Confessions of a Backup Dancer (5 page)

I hopped onto the internet to counter the full-on nervousness I'm feeling about tomorrow. tito called me Nervous Nelly earlier.

so it's going to be a family affair tomorrow … me, mom, AND evan.

SlipKnotRules933111:
Dude what time do we leave tomorrow

KellyKelSoCal321:
9:30. Do Not, repeat, Do Not make us late.

SlipKnotRules933111:
shut up it's not like I want to be late either.

KellyKelSoCal321:
sorry dude no need for bold just harshin on you

SlipKnotRules933111:
what are you going up there for anyway

KellyKelSoCal321:
I already told you I'm auditioning for Darcy Barnes!

SlipKnotRules933111:
who?

KellyKelSoCal321:
Darcy BARNES! she's like a huge star.

SlipKnotRules933111:
You mean like Britney Spears?

KellyKelSoCal321:
Uh, no. oh forget it. you are so clueless.

SlipKnotRules933111:
did you see Americas most wanted

KellyKelSoCal321:
no

SlipKnotRules933111:
it was good it was this guy who dissolved these kids in acid. by the way have you noticed mom and carl

KellyKelSoCal321:
a little. why?

SlipKnotRules933111:
well get this mom told me that after we meet with that lawyer dude for my thing that she has to talk to him alone about something else too. but she won't tell me what for.

KellyKelSoCal321:
dude that could be nothing. She's probably doing something for carl

SlipKnotRules933111:
I think not. I heard mom screaming at him about someone at work he's supposedly doing.

KellyKelSoCal321:
WHAT

SlipKnotRules933111:
yeah I don't know what's up but they haven't been speaking for like two days and he's going away with the twins for the weekend.

KellyKelSoCal321:
well that's good at least. silence for once.

SlipKnotRules933111:
I guess. see you in the morning. ok bye. ps if you want me to be on time you better come wake me up
he signed off before I could bust on him for that.

ok, now any prayer I had for falling asleep was ruined. now I have to worry about the audition. And about mom getting all divorced again. I hate it when she's single … we're always so poor when she's single. I mean the last thing I want is to go back to sharing a room with Evan in a stupid little apartment somewhere, like when we lived above that house after dad died.

Uggh! I need to NOT worry about this right now. evan probably got it wrong. I need to relax. I need to sleep.

have I mentioned that I'm going to meet DARCY BARNES tomorrow? if i get this spot, I'm so out of here. see ya later San Diego. so long, double jonbenets and your farty father.

God I'm nervous.

SATURDAY JUNE 1 (I think. It could be Sunday morning, June 2. It's LATE.)

BACK HOME

Outfit:
boys' briefs and a cami (just about to crash)

Fortune:
I totally forgot to check today!!

I DID IT!!!!!!!! I FUCKING DID IT!!!!!! I'm a backup dancer on the IT'S DARCY!! tour!!!!!! I TOTALLY RULE!!!!

ok, I am way too tired to go into all the details. all I can say is I can't wait to tell tito how I saw darcy barnes applying little round band-aids to her nipples so they wouldn't show through her unitard. i guess it works but it's gotta suck when you rip 'em off. i bet it's gotta suck even harder when you have pierced nipples. I'm not saying that Darcy does. OK, yes I am.

as soon as I got back home and into my bedroom, I called tito on his cell phone, which he sleeps with on “vibrate.”

He told me I was amazing and that I'd have to come over tomorrow and tell him all about it. I could tell he was really tired, but not too tired to ask if I met darla?

Darla. Ha. tito's obsessed with her. he's always obsessed with the weirdest people. like instead of being a celine dion fan he's totally focused on Rene, her husband. he was the first person I knew who had ever heard of willa ford.

anyway, darla is darcy's mother. And she's well known
because darcy barely makes a move without darla moving right alongside her. like it tones down her hoochiness or something. like if her own mother doesn't have a problem with darcy practically stripping onstage, then the rest of the world will be cool with it, too. I mean, people think Pashmina is way sluttier … I wonder if it's because her mother is never around. I mean, they both do the thong-with-chaps look, only for some reason it just looks nastier on Pashmina. I don't get it.

anyway I wouldn't know what darla's really like because I didn't meet darla. so I said, “I didn't meet darla.”

so then Tito goes, “Are they real?” and I knew he was talking about her boobs. I go, “I don't know but all I'm saying is they don't really move. I mean, they move, but they don't move, that makes sense, right? anyway darcy borrowed my belly button ring.”

ew, I hope you purelled, said tito.

call me when you wake up, I go. or I'll call you. that's all for now. i'll fill you in on all the fabulosity tomorrow.

