2 Chapter One

I tapped quietly on my coffee cup while scrolling through Mstagram. As I scrolled through people's fake lives and the piles of artwork, I criticized my own life piece by piece. 7:30. I stretched my hands up in the air and laid back in my seat. Behind the counter, Brazil was working tirelessly serving the customers and cleaning the espresso machine. She went over to the barista with neon blue hair and gestured to me. The barista responded by walking over to me, a soft pink notepad in hand.

"What do you want, America?"

"I thought that baristas don't wait on tables," I remarked in a slurred dramatized voice while taking her coffee stained notepad and writing down my order.

"Well your sister,'" Her voice rang for a moment and she glanced back at Brazil before she continued, "forced me, she didn't want you to get up from your 'homework'." she said gesturing to my laptop, which was currently open to the homepage of Castles and Cannons. "If you could call it that."

"Yea... She thinks I am studying for my big pre-cal test."

"You mean the one that you took today?"

"Oh Cassandra, you always get me"

Cassie scoffed, "What was your score?"

"A 92.3, barely an A."

She rolled her eyes, retreating back to the counter to make my order. Before she started, she hooked her arm around Brazil and whispered something to her. Apparently, it as something funny because as soon as she finished, Brazil burst out laughing. Taking a quick sarcastic glance straight at me.

10 minutes later the bell at the door rang and Mark, Emma, and James came through. I lifted my hand as if to wave them over to their drinks sitting ever so perfectly right next to me. The first one who got the table was Mark, who was fiddling with a pile of papers. His bright goofy grin and the stubble dotted around it seemingly lit up the whole coffee shop.

"Hey, America! Guess what I got?" He sang as he waved around a stack of papers. "National Theatre Performances of America audition sign up sheets! Hot off the press!.. wow that's a mouthful." Emma swooped in behind him and snatched the papers from his hands.

"Yeah well you STOLE those from ME!" She yelled as she placed them on the table next to her caramel chocolate latte.

"Careful Emma" Mark scooted the coffee away from the papers. "Coffee supplies you with energy, but make one wrong move, and it can ruin everything."

"Preach!" I said... a little too loud. James was the last one to make it to the table. He perched himself in the chair next to his large cup of Chai Tea.

"You, America, are the loudest person I know." He said as he pulled over the papers to him.

We all sat there sipping on our drinks and chatting about our days and the huge Pre Cal test that we had to suffer through. When we had finished talking about our days, someone just had to bring it up.

"So, are we going to talk about the papers?" James said, subtly pushing the paper towards the middle of the table. We all just stared down at the clean-cut, freshly printed papers sat in the middle of the table.

"I am definitely not doing this, you guys deserve this," I said pushing the papers to the other side of the table

Mark took a long look at me and pushed away from the papers as well. "If she's not doing it, I'm not either."

After a moment of pause, I spoke up, "Mark, you deserve this more than anyone at the table. I mean, I don't deserve this, my acting sucks pine sap. if I was half the actor that you we-"

"Shut-up." He hit the table. The loud boom rang throughout the whole room. For one whole second, everyone just stared at our table. Mark lowered his voice"You are not putting yourself down like this. You hear me?" I opened my mouth to say something but nothing came out.

"He's right America, you are a wonderful actress, but your self-confidence needs a LOT of work" Emma took my hand. "All those in favor of America being one of the people we send to audition," all three of them raised their hands. I was outnumbered.

"If I am going to do this, you're doing this with me," I said, pointing a pen at Mark. James scoffed.

Mark threw his hands up in the air as a sign of defeat, "Fine, I'll go with you miss priss."

"You say that like I annoy you, but you know that I'm your favorite" Everyone at the table laughs.

I remember this.

+ + + +

At around 11:45, Brazil's shift was over.

As we got into her cream convertible BMW I asked her, "Did Dad say I could stay at your apartment tonight?"

"I texted him an hour ago, he said you could stay for the week as long as I get you to school on time." She took a long sigh before continuing, "As if he cares."

I leaned back in the seat and stared up at the stars. Silhouettes of skyscrapers seemed to walk across the Seattle sky. I started to laugh as I thought about what she told me. "Well even if he did, It's not like that's gonna happen,"

I felt a sharp pain in my left arm, "Ow!" I whined, "Why'd you hit me?"

