Counting the Stars

“Callista, you are the most insane person I have ever met in my 18 years of living! This is never going to work!” Caroline exclaimed as she paced back and forth in my small bed room, “Your hat will fall off and reveal your hair, or you will forget to lower your voice when you speak.”

I rolled my eyes, “Take a chill pill, Care Bear. I know what I’m doing! I didn’t take three whole acting classes for nothing.”

“I can’t believe I’m actually letting you follow through with this,” Caroline muttered under her breath as she finished pinning the final piece of hair up, “Slap your hat on and you’re officially a boy.”

I pulled the snap back over my head confidently, turning to smile at myself in the mirror. Right away I noticed a few feminine features I’d need to hide. My smile was the first thing; it was too wide and held an eerie resemblance to the Cheshire cat’s. Most guys I know didn’t smile like a Disney feline, so a smirk would be a safer route to go. My stance was too girly for my liking, heels touching and feet pointing out like a pigeon ready to plié for her bird dance instructor at any moment. I squared my feet out and hunched over slightly, mimicking the way I had seen some guys stand. Everything else could wait to be “manned up” until I actually got the job, which is if I did.

“How do I look?” I turned around to show Caroline, making sure to use my incredibly manly voice, smirk, and stance.

“If you were an actual guy, I’d strip your clothes off and bang you on your Star Wars bedspread,” She giggled, causing me to laugh.

“Well I’m off to bang some things other than people and show men who their daddy actually is,” I responded, waving to her quickly as I walked out of my room and to my car.

The hotel where the auditions were was only about fifteen miles from my house, so the drive was relatively short. I barely missed the early morning rush hour traffic, which saved me a whole lot of breath not having to shout the slur of profanities that would have followed. The typical terrible California drivers were out and about, which caused me to flip a few people off in frustration. Nothing harmful, but lasting enough to let them know their driving sucked.

Right away I knew I was at the hotel when I saw the line of guys outside, and the groups of girls huddled behind a barrier. This caused me to laugh out loud, partially because I could finally see the power five foreign teens had over girls and because it slowly put into realization how impossible this entire plan could end up being. I parked my car a block away, since it was the only parking lot with a few empty spaces. As I walked past the group of girls, one called me hot and it took every ounce of self-control to not puke and or laugh. I muttered a quick thanks and made my way to the hotel lobby.

There was a fold out table set up in the middle of the lobby with two older, official looking ladies sitting behind it on fold out chairs. One typed away on her computer with the speed of an old fashion stenographer while the other scribbled on one paper, then onto to the next. They seemed to have a system going and I didn’t want to interrupt their work. But, there was a sign taped to the table that read, ‘Sign up for auditions here”

So I walked up and made my presence known, “Excuse me, but I’m here for the drummer auditions.”

The 1920s stenographer lady looked up at me, eyeing me up and down, “Fill this out and bring it back to the table and we’ll give you a number.”

I took the packet from her hands and thanked her quickly. There was an empty spot up against the wall to sit or stand, but other than that the meeting hall was packed with guys from every stereotype in the world. Had this been a concert, none of them would have been caught dead here, but this was a whole different matter. I looked down at the packet and the first line caught my eye, “First Name and Last Name” In the midst of all of my elaborate planning, I hadn’t even thought of a name for my second personality. I didn’t know anyone else named Callista, and I was sure if there was anyone else with my name, it would definitely not be a guy.

I wrote the first name that came to mind, and scribbled down “Kyle Blake” in the messiest penmen ship I could produce, which wasn’t too hard since my natural writing was like an eight year olds. I filled out everything else like I was still Callista Blake, and not Kyle Blake. I walked back over to the table and handed the stenographer lady my completed packet and waited for my number.

“You’ll be number 357. And before you ask, they’re on number 4.” She smiled a sickeningly fake smile at me and returned to whatever she was doing on her laptop.

I returned to my spot on the wall and sat down, pulling out my phone. It was 8:15 in the morning, so I had quite some time to entertain myself. I went through and played a few games of Temple Run, then Doodle Jump, and Words with Friends. I scrolled through Facebook and Twitter, reblogged a bunch on tumblr and entertained myself with just about every other app on my phone. Within two hours I had completely drained my battery, and they were just reaching the 100th person to go in.

After a few crashes and bangs, security walked out holding a boy who couldn’t be more than 10 years old up in the air as he kicked his feet around.

“Put me down! All I wanted was to get a piece of Harry’s hair so my sister would give me 20 bucks! I didn’t try to kill the kid!” He shouted as the security carried him out of the room. I couldn’t help but laugh at the thought of some girl promising her younger brother $20 for a piece of hair.

The clock on the wall read 3:43pm when they finally called my number. It was about damn time… The bobby pins holding up my hair were piercing through my skull and if I had to wait any longer, they’d drill a hole through me head to take refuge on top of my brain. I followed another official looking man, who later introduced himself as Paul, back to a small room. Upon entering the room, I immediately recognized the five faces of the One Direction guys. How could I not? They constantly appeared on my dash board and were on every newsstand across America. Their fame was sweeping everywhere like the Black Plague.

“Hello, what’s your name?” The one with curly hair asked, looking up at me.

“Kyle, Kyle Blake,” I responded, taking an extra moment to make sure my voice was deep.

“Well Kyle, show us what you’ve got,” Curly nodded, gesturing towards the drum set.

I pulled out my own pair of drum sticks that I had brought with. They were my lucky sticks, and I would play with them until one of them broke. Once I sat down, I tapped the drum pedal three times and started the song I had prepared last night. I had quickly learned three of their songs by ear last night and stayed up until 2 in the morning to put together a medley of their hits. I played the song to my fullest extent, making sure not to throw my head around too much to keep my hat on. My arms flew around my body at a rapid speed and before I knew it, I was banging the cymbals loudly to end the song. I stood up and tucked my drum sticks into my back pockets.

The five guys clapped loudly and let out a few whoops.

“That was bloody brilliant! Did you find that off of the internet?” One wearing stripes asked, still clapping even though no one else was.

“No, I put it together last night really quickly. Figured you’d want to get a feel of me playing your stuff opposed to something else,” I shrugged, trying to make it seem like I wasn’t a show off. To be quite honest, I knew I was good and I liked to flaunt it. Being cocky right now wouldn’t get me anywhere, though.

“That’s amazing! Well, Kyle, we definitely like you. We’ll call you tonight if we need you for the job,” Curly responded, beating Stripes to it before he could reply.

“Thanks,” I nodded, and walked out of the door.

Official looking Paul walked up to me and patted me on the back, “That was impressive, kid. You have got a lot of potential.”

I smiled and thanked him quickly before walking out to the large room. In the five minutes I had been back auditioning, it seemed that the place was filled with even more men itching for a chance at super stardom.