Hello Beautiful

“KENDALL, CECE, EVY, CASEY, LINDSAY! HURRY UP!” I looked behind me and saw a gaggle of girls struggling to keep up with my hurried pace. They were not succeeding since they hadn’t listened to me and had packed three bags each instead of one. Gawd, they were such losers. Whatever. I may have packed lightly, but that did not mean that I wasn’t the queen of being fabulous. After eight hours on the ASPA bus, stuck between Alex MacClellan and Austin Holland (we had been forced too sit boy-girl-boy-girl), I seriously needed a shower. Big time. I walked over to the Front Desk and checked Kendall, Casey, Cece, Lindsay, Evy, and me into the largest hotel suite that was available. Thank goodness Daddy let me bring his credit card. If I couldn’t spend the night with my friends, I wouldn’t be able to perform.

“What did we miss?”

“We’re here!”

“Oh my gosh, sorry!”

“That took forever!”

“Aren’t you glad to be off that horrid bus?”

“Guys. Guys! GUYS!!! SHUT UP!!!!! I’m trying to check in!”

“Sorry,” said Lindsay. The others nodded their heads.

“It’s ok, just hush for a sec while I find out where our room is.”

“The fourth floor, second to last room at the end of the East Wing,” said the receptionist.

There was a chorus of “Thanks” and Thank You’s” as we made our way to the elevator and down the hall. Our room was divided into five bedrooms and a sitting room, along with a fully stocked kitchen and three full baths with two sinks each and two half baths with one sink each. I didn’t know how much this was costing my daddy, but it was definitely worth it. I got the last bedroom on the left, closest to whoever was next door to us. I really hoped that they wouldn’t keep me up all night. I’m a light sleeper.

I took a shower and changed into my tap shoes and my show outfit, a baby blue, glittery gown that is tight on top and floats away at my knees. I love it. I’m totally using it for Halloween this year. My ASPA group is doing a Disney concert every night for a week in front of Cinderella’s Castle in the Magic Kingdom. I play Cinderella, Ariel, and Belle. My Ariel dress is actually a green skirt that looks really tight, but it actually isn’t, and for my top I have purple strapless bra that is made to look like seashells and whenever I even think about it, it cuts off my circulation. When I go from fins to feet I have this white ball gown that looks like a wedding dress. My Belle dress is the same as my Cinderella one (the blue one) but it’s gold and is a little bit longer and has more layers.

I walked out onto my own porch separated by a wall from Kendall’s (she’s in the room to my left) but there’s no wall between me and whoever is in the room to my right. No privacy, but whatever. It wasn’t like I was planning on walking out here naked anyway. I had a great view. My porch overlooked the lagoon and I could see the top of Cinderella’s Castle and even Space Mountain from where I was standing. It was actually kind of romantic.

I heard voices and spun around quickly. There were a few boys on the balcony next to me arguing about something. I think they were bored and couldn’t decide on what to do. I looked a little harder. Then I did a double take. It was Nick, Kevin, and Joe Jonas, from the band the Jonas Brothers! Oh My Frickin’ Gawd!

Ok, just act natural I thought to myself. I was about to go down to rehearsal in the ballroom, so I needed to stretch. I always stretch outside. Oh well, this was the closest I was going to get to “outside” at the moment. I reached down and grabbed the left heel of my shoe to stretch my leg.

They suddenly turned towards me.

"Excuse me, is there anything fun to do around here?” Kevin asked me.

I thought fast.

"Let’s see here, you’re in the Grand Floridian Hotel, a five star resort in Disney World, and you can’t find anything fun to do. Well, geez, I don’t know what in the world you could do about that!" I said flipping my hair to move it from my face and grabbing the right heel of my shoe to stretch my other leg. Nick was looking at me funny.

"Haha, very funny," Joe said, "Why are you dressed up like that?”

“I’m with ASPA, Atlanta School For The Performing Arts,” I answered, smiling. Nick blushed for some unknown reason.

"I'm Kevin, and this Joe and Nick," Kevin said, sticking his hand out for me to shake, and Joe and Nick joined in.

“I’m Laura.”

"So, you sing and dance?" Nick asked.

"Yep, and I also play acoustic, electric, and bass guitar, drums, keyboard and piano, the violin, and the cello," I said, pulling my foot up to my butt to stretch my calf muscle.

"Whoa," Nick said.

"Do you guys wanna come see the show tonight? It’s gonna be in the park and it’ll be lots of fun!” I asked them. Why the heck did I say that? Of course they don’t want to come. They’ll probably be too busy anyway.

“Yea, sure, that would be great,” Joe said.