Friday 21 August 2009

A Little High School Drama - 3/7

In order to keep posts short, I am splitting up the short story I wrote for my Fiction Portfolio into sections. It is coming to you now - serialised. How very 1800's! It isn't the greatest solution because it will get posted backwards and to read as a whole will involve some scrolling. But the seven sections will get released slowly, so most will be able to read it as it comes. The story is quite conducive to this as it was written with breaks, which I'm using to divide up the sections. Enjoy!

After the conversation on the bus, Julia knew it was time to tell her parents about her business school plans. “How could it be a problem?” she asked herself. “It is totally a respectable program; tons of parents would be happy and proud if their daughter wanted it.” But she knew that it would hurt her father, he wanted her to study pure math and he didn’t think business was the same. Sometimes he would teach accounting and statistics courses to college level business students, those working towards a diploma in Hotel and Restaurant Management or Business Administration. Julia knew that the snide comments he made about these students were part of the reason she was so frightened to tell him.

Sitting down to dinner with her parents