Flavor of the Week

Sifting through his papers, Lucas attempted to put the dozens of portfolios in an understandable order. He needed a better way to organize them, but it was hard when he had to group them by their acting capability and the role they’d fit best. All the names and faces were a blur, aside from the two he’d chosen to be “The Emotional Wreck” and “The Tom Boy”. The rest of the parts were still up in the air.

Once he’d gathered his papers into a small stack, he stepped out of his office and moved three doors down to the auditioning room.

It was dark, aside from the spotlight shining in the center of the room.

His papers were on top of his desk the moment he walked in, and he sat quickly behind it. After taking a second to scatter his papers out again, he looked up toward the center of the room.

A young girl stood in front of him, glasses hanging at the tip of her nose. Her feet were shuffling back and forth and the sweat collecting on her palms was made more evident by the overhead lights of the set. It was clear that she was nervous. This was not her game and she was not going to perform well, but Lucas knew that.

Luckily, he didn’t need her to perform. The moment he’d seen that awkward girl filing papers in the marketing department, he knew she’d be perfect to fill the role of “The Weird Girl”. She didn’t need to have an acting background like the others, because as long as she was herself, the weird would just roll off her. The audience would see it from a mile away. She didn’t need acting skills because she was the part.

“Alright, Claire,” Lucas said, slouching back in his chair. “Tell me a little bit about yourself.”

Claire’s head tilted, while her eyes began to squint from the intensity of the light. “Don’t you already know, Mr. Murphy?”

“Yes, I know, but the cameras need to know. And the audience needs to know.”

Biting her lip, Claire lifted her hand to her forehead, blocking one of the bright lights from bouncing off her glasses.

“Well, I work in your marketing department. It’s been about two months since I started. I mostly look through the talent and try to pick the best actresses to send to you.” Claire paused, bringing her hand down. “Is that enough?”

Lucas chuckled. It would look a lot different from all the other audition tapes, but he knew he wasn’t going to get much more out of the awkward intern. It didn’t really matter what she said, because she was going to be his weird girl.

Next to him, his assistant spoke, as she moved her eyes from one of the cameras to him.

“We can’t get a good test shot,” the woman whispered. “Her glasses are causing a glare.”

Lucas took a quick glance at the camera, noting that his assistant was right, before moving his attention back to Claire.

“Claire,” he said, leaning forward in his seat. “Can you take off your glasses for a moment?”

The small girl moved her hands to her face and slowly moved the lenses from the tip of her nose. Her movements were gentle, as she made sure not to damage them in any way.

The moment the glasses dropped from her face, Lucas couldn’t pull his eyes away. He’d never seen it before, because he was too distracted by the ponytail and thick rims, but Claire had a natural beauty. After seeing her that way, Lucas knew that any boy who saw her like that would be powerless to stop themselves from falling for her.

It was then that Lucas knew he’d have to find a different weird girl, because Claire was going to fill a new role. He would have little time to train her – the show started in less than a month – but he would get help from the other actresses, because he needed her to fill one of the most important roles of all. He needed her to make the boys fall in love.

He needed her to be the dream girl.