Wednesday, after school, I went to the kiddie store audition. I wore a yellow long-sleeved t-shirt dress my Grandma Dombrowski gave me the year before and hardly any makeup. We walked in, and there were a few other girls my age there.
"Please take your number and line up," one of the women said. Mom stood in the back. I waited my turn and then walked back and forth in front of the judges.
"Fine, we'll let you know. Next!"
Weird, I hadn't even been asked anything. I felt kind of strange as I left.
My agent called my mom later that night and said I didn't get the fashion show, but she wanted to talk to us about the American Ingénue competition. Mom called me over to tell me the news.
"Wait, I didn't get the kiddie show? How depressing," I said, sinking down on the couch.
"Rejection is just a part of all of this," Mom said. "But Mrs. Myeski wants to talk to you, so I'm putting her on speaker."
Mrs. Myeski said that when I signed up for the Ingénue competition, the paperwork said that if I made it to the third round — which I did — that I was basically property of the American Ingénue company. They had decided to do a "wild card" show with some of the girls who hadn't been chosen to go on to the regional division to give them one more shot at making it to the big statewide competition. The "hair makeover video" in Grand Rapids had been a test audition to see how I'd act on camera and, I didn't know how, but after seeing my video, I was picked to join the wild card show.
"This is going to be a state-run show run on the BVW network in Detroit, so it will be shown in Michigan," she said. "What they're going to do is have a group of girls stay in a hotel for a weekend and give them makeovers. Then they'll have a fashion show where the judges will pick the top five girls. Only one girl advances and gets to go on to be on the show. The other four win prizes, though."
Fabulous. A weekend having nervous diarrhea, backstabbing girls, and getting told I needed another makeover on television. Fun.
My mom hit mute on her phone. "Do you even want to do it?" she asked.
I think she could tell I was getting nervous already. But if I wanted to prove to her I was ready to be a model, and if I ever wanted to be discovered, then I had no choice. It wasn't every day I got offered chances to model on TV, so I had to say I'd do it.
"Sounds like fun."
Mom took Mrs. Myeski off mute and told her I would participate.
"Good, now you will have to consent to doing anything the hairstylists and makeup artists want to do, and that includes eyebrow tweezing, hair dying, and cutting."
"They won't dye her lashes or anything, will they?" asked my mom. "I've heard they can even perm them, and I don't want my daughter going blind."
She assured my mother they weren't allowed to do anything that wasn't regulated, and lash-dyeing was out. She said that, because I was under eighteen, I could challenge anything drastic under the "youth clause" in the contract. As if I'd have the nerve to talk back to a producer or makeup artist. I couldn't even go up and ask for credit when a teacher marked an answer wrong that I had actually gotten right.
I stared at my image in the reflection of the TV. My eyebrows weren't great, but the thought of having somebody try to pluck them sounded awful. I had attempted it once, and it hurt.
"I doubt they'll color your hair," Mrs. Myeski said. "It's such an unusual color that I'm sure that's why the judges noticed you."
She told my mom she'd e-mail her the forms and info and set everything up for me to go.
"Good luck, Landry. This is an amazing opportunity for you."
My head knew it, but my stomach was saying something else.