From Tina:
ILUVROMANCE: That was fun today! I really hope I get the part of Rosagunde. I know I won’t, because Lilly was so good at the audition, the part will totally go to her. But it would be sooo cool to play a princess. I mean, not for you, since you play a princess in real life and everything. But for someone like me, I mean. I know Lilly will get it. Still, I hope I don’t get the part of Alboin’s mistress. I wouldn’t want to play a mistress. Also, I don’t think my dad would let me.
From Ling Su:
PAINTURGURL: Okay, clearly Lilly is going to get the part of Rosagunde, but if I get stuck with the part of the mistress, I am going to scream! Asian actresses are always being relegated to roles where they are forced to play sexual subservients. Or, worse, just plain subservients… like Rosagunde’s maid. I refuse to be typecast! I hope she didn’t think my performance of Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” was too strident. Also, is your grandma going to need help with the sets? Because I paint totally good castles and stuff.
From Perin:
INDIGOGRLFAN: Wasn’t that fun today? I know I wasn’t very good. I was just so surprised, you know? I mean, that your grandmother had me read for the part of Gustav instead of Rosagunde. Especially after I sang T.A.T.U.’s “They’re Not Gonna Get Us.” But it must have been because there were so many more girls than boys auditioning. You don’t think she thinks I’m a boy, do you???
From Boris:
JOSHBELL2: Mia, do you think your grandmother would be willing to add a scene to her play where Gustav takes out a violin and serenades Rosagunde? Because I really think that would add some emotional depth to the production, should I be the person cast to play Gustav. Plus, it would add historical accuracy, since the rebec, the violin’s predecessor, dates from 5000 BC. I know Maroon 5’s “She Will Be Loved” wasn’t the most inspired choice for my audition song, but Tina said she didn’t think your grandmother would like the only other song I’d prepared, Eminem’s “Cleaning Out My Closet.”
From Kenny:
E=MC2: Mia, I’m troubled by the suggestion your grandmother made as I was sitting back down after my audition piece that whoever plays the part of Gustav the smith ought at least to be capable of growing facial hair. It almost sounded as if she were inferring that I myself am not capable of this, when the truth is that I DO have facial hair, it is just very fair. I hope your grandmother is not going to be prejudiced against blonds in her casting of the male roles.
From Shameeka:
BEYONCE_IS_ME: All anybody can talk about are those auditions today! Sounds like Lilly is going to get the lead (what else is new?). Wish I could have been there. Is it true the Guy Who Hates It When They Put Corn in the Chili was there????
Seriously. It’s like they’ve forgotten we have other things to worry about besides who is going to be cast as Gustav and Rosagunde.
Like, for instance, the fact that we are still broke.
I guess it doesn’t really matter so much to them, since they are not the ones in charge.
One thing I will say for Grandmère’s choice of plays: She could not have chosen a piece that more fully illustrates the problems of the royal, in that, ultimately, you are all alone when it comes to making decisions of state. As it did for Rosagunde in that bedroom fifteen hundred years ago, the buck, for me, stops here.
This is all too much for one lone teen to bear. I need someone to help me, someone to tell me what the right thing is to do. Should I just come clean with Amber, confess my sin, and get my whupping over with?
Or is there still a chance I can get the money before she finds out?
It’s times like these when I realize how woefully inadequate my familial support network really is. I mean, I can’t turn to my mother for advice in this matter. She is the person who was responsible for our cable going out once a month because she forgot to pay the bill—at least before Mr. G moved in.
And I can’t turn to my dad. If he finds out how badly I’ve screwed up my STUDENT government budget, he’s not going to be exactly jazzed about turning me loose on our COUNTRY’s budget. The last thing I need right now is a series of lectures from Dad on cost-effective municipal planning.
I already told Grandmère, and you can see the good THAT did. Who else is there for me to turn to, except Michael, of course?
And we all know how helpful HE was in the matter.
Speaking of Michael, the only e-mail I got that was unrelated to today’s Braid! audition was the one I got from him. And that’s just because he doesn’t even go to AEHS anymore, and didn’t know anything about what was going on:
SKINNERBX: Hey, Thermopolis! How’s it going? I was wondering if you wanted to come over tomorrow night for a sci-fi film fest. I have to screen a bunch of them for my History of Dystopic Science Fiction in Film elective, and since I’m having the party Saturday night, I figured I should watch them while I had the chance. Want to join me?
It would have been inappropriate, of course, for me to say what I WANTED to say, which was: Michael, you are my lifeblood, my reason for living, the only thing that keeps me sane in the tempest-tossed sea of life, and I would like nothing better than to screen a bunch of dystopic sci-fi flicks with you tomorrow night.
Because it’s lame to say that kind of stuff in an e-mail.
But I still thought it, in my head.
FTLOUIE: I’d love to.
SKINNERBX: Excellent. We can order in from Number One Noodle Son.
FTLOUIE: And I can make some dip.
SKINNERBX: Dip? What for?
FTLOUIE: For the party! Don’t people serve dip at parties?
SKINNERBX: Oh. Yeah. But I just figured I’d buy some Saturday afternoon, or whatever.
I could see that my effort to appear enthusiastic about Michael’s party had fallen completely flat. But I persevered nonetheless, because I couldn’t let him know, you know, how NOT excited I was about it.
FTLOUIE: Homemade dip is always better. I can make it and leave it overnight in the refrigerator, and that way it will be all gelled and everything for the party. Which I’m so excited about coming to.
SKINNERBX: Um. Okay. Whatever you want. See you tomorrow then.
FTLOUIE: Can’t wait!
Actually, though, I CAN wait… both for the party AND the dystopic sci-fi film festival. Because those movies Michael has to watch for that class of his are MAJOR bummers. I mean, Soylent Green? Excuse me, but gross.
Plus a lot of them have very scary parts, and scary movies have completely screwed with my psyche. Seriously. I think scary movies are responsible for half, if not more, of my neuroses.
TOP 20 WAYS SCARY MOVIES
HAVE MESSED ME UP:
1) I can’t see chairs pulled away from the table without thinking of Poltergeist and having to push them back in. Ditto drawers that have been pulled out.
2) I can’t pass those red-and-white smokestacks across from the FDR without thinking about poor Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory.
3) I can’t go over a bridge without thinking of the Mothman Prophecies. Ditto see a chemical plant.
4) After seeing Blair Witch, I can no longer go
a) into wooded areas
b) camping
c) into any dark basements.
Not that I would have done any of those things anyway. But now I REALLY won’t.
5) For a long time I couldn’t look at the TV without thinking that a girl might crawl out of it and kill me like in The Ring and The Ring 2.
6) Every time I see an alley, I expect there to be a dead body in it. But that’s probably from too many episodes of Law and Order, not the movies.
7) Don’t even talk to me about boiling pots of water on the stove (Whitey the rabbit from Fatal Attraction).