“I don’t know. It was for you. About the audition, I think.”
“Here it goes.” Kara kept the phone on speaker and they all listened in.
“Good evening. This call is for Kara McKormick.”
The man’s voice was high and very proper.
“I am Jordan Sands, a Broadway producer and director. We are holding auditions for a new musical. I saw your work on
The Book of Love
and I’d like you to be part of these auditions. They will be televised live, just like
The Book of Love
, with the winner being chosen by audience vote. We have had great success with this model in England, and we believe this TV show and the musical will be huge successes here as well. Mary Kegel has agreed to be one of the guest judges, as well as Robert Van Zandt.”
Kara recognized the names—recent Tony Award winners and amazing actors. She and her friends had gone to see a musical that starred Mary Kegel the year before. Kara thought she was one of the most phenomenal actresses she had ever seen.
“We will hold the preliminary auditions on Monday, so if you’re interested, please give us a call back at this number.”
Kara saved the message and walked, in a daze, to the living room.
“What do I do?” She sat on the couch.
“This show would be on Broadway?” Pop sat next to Kara.
“Right here in New York.” Kara stood and walked around the living room. “I wouldn’t have to leave you guys.”
“But what about the show in Orlando?” Ma stood in the doorway.
“That’s incredible too.” Kara swallowed hard. “This isn’t fair. How do I choose? Why do they both have to be auditioning at the same time?”
“Could you fly back up Monday for these auditions? ”
Pop looked at his watch. “It’s just nine o’clock. Why don’t you see if you can get ahold of this guy? Tell him your predicament.”
“And ask him to hold those auditions for me? Right, Pop.”
“You’ll never know unless you call.”
T
his water is freezing,” Jonathon complained as he stepped into the raft.
Chad threw his friend an oar. “You really need to get out more.”
Chad had convinced Jonathon to join him on a trip to North Carolina. His parents were no longer interested in white-water rafting, but that was an activity Chad loved. The president and First Lady agreed to let Jonathon come along for a few days, provided, of course, his Secret Service agents remained close by.
Bull, Jonathon’s lead Secret Service agent, jumped in behind Jonathon, splashing the ice-cold river water all over Jonathon’s back. “You’re telling me. All this boy does is study and play baseball.”
“And text his girlfriend.” Chad nodded toward Jonathon’s cell phone.
“She’s not my girlfriend.” Jonathon shut his phone and put it in a waterproof bag Chad had given him.
“Mmm-hmm.” Bull clicked a life vest over his large chest. “Keep telling yourself that, boy. You forget I watched it all happen. There’s no foolin’ Bull.”
Jonathon’s face turned red. “Anyway, can you please tell me what I need to do to keep from drowning in the rapids? ”
“Don’t fall in.” Chad laughed as he settled himself in the back of the four-passenger raft.
“Very funny.” Jonathon looked at the churning water of the Nantahala River.
“Relax.” Chad pushed them out into the current. “I’ve gone white-water rafting dozens of times. I’ll steer. You boys just paddle when I say paddle. All right?”
Ten minutes later, the raft was stuck on a rock in the middle of the river.
Jonathon stared at Chad in disbelief. “Some expert you are.”
“Don’t worry. I got this. We’ll be out of here in no time.” Chad pushed against the rock with his oar. The raft didn’t even budge.
An eight-person raft drifted past them. A six-year-old inside waved and laughed at the three large men.
“Very nice,” Bull said. “We just got passed up by a kindergartner.”
“We’ll just have to get out and push it off. No big deal.”
Jonathon stuck his hand in the water. “No way am I getting in there, man. You got us stuck. You get us unstuck.”
Chad struck his oar in the water, sending an icy spray of water raining down on Jonathon. “You big wimp.”
“I’m not a wimp.” Jonathon smirked. “I just don’t want to die of hypothermia in June.”
“You won’t die of hypothermia.” Chad laughed. “We just need to give the raft one big push. Then we can jump back in and keep going. We haven’t even hit the big rapids yet.”
“Seems to me like all we’ve hit is this rock,” Bull said.
“Come on, get out and help me push.” Chad jumped into the water.
Bull crossed his arms. “I’m with my buddy here. You push us out.”
“You guys together weigh over three hundred pounds.” Chad crossed his arms over his chest. “I know I’m strong. Real strong”—he flexed his muscles to prove his point—“but that’s too much weight, even for me.”
“Boy, you sure talk a lot of smack.” Bull jumped into the water, towering over Chad.
Chad slapped Bull on the back. “I know, man. But when you’re built like me, you can.”
Bull came up behind Chad, lifted him up, and threw him several feet away. Chad came up spitting out water.
“That’s right.” Bull laughed. “Who’s the man?”
Chad coughed, then ran for Bull. Bull jumped to the side, causing Chad to run right into the raft. Jonathon fell backward as the raft slid off the rock and began speeding down the river.
“Hey, wait!” Chad swam after the raft. Bull joined him.
“How do I stop this thing?” Jonathon held an oar in the air. The raft drifted underneath a tree, pushing the oar into the water. Jonathon reached for a second oar, but it slipped out of his hands. Chad and Bull stopped swimming to laugh at their friend as the “kindergarten raft” pulled up beside Jonathon.
“Need a hand, mister?” the little boy asked as his father held an oar out to Jonathon.
While the two rafts floated to a calmer portion of the river, Chad and Bull swam up to meet Jonathon.
“One, two, three.” Chad and Bull grabbed the side of their raft and flipped it over, causing Jonathon to tumble out.
“Hey.” Jonathon scrambled to right the raft. “What was that for? Chad’s the one who started this.”
Chad laughed. “I know. But you looked way too dry sitting up there. Now we all match.”