SUNDAY JUNE 2

MY ROOM, 3
PM

Outfit:
I'm trying to pack so I've been doing costume changes for the last hour. I wonder how many shoes I'll need. good thing I'll be making plenty of cash. I can buy new shoes in every city!

Hair:
ponytail, high and sloppy

Mood:
so, so psyched.

Fortune:
Begin at the beginning.

tito and I spent the morning out back in his yard putting tea in our hair. it's supposed to make it shiny or something. we didn't know what kind of tea to use so we just made nestea iced tea and poured it on our heads. no lemon tho. we learned the Sun-In lesson YEARS ago.

the first thing he said was, How much are you going to make?

and I said, way more than enough. trust me.

tito wiped a fake tear from his cheek. he goes, My baby's going to be rich. come here, come give me a hug.

I did.

then I filled him in on all of yesterday's details. and as dad would have said, “it went a little something like THIS:”

the whole time we drove up to LA evan and mom were arguing about how he has to stay in school all summer long. i kinda felt bad for him but i agree with her. I
mean he messed up big time so he really should stick to the rules for a while. he knows it, too. he's just whining.

anyway they dropped me off at this random studio in Santa Monica. Eileen had emailed me the address. the door was totally locked and there was no buzzer or anything. I knew I wasn't late so I told mom and evan to just leave and just sat on my backpack and scarfed down the second powerbar of the morning. I was, as tito's mother always says, nerviosa!

My level of nervousness for the pop stars audition was nothing compared to this. I sat on that curb for what felt like hours.

I didn't have my watch on me and I left my cellie in the car so I had no idea what time it was. what if I got the wrong day? what if they changed their minds? what if this was all a practical joke after all?

i was about to get up and leave when this cool-looking asian woman with spiked hair, black jeans, a leather blazer, and square glasses starts screaming, “Kelly? Kelly Kimball! Hey! Kelly! Whasssup Kelly! Woo-hoo!”

I was like whoa! who is that and how does she know me?

she came closer. she started talking, really really really fast. Like a cartoon. “I'm so psyched you made it! I was seriously bumming out when shania … that's the backup dancer you're replacing … well auditioning to replace … shania tore three ligaments on tuesday
night and even though we tried really hard to get her to dance on wednesday she just kept falling over and even when we told her that we can't do the show without her and we were all depending on her and that this is just a really really inconvenient time for her to get injured and everything she just kept collapsing and everything … then when the orthopedic surgeon told us that she needed surgery asap and she wouldn't be recovered for four months … I got into a serious panic because I mean It's Darcy!! starts in just a couple of weeks, really, and to calm me down my boyfriend don dezer … I call him diseazer but the thing is … he showed me this tape of all these really bad girls who auditioned for him last weekend but then when you came on and we watched your routine I was like holy toledo that's shania! and he was like no it's not and I was like I know you dick but I need this girl she's just as good as shania but younger, which really matters, gimme her number … and he said he didn't have your number anyway that's when I emailed you and you came here and thank god you're here and look at you you're perfect and come upstairs and darla's going to love you.”

or something like that. I was just like: Wow. I needed to take a breath after that.

then she goes, “I'm eileen. Eileen Wang. sorry. nice to meet you. the job pays $40,000 for the summer plus expenses. would that be acceptable?”

“Ok!” I said, unable to think, just respond. “and nice to meet you, too!” I realized I was almost yelling. Forty
thousand dollars was more than anyone in my family had ever seen at one time.

From there, the next four hours were a daze. Eileen took me up to this studio and told me to get warmed up. it was really bright in there cause the sun was shining like directly into the windows. well it wasn't really windows more like a wall that was glass. the whole rest of the room was surrounded by mirrors. I was in there for a while by myself and I started tripping out that they were those two-way kind of mirrors (the kind that they always tell you department stores have in their dressing rooms so you supposedly won't be tempted to shoplift but really you just get nervous that someone's seeing you in your underwear … you know those).

$40,000!!!

Anyway, Eileen came in a couple of minutes later. she goes, “behind those mirrors over there darcy and a couple of the dancers are hanging out. I've already shown them the tape of your routine for ‘Love You Like a Lollipop' which she totally loved I mean she said it totally rocked. so now they're having cappuccino fro yos and Kozy Shacks and they want to watch you do the routine in person. I hope it doesn't freak you out too much that they're back there … does it? is it too weird? you can tell me if it's too weird.”

weird? what do i know from weird? when's the last time I had to audition for the biggest MTV star in the universe? maybe this is just how it worked. it totally
freaked me out though. I mean I started thinking maybe there were like 40 people back there, all with clipboards and stuff, looking really mean. but I was like KELLY suck it up and deal this is IT. ok, fine. if it's two-way mirrors, it's two-way mirrors. “no problem,” I said, scrounging up a smile. or at least trying to.