The Shattered Image Series (I Was a Teen Idol)

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First Edition: 03/13

1.
Suddenly

2.
Everybody Loves Me

3.
Money

4.
Fake It

5.
Artificial Energy

6.
Untitled

I never thought I would find this type of peace. Even when Mia was alive, there was always chaos somersaulting its way through my mind, like a hyperactive gymnast. Most of the time, she was the one causing it… Being on the Ironic Zero tour bus seems to calm the rampant thoughts, I no longer crave a life that went by faster than a speeding bullet, but it took having to face my demons in order to get here. Now, I can find peace in the rushing scenery, the sound of the boys playing video games in the back and the soft scratch of the pen against the paper in my journal. To think, it only took six years to get here and I’m not even halfway close to healing myself completely, if that will ever happen.  I think it’s time I write down everything that has happened up until now; maybe seeing it all down on paper will help me bury the parts of my life I no longer want to remember. Putting them on paper, will be like cutting them out of my head and locking them into the ink flowing onto the paper here.

It all started six years ago. I was twelve and sitting in the backseat of a car, with my twin sister Mia…

***

I took Mia’s hand
. I knew I was more nervous than she was. She fed off the attention that came with exciting situations. She held onto my hand, knowing I needed the comfort. I was just glad that she hadn’t pulled away from me.

I looked in the rearview mirror; I could see part of Patricia’s face. She was the current social worker and had the longest record with us, three years. That was until the record label and the adoption. . She had been a haggard looking woman, graying dark blonde hair and blue eyes with heavy bags under them. Someone who had seen too much of the crap in the world and no longer had the dream of saving children who were growing up in dismal conditions.  At the time, she was in her thirties. She no longer had the perky kindness of a twenty something college student, who was out to change the world one poor child at a time.  

That day, she was taking us to callback auditions for a record/talent company. It had all been very hush, hush. The president of the record label said he wanted to do the right thing and adopt a child from a local orphanage; well, that’s what he told the tabloids. No one knew that he was actually auditioning orphans for the spot. In truth, they were looking for the next child that they could mold and shape into a superstar and still have full control over the contracts involved. The president would be their legal guardian and have the power to sign them into a contract that would last until their nineteenth birthday, the age when pop star idols were seen as old and has been. After that, the kid could go find another company, or disappear into the woodwork.

My sister and me went for separate auditions at first. When they realized we were twins, we became a two for one deal. If they wanted to, they could pull the old switcharoo while on stage or at events and no one would notice unless they knew us really well. The callbacks were to see us together, to see if they could market us as a double act.

“Remember, girls, be perky and nice. If you get this you’re set for life.” Patricia looked back at us using the rearview mirror. We both rolled our eyes. I couldn’t speak for Mia then, but I didn’t want the star life. I just wanted a family. I never knew my father or my mother, not really. Supposedly, they raised us until we were three and then CPS got involved and we had been bouncing around foster homes and boarding houses ever since. No one wanted to adopt two three year olds with behavior problems. It was too much work and a newborn was easier to care for.

She pulled into a parking space with a loud screech of her brakes and turned off the engine. She turned and looked back at us and frowned. With haste, she pulled a comb from her ancient leather purse and threw it at Mia. “Both of you brush your hair, you’re not homeless. And pinch your cheeks, Jasmine; you’re paler than a piece of printing paper.”

There was no use fighting her at that point. If we didn’t do as she said she would do it for us and it would probably hurt worse. I pinched my cheeks while Mia combed through the tangled, light brown strands of hair that was identical to mine. However, her hair was probably messier than mine was. She had roughhoused with the boys from the foster home we had just been bounced from. The woman there just couldn’t handle Mia’s wild nature anymore and wherever Mia went, I went. It was just how things worked. I couldn’t imagine not being by her side. We were lucky, we had made it nine years without being separated, some siblings weren’t as lucky.

Once we looked as good as we were going to get. Patricia hurried us inside to wait for our turn before the deciding panel. The waiting area had been chaos and didn’t help to settle my nerves. There were kids from the ages of three to fifteen there. All of us had similar backgrounds, we had been in the foster care system for all of our lives, and we were the ones that no one wanted. There would be no parents coming to try to get us back and that’s what they wanted. Someone who was not wanted, so that they didn’t have to worry about parents trying to get their kid back once they became famous.

