatting with two of her
friends. She had huge, blue eyes and long, thick, golden blond
hair that tumbled down her back in beautiful waves. She was a
cheerleader, of course, and a senior in my brother's class at
Lincoln High School. I concentrated on not looking at them so
I wouldn't get too psyched out by the competition.
What in the world was I do doing there? I hadn't
competed for anything since the sixth-grade spelling bee! And
here I was, auditioning for the most glamorous job in town--
the "Golden Girl" for Trent's Department Store. Every year a
local high school girl was chosen to be the spokesperson for
the store in its television commercials and prints ads, and
every year at least two hundred girls tried out for the job.
"I just know they'll prefer a blond!" Mina gushed,
running her fingers through her hair. She looked as if she
were doing a commercial for hair conditioner or shampoo or
something, the way she tipped her head to one side and let her
hair cascade over her shoulder. "Last year, they had to pick a
dark-haired girl, Setsuna Reeves, because she was the
prettiest girl who applied. But the title "Golden Girl"
implies that a blond would be most suitable, don't you think?"
"They usually chose a blond," one of her friends said.
"Last year was unusual. But the thing is that they want
talent, too. The Golden Girl has to do a commercial twice a
month for a year, so you've got to know how to cat in front ofa camera."
Mina smiled knowingly. "I've been practicing in the
bathroom mirror for years--I've always known I'd be a star!"
I rolled my eyes and thought, Get me out of here!
"You're Sammy Montgomery's sister, aren't you?" the
voice was Mina's and obviously directed at me.
"Yes," I said, looking up and meeting those cool blueeyes.
"I'm surprised to see you here. Aren't you on the
newspaper staff or something like that?" The way she'd said
newspaper staff made it sound like a leper colony. No one in
Mina's clique would be caught dead on the newspaper staff--
cheerleading and pompons were more their style.
I felt my body stiffen. "I'm poetry editor for theliterally magazine."
Mina smirked and raised her eyebrows.
"Well, I don't think the Golden Girl job will call forreciting much poetry."
Mina's friends laughed. Obviously appreciating herobnoxious joke.
From where I was sitting, I could see the parking lot
through the large glass doors of the television station. Would
anyone notice if I ran out screaming into the street? I
wondered. Why did I let Sammy talk me into this?
Actually, my brother had dared me to audition. And as
ridiculous as it sounds, I haven't been able to pass up a dare
from Sammy since we were little kids.
But as I sat there in the waiting room, I realized what
a mistake it had been to agree to this audition. To be
perfectly honest, I look okay, but there was no way that my
face and body could compete with Mina Boyson's and come out
ahead. I was certain that they'd choose someone from Sammy's
class who already looked good enough to be a cover girl.
"They'll pick someone who is beautiful, talented,
poised, and very sure of herself," Mina said, looking at me
pointedly. "Someone who's had experience performing." The last
time I made a speech in front of an audience was last year in
ninth grade. Ms. Simms had had my language arts class memorize
a soliloquy of our choice from one of Shakepeare's plays. I
chose Ophelia's mad scene from Hamlet. It was supposed to be
dramatic, Ophelia going mad and all, but I had my classmates
rolling in the aisles with hysterical laughter. I was so
nervous that the moment I reached the front of the classroom,
I'd come down with a case of the hiccups.
An assistant entered the room and handed out audition
scripts to all of us. I looked down at the paper in my hand
and forced myself to concentrate on the words.
Do we have a sale for you! Twenty percent of all items
in junior and petite sizes at Trent's Department Store. Come
in and see all the styles and colors we have for our winter
fashions! But you'd better hurry! Prices like these won't lastlong!
It didn't seem like reading this commercial would be
anywhere near as hard as reading Shakepeare, but I was even
more nervous. With all those exclamation marks, I figured they
were expecting a very animated reading. I took out a pencil
and underlined the words I thought I should emphasize and made
little arrows pointing up or down where I intended to raise orlower my pitch.
Now if I could just get through it without getting a
case of the hiccups. I was trembling the way I had last year
in Ms. Simms's class. D‚j… vu
A few minutes later there was a clatter of footsteps in
the hall, and all the girls in the waiting room froze. A tall
blond woman appeared, then glanced down at the clipboard that
she held in her hand. "Serena Montgomery?"
