Free No Ordinary Life by Suzanne Redfearn

building is. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I think I assumed a soundstage would be more glamorous, at the very least charming and romantic. This is none of those things. Dark and cluttered, it is a parceled-off warehouse with exposed trusses, concrete walls, and buzzing fluorescent lights.
    We reach the casting room, and when we step inside, I nearly laugh out loud. The room is filled with at least two dozen little girls sitting beside their moms, almost all of them dressed in denim overalls and white T-shirts, and almost all of them with curls worn in loose ringlets. Without knowing it, Molly insisted on dressing perfect for the part.
    I sign the clipboard beside the entry, take a script from the stack beside the door, and as Molly and I make our way toward two empty chairs toward the back, all the eyes in the room follow. It feels like we’ve just entered a gladiator arena for a fight to the death and the other contenders are sizing us up. I offer an I-mean-you-no-harm smile to each pair we pass, but the gesture isn’t returned.
    A woman on the opposite side of the room stares particularly hard then turns and whispers something to the mom beside her. The other woman lifts her head to look at us, then her mouth forms into a pout. Her voice is not as hushed as the first woman, and the words “Gap commercial” cut through the mumbles around us.
    My pride swells as I realize they recognize us, and that these veterans are actually intimidated. Way to go, Molly.
    We take our seats, and I look at the script, giddy with the privilege of being allowed to read a scene from one of the future episodes. The season finale of The Foster Band was a huge cliffhanger. The youngest Foster kid, Birch, a boy who literally grew up on the show from the age of five to eight, was taken away by his birth mom, an on-again, off-again junkie. The Fosters fought to keep him but ultimately lost the battle, and in the final scene, Birch waved good-bye to his foster family, then he and his mom drove away.
    All the Fosters were on the porch, Mrs. Foster crying against Mr. Foster, all of them watching as the car picked up speed, began to weave, then lost control, flipping into the ditch beside the road. The Fosters ran toward it, and the season ended, no one knowing whether Birch survived.
    Looking at the script, I’m guessing he didn’t, and though I know the show is pretend, a knot forms in my throat at the thought of Birch not making it. I really like Birch. He’s a tough little guy, a troublemaker who lends a healthy dose of humor and mischief to the show.
    The two new characters, Annie and Ben, are four and seven, and the scene Molly needs to memorize is fairly short, two pages total—eight lines for Annie, ten for Ben.
    “Ready to try this?” I whisper to Molly, who is attempting to befriend the girl across from her with a smile and a wave. The girl turns away, clearly not interested.
    Molly looks at me, her brow furrowed in an expression that says, What’s up with that?
    I shrug. “What do you say, Bug, should we give this a try?”
    She doesn’t answer, her attention returning to the room and the kids around us. It’s hard not to be distracted. There’s a lot going on. Each mother-daughter pair has their own approach to the process, and while all the girls are similar in size and cuteness, the moms vary quite a bit in size and cuteness. And attitude. Some try the sweet-talk approach, doling out incessant compliments and incentives to get their daughters to perform… Sweetie, that was wonderful…Oh baby, you’re the best…Let’s do a good job, then we’ll go to the mall after this…Did you see the cupcake store we passed? Just practice a few more times. Others take a hard-line approach, harsh and relentless… Again…Don’t fidget…This is important. Do you know how important this is?
    “Baby,” I say, trying not to fall into either extreme, “do you want to do this?”
    Molly looks up at me with her big saucer