Mia had us practice the dance we had put together. We were going to sing and dance for them and we hoped that it would be good enough. Patricia was counting on us to get the contract. If we didn’t, we would have been sent off to a different county for another foster home and she would no longer be the social worker in charge of our case. If we couldn’t stay in the county we had been in for nine years, where the social workers knew us, there was no guarantee that we would be sent to the same foster home in the next county. We could be separated and there was less than a fifty percent chance we would be put back together later on. So, even though I didn’t want it, the fame and being an idol, it was necessary if I wanted to stay by Mia’s side.

“Jasmine and Mia!” called out the assistant that took the children back to the audition room. Patricia pushed us forward and toward the woman. I looked back at her and she made the motion for me to pinch my cheeks again. I did and Mia followed my example. We followed the woman back to the room and before we walked inside, we placed smiles on our faces.  “This is Mia and Jasmine. They are here for a callback audition.”

We stood in front of the panel that consisted of two women and three men. I don’t know what their job titles were, but their intense stares unnerved me. I involuntarily grabbed for Mia’s hand and luckily, she didn’t shy away. Maybe she had been nervous too.

“Show us what you two got,” said the man on the far left. He had sounded tired and like he didn’t want to be there any longer.

We got into our positions and started to dance, there wasn’t any music for us to dance and sing too, but it was better that way, we didn’t have the music for when we practiced either. Mia took the lead singing; I was just her back up. She was always the better singer. We finished our song and dance with splits and smiles on our face.

There was no clapping or smiles on the panels’ faces. We stood slowly and one of the women leaned over and whispered something in the man’s ear. He nodded and whispered something back. As a group, they discussed us in hushed tones and the butterflies in my stomach had grown worse than they were before we had auditioned. Finally, the man on the far left nodded and looked at the woman who had brought us back to the room. “Mary-Anne, take them back to waiting room B.” She nodded and left the room. We curtsied to the panel, like Patricia had told us to, and followed the woman.

Waiting room B was much smaller than the room we had waited in before they called us back to audition. “Wait here.” Was all the woman said before leaving us there. We weren’t the only ones in the room. There were three other children besides us. A boy who looked to be about our age and two girls who were several years younger than us.

Mia and I sat down.  I wondered what we were doing there. Had we made the cut or were we in the room where they sent the rejects? I also couldn’t help but look at the boy who was in the room with us. He was cute. I was just getting to an age where I no longer saw every boy as a repulsive slug who rolled around in dirt and burped all day. Being ever the extrovert, Mia easily struck up a conversation with him and I couldn’t help but feel jealous at how easy she was able to do it. We were identical twins, why couldn’t I be extroverted like her also?

“So what you do for the audition?” Mia asked, looking at the boy.

“Sung and played the guitar.” He pointed to the guitar on the floor next to his feet. I hadn’t even noticed it sitting there when we walked in.

“Wow, you can play the guitar? How’d you even
manage to keep something like that? How long have you been in the system?” Mia asked, like a game of twenty questions.  She leaned over him and picked up the guitar. I marveled at how easily she could invade someone’s personal space without a care in the world. She went to open the case, but he stopped her and gently took it from her.

“Yeah. One of the few things I keep with me and guard with my life. Ten years.”

When you live in the system, there’s only a handful of personal things you can keep with you. Together, along with the clothes we shared, Mia’s and my life could fill half a large black trash bag and that was how we carried around our life from place to place. If there was anything personal you didn’t want stolen by another kid you held onto it 24/7. Otherwise, it was as good as gone if there was someone else who wanted it. I remember thinking the boy must be tough if he had managed to hold onto the guitar for who knows how long. Anything that big, would be hard to protect.

“We’ve been in nine years. I’m Mia and this is my sister Jasmine.” She pointed at me and I blushed when he looked at me.

“Luke.”

“Cool. Can you play us something? It’s been ages since we ran into a kid who could play an instrument and been able to hold onto one when they had it.

He looked at Mia for a second, I could see a slight irritation in his eyes, but he opened the case anyway.  I watched as he moved a tiny leather book out of the way and pulled out the guitar. It looked slightly beat up, but when he strummed it to make sure it was in tune I could tell that he had taken care of it the best that he could.

He sung us a song that I didn’t recognize as being on the radio at the time. It sounded like it was a mash up between country and rock and roll. When he sang, a slight Southern accent came out in his voice that wasn’t there when he spoke. I liked the song. It was about a boy who met a girl at a roadside diner, they had good conversation and food until the sun rose up, and he had to go on the road again. We clapped when the song was over and he put the guitar back in its case.