"Yes?" the word slipped out, sounding more like a gaspthan an answer.
"You're next." She smiled, displaying small, perfectly
formed teeth. Her smile would have been perfect if her teeth
weren't covered with tobacco stains. That seemed to be her
only flaw, since she looked and moved like a model.
"Please follow me," she said. "Bring your coat and leave
the copy here; you won't need it." I glanced around. "The copy of what?"
Mina and her friends collapsed in a fit of giggles.
"The copy," she said. "The script you just read for the
commercial is called 'copy'."
"Oh." I could feel my face heating up at the three girls
continued to smile smugly. They probably thought that my
mistake would count against me in the audition.
"Good luck," Mina said, still smiling. "I hope you dowell."
Right, I thought, and crocodiles make great pets.
"Thanks," I said, following the woman with the blondhair down the hall.
It was too late to escape now. I'd misses my chance, and
now I would have to go through with the audition. The woman
led me to a set of double doors.
"You can go on in," she said, giving me an encouragingsmile.
I forced myself to pull the door open and walked into
the studio. It felt cooler in there and was quite dark, except
for some studio lights in one far corner of the large room.
The lights focused on a roll of blue material that hung down
and dragged on the floor. One camera was directed at thescreen.
It was kind of creepy stepping into the dark room. My
eyes needed time to adjust to the dark after being in the
brightly lit waiting room. I wasn't even sure if I was aloneor not.
Suddenly I heard a rustling noise, and I jumped at least
two inches off the floor. I glanced to my right in the
direction of the sound and thought I saw a figure of a man
sitting in a chair. The studio lighting was behind him, so all
I could see was his silhouette. If this had been an old Alfred
Hitchcock movie, he'd have risen from his seat in the dark and
come after with a butcher knife.
I didn't see any knives, but I was nervous just thesame.
Then he spoke. "Tell me what time it is, and I'll tellyou who you are."
It was a young man's voice, and I was relieved that he
didn't sound much like the killer type. "Huh?"
"I have a schedule here that identifies each girl by the
time of her appointment. What time is it?" he asked. "My watchis in the shop."
"Um, well, my appointment was for four o'clock."
He consulted a loose-leaf notebook on his lap.
"Well, that means you're Serena Montgomery." "Yes."
"Come closer so I can see you."
I walked to within a few feet of his chair, then took a
look at him. My eyes were adjusted by now to the dimly lit
studio, but I blinked several times to make sure I was seeingright.
He was about seventeen, with dark hair, blue eyes, and
the arms and chest of a weight lifter. In short, dreamboats
material. Even after I blinked several times, he was still
there and just as gorgeous.
"How old are you, Serena?" His tone was friendly, almost
intimate. It's not something I experienced every day with the
boys my age, and my stomach did a little flip. "Fifteen."
They usually pick juniors or seniors, I remembered too
late. Maybe I should have lied about my age. Oh, who cares?
I'm not going to be picked anyway!
"Um-hmmm," he said, making a notation. "Have you had anyperforming experience?"
"I played Ophelia once." Oh, boy, that's really pushingit!
"Impressive," he said, smiling at me. "You seem a little
nervous, Serena. This will be painless, I promise."
"Who, me? Nervous?" I squeaked, amazed that he'd bought
my story. A giggle slipped out accidentally. "I'm not nat allnervous."
Not nat all nervous? Come on! I could feel my cheeksturning red.
He laughed, but I thought how nice it sounded. He wasn't
putting me down; he was just trying to help me feel less
nervous. "Let me tell you a little about what's going onhere." "Okay," I said.
"My father is the executive producer of the Trent's
Department Store commercials. He asked me to choose the top
five applicants--a rough job." "Really?" I said.
He grinned. "Sure. Interviewing hundreds of beautiful
girls. It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it."
It was my turn to laugh now. "I see."
He got up from his chair and approached me. He smiled
and looked deep into my eyes and extended his hand. "I'mDarien Riley."
If this had been a Broadway musical, the studio set
would've faded away at that moment, swirls of fog would have
surrounded me, and I'd have started singing about love atfirst sight.
