Half-Draft of Something I Thought I Knew What I Wanted it to be Until I Started Writing It

As Beverly's daughter, apparently dissatisfied with the pace her mother was walking, a speed that, to Beverly, was perfectly fine thank you, drug her closer to the building, which seemed to be only a few months old (the only thing making it remotely aged-looking was the bird's nest in the middle of the “O” of “FACTORY” in the sign above the double doors), Beverly knew immediately that this place was not where she wanted her little Jessica to be, and her discomfort grew when the tiny, gentle hand of her daughter violently, but not forcibly, left her own, and opened one of the doors to the smell of seven thirteen year old girls’ perfume so strong that Beverly instinctively held her breath. Inside was a waiting room designed, not for conversation or comfort, but for constant observation: Pink and purple televisions were in every corner of the room looping the same four music videos (produced by this company, she assumed), each with their own teen pop singer, whose likeness were used in multiple life-size cutouts which were scattered like a mine-field and some of the girls, with their hair made-up, their faces made-up, and, she couldn’t help but notice, their skirts hemmed-up, were getting their pictures taken with them by their smiling parents, there were banners hanging from the ceiling congratulating someone named Harmony Graham, the chairs were set up in a circle so that everyone could see everybody else, brightly colored pamphlets were thrown on a round table in the center of the chairs…

            “Excuse me, Mrs…” said a young, handsome boy behind a counter who kept swishing his head to the side and back. Beverly was used to seeing young boys with longer hair do this to keep it out of their eyes, but this young man’s hair was short and cleanly cut and didn’t move.

            “Oh, right,” said Beverly, “my daughter, Jessica, has an audition…”

            The boy looked at a purple sheet of paper and swished his head to the left. “Jessica…Jessica… twelve, right?”

            “That’s it.”

            The boy gave another swish and said, “Please sit down. Someone will come get her shortly for her appointment.”

            Jessica was in a chair already, looking at the other girls when Beverly sat down and leaned toward her.

            “You okay?”

            “What?”

            “Are you nervous or anything?”

            “You shouldn’t ask stuff like that before stuff like this, Mom.”

            “Sorry.”

            Beverly picked up a pamphlet, filled with sharp images of cameras flashing, teenagers leaving limos onto red carpets, screaming crowds, sound studios, small text bites such as “120,000,000 views!!!” and “Become a Pop Legend!!!”, and it took five minutes before she found an article of any kind that might have told her more about the place she was in that wasn’t from Jessica’s own mouth, and found bits like “…have chosen Harmony Graham, an extremely beautiful, multi-talented 14 year old from Long Beach, California to be America's next Pop Star phenomenon!!” and “Harmony is chosen to participate in a challenge that will try and make her into the next Big Thing in only one short week,” and “…songs made specifically for her.”