“You boys all right?” the father from the next raft called out.
Bull pulled himself into the raft. “Yes, sir. I’ve just got to keep an eye on these little ones. You know how it is.”
The man nodded. Chad and Jonathon looked at each other and tried to flip Bull out of the raft. The larger man, however, anticipated their move and pushed each of them underwater.
“I am a trained agent, boys.” Bull flexed his very large muscles. “Youth and energy are no match for these brains and brawn.”
“Okay.” Jonathon panted. “Truce. White flag. Uncle. Whatever you want to hear. Just get me back on dry land.”
Bull laughed, helping the boys back into the raft and pulling the raft toward the lost oars.
After two more hours and three more trips into the river, Bull, Chad, and Jonathon pulled up to shore. Soaking wet, they wrapped up in towels and begged their driver to stop off at the nearest coffee shop for the largest, hottest drinks they could buy.
“That was fun,” Chad said, hands wrapped around his coffee cup.
“It was.” Jonathon nodded. “Even if you two did try to drown me.”
Chad looked out the coffee shop window, the Nantahala rushing beside them, green trees leaning over the churning water. “You know, if show business doesn’t work out for me, I could live here. Be a guide. That would be awesome.”
“Sure.” Jonathon laughed. “You’d be in high demand too. Not everybody can guide a raft onto a huge rock.”
“Hey.” Chad set down his coffee. “That current is strong.”
“Yeah, well. I still think you better stick to your day job.”
“Here’s hoping I can.” Chad lifted his cup in a mock toast.
“So, what’s next?”
“I’m going to try something new,” Chad said. “Acting.”
“Really?”
Chad shrugged. “I love being onstage. And not just singing, but connecting with the audience and telling a story. It’s like nothing else.”
“Better than white-water rafting?” Jonathon smiled.
“Definitely.”
“Don’t you have to record more songs?”
“Yep.” Chad watched out the window as a kayaker made his way down the river, gliding between larger rafts and rocks. “But I’m not bound by a contract anymore. So I’m free to do what I want.”
“And you want to act?”
“Not just act.” Chad took another sip of his coffee, finally warming up. “I’d like a chance to do it all. Act, sing, even write.”
“I thought you already wrote your music.”
“I do.” Chad leaned back in his chair. “I mean, write the stuff I’ll be performing. Be a part of the whole artistic experience.”
Jonathon shook his head. “Artistic experience? ”
“Don’t laugh, dude.”
“Sorry.” Jonathon cleared his throat.
“You like editing, right?”
Jonathon nodded.
“That’s artistic.”
“I don’t know about that,” Jonathon said. “It takes a lot of work. But I don’t know if it’s art.”
“Sure it is. You decide what clips to show and which to throw away. You pick music to play underneath. I’ve seen some of your stuff, remember? You’re good.”
Jonathon sighed. “Thanks, man, but it doesn’t matter. It’s just a hobby. I’m destined for politics.”
“Says who?”
Jonathon lowered his voice, looking back at Bull, who was sitting at the table behind them, reading the paper. “My dad. I’m expected to study law, practice for a few years, then run for some kind of office. Just like he did.”
“But is that what God wants you to do?”
“Doesn’t God want me to obey my parents?” Jonathon asked.
Chad nodded. “But God’s will trumps your parents’.”
“I don’t know . . . I don’t want to disappoint them.”
“Have you ever really talked to them about it?” Chad knew Jonathon’s parents loved their son deeply, and he doubted they really wanted him to pursue a career he didn’t want to pursue.
“No,” Jonathon answered quickly. “I don’t need to. It’s just a given.”
“Maybe they think it’s what you want to do.”
“What?”
Chad leaned forward. “My parents own an orange grove. Quite a successful grove, one that’s been in the family for three generations.”
“I know.” Jonathon’s face was blank. “I’ve been there, remember?”
“I’m their only child. For three generations, the fathers have passed the grove down to their sons.”
“You were supposed to run your family’s business.” Understanding dawned on Jonathon’s face.
“Right. But from the time I was ten or eleven, I knew that wasn’t for me. I loved growing up there, don’t get me wrong. And there’s nothing in the world I love more than the smell of orange blossoms. It’s in my blood. But having that be my life . . . that’s just not in me.”
“But if you don’t take over, what will happen?” Jonathon asked.
“I worried about that for years. I felt like I had to take it over. So I wrote songs and sang and hoped that doing that in my bedroom for the rest of my life would be enough.”
“So how’d you end up on
America’s Next Star
?”
Chad gazed back out at the water. “I didn’t even know about the show.”
“Right.” Jonathon smiled. “No TV.”
“But when I was fifteen, I felt like God was telling me I needed to talk with my parents about how I felt. So I did.”
Jonathon leaned in, his elbows on the table. “Were they mad?”
“They were more upset that I had waited so long to tell them than that I felt the way I did.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” Chad looked at his friend. “They said God would take care of the groves, and that if he had something else for me, then I should go for it. They were the ones who found out about the auditions in the first place.”
“Wow.”
“You should talk to your parents,” Chad concluded.
“But what if they don’t respond well?”
“Do you believe God wants you to be a politician? ” Chad asked.
“No,” Jonathon said, exhaling.
“Then trust God to help your parents see that too. Give them a chance.”
“That’s not going to be easy.”
“Neither was white-water rafting.” Chad motioned to the window. “But you survived that.”
“Barely.” Jonathon laughed. His phone chimed, and he pulled it from his back pocket.
“Addy?” Chad smiled.
“Yes.” Jonathon’s face turned red.
“Tell her I said hi.” Chad sipped his coffee.
Bull, who had just come to stand beside their table, said, “Me too.”