Darien Riley. Wow. "It's nice to meet you," I said, shaking his hand. "I'm
Serena--" I stopped. "Oh, right, you already know my name." I
felt like the color of my face turned from red to purple atthat point.
Darien placed a hand on my shoulder. "Hey, you'll befine. Are you ready?"
"Sure, of course. No problem." Darien gestured to a lighted window above us.
"Who's that?" I blurted out when I looked in thedirection he'd indicated.
"The engineer," he said. "He's waiting for us."
Darien pointed to the blue screen in the lighted area.
"Go stand over there. There's a mark on the floor in the front
of the screen. That's your spot."
"Okay." I walked over the masking-tape X on the floorand faced the camera.
"Did you get a chance to study the copy?" Darien asked.
"Yes," I said. "I did that while I was in the waiting
room." I mentally thanked the blond woman for letting me knowwhat "copy" was.
"Good. Look into the lense of the camera, and you'll see
the TelePrompTer," Darien said.
I looked into the camera. Just over the lense were the
first few lines of the commercial projected on a squarescreen.
"Can you see the copy?" Darien asked.
"Hey, yeah. That's really neat." Neat? You sure aren't
going to get this job if you sound like a little kid! I chidedmyself.
"Go ahead and read it through," Darien said. He slipped
on a headset and watched me through the camera.
"Okay." I said. I watched the camera lense and read thelines to myself again.
"Serena," Darien said after a moment. "Yes?" "Read it out loud."
"Oh. Right." He must think I'm a moron!
So I read it aloud, and as I got to the last words that
I could see on the TelePrompTer, the lines crawled slowly up
the screen, revealing more of the commercial copy. I continued
reading it to the last sentence.
"Okay, but you read it in a flat voice," Darien said
with a slow smile. "Now read it as if you're giving aperformance."
"At least I didn't get the hiccups," I mumbled. "What?"
"Nothing. I'll try again." "Whenever you're ready."
This time when I read, I remembered what I'd worked on
in the waiting room. I emphasized the important words and
tried to vary the pitch of my voice to make the reading more
interesting. It was funny, but when I concentrated on the
words, I felt less nervous. "Pretty good," Darien said, stroking his chin
thoughtfully as he studied my face. "You knew instinctively
what words to emphasize, and you kept your eyes still while
you read the TelePrompTer. A lot of people don't think about
that. Good job." He paused, then signaled the engineer in thelighted window.
"Let's do a take this time. I need much more enthusiasm.
Much more. Persuade me to come with you to the sale." Hesmiled. "Tempt me."
"Okay," I said. "you asked for it!"
I read it again, and this time I pretended that I was a
beautiful, sexy woman from a soap opera wearing a formal
evening gown. Okay, so it was a ridiculous idea, but it madethe reading fun.
I really got into it. In fact, I got into it so much
that I kind of got carried away and did something that I still
can't believe. When I read the last two lines---"But you'd
better hurry! Prices like these won't last long!"--I went
right ahead and added a line of my own, still in my soap opera
character: "I'll be there, and I can't wait to see you!"
I couldn't believe I'd actually done it. At least no one
could ever say that I don't have guts!
Darien came around in front of the camera with a grin onhis face.
"You persuaded me," he said, gazing at me in
astonishment. "I'd follow you anywhere, even though I've heard
those lines before!" Well, his lines took the breath right out of me, let me
tell you. No boy had ever talked to me that way before.
Darien squeezed my arm. "We're through. That was
terrific. My dad and Mr. Trent will be making the final
decision tomorrow and I'll call you either way."
"Thanks, Darien," I managed to say as I picked up my
coat and walked out through the double doors in a daze,
through the waiting room, and into the late afternoonsunshine.
I'd follow you anywhere. That one sentence and the memory of his intense blue
eyes overwhelmed me, blocking out everything else, as I mademy way home.
I walked the mile home in my heels. Actually, I limped
home in the thirty-five degree weather, but I didn't even
care. All I could think of was Darien Riley and how he wouldfollow me anywhere.
I staggered up the wooden porch steps, pushed open the
front door, and collapsed in a happy heap on the carpeted
stairs near the front closet.
Well, this is my first attempt at a fic, so any comment is
welcome. Oh yeah, Sammy will be Serena older brother in thisstory.
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