"I am not that irresponsible Ames, you need to believe in me if you're spending the night in my guest bedroom." She spoke without looking off the road. I looked over my shoulder into the backseat, My suitcase and backpack were sitting snugly behind my seat. "So NTPA huh?"

I continue stargazing as I answer, "Yep, Mr. VanTroken is holding an audition, we were just choosing who will be apart of the production and who will be acting."

"Is my little over-achieving sister aiming for the main role?"

"First of all, I'm not your 'little overachieving sister', I am a high school junior who is doing AP- everything. Still, since Olympia is the capital, the two actors from Olympia will have a better chance of getting the main roles. But there could still be a chance for getting the main role."

I picked up the pile of papers and started filling it out, "Hey, so it wants me to list my guardian and their phone number, should I just put you down for it?"

"Uh.. Yea just put me down for it."

"Ok. But yea I don't really have a chance for main role."

"Do you know what that means for me?" She asked, "It means to me that you are going to try your absolute hardest to be the leading role. I don't care if it is a male role."

"You can be pretty annoying sometimes, you know?"

"Be quiet Ame's, we're here."

We entered the parking building and as soon as we found the parking space reserved for apartment 10C, we headed up on the elevator that smelled like a mixture of hand sanitizer and coffee.

"you really need to bring some febreeze into this elevator."

"That would be vandalism according to my leasing agreement."

"So the 300 pound germaphobic coffee addict likes his elevator smelling like this so much that he included it in the leasing agreement?"

I got a little laugh out of her.

"No, The 300 pound germaphobic coffee addict is allergic to anything odor repelling." She's exhausted, I looked back at my watch. 12:45. God, it's tomorrow. When we finally got back to her apartment, her golden retriever, Inepta, ran to us. Inepta likes to run like those slow motion dogs in the movies. She would wag her tail, bob her head and shake at the same time.

Brazil's other dog, Puella, watched from the back of the couch. Her eyes hopeful as she stared at me. I walked over and rested my hand on the sides of her brown and white speckled face.

Her amber eyes looked straight into mine. She lunged forward and licked my face.

"Puella!" Brazil called, Puella immediately jumped off the back of the couch and ran to the bowls of food Brazil just handed out.

"Why did you give them such weird names?" I asked her.

"I guess I never told you did I?" She paused to pet her new dogs. Inepta licked her face and Puella curled up next to her on the floor. "'Puella' is Latin for 'sweetheart' and 'Inepta' is Latin for 'silly dog'"

"She is silly isn't she?" I walked over to a closet and pulled out a light gray comforter and a teal blue pillow. I spread the comforter across the guest bed and tucked it into the creases. After I was done, Inepta jumped up on the bed and curled up on top of the teal pillow.

"Um, Inepta. How many pillows are you going to sit on?" I exclaimed as I walked over to the closet to get another one. I curled up onto the bed next to Inepta and fell asleep.

+ + + +

I woke up to the horrible clunking sound of pots and pans. It's the perfect way to wake up if your ok with having the world's worst headache.

"Wake up sleepyhead! You slept in by TWO HOURS!" Emma Yelled while still slamming the pots together, wincing at every time they made contact. "Mark and James are waiting in the car and you still have bed head!"

"I'm awake." I spoke in a harsh whisper, "Just give me another 5 minutes."

"Nope!" She said as she dragged me from my bed and shoved me into the bathroom. "Take a shower, brush your teeth and your hair, let me do the rest."

Once I was done showering, dried and straightened my hair, I headed out into the guest room where three sets of clothes were lying ever so perfectly on the bed.

"Pick out your clothes for today, I have a matching pair of heels for each outfit." Ugh I hate heels. I scanned the outfits and chose the one that I know that the matching heels would be small and less noticeable.

"I want that one," I said as I pointed at the white crop top with a beanie and black ripped jeans.

"I was hoping you would pick that one!" My heart dropped as she pulled out thigh-high, 6-inch, lace-up boots with open toe.

"What. The. Hell."

"You have to wear them, no take-backs." Once I regrettably put on the outfit and headed to the kitchen, just to be intercepted by Emma. I can't deal with this, "And for being a good girl, you have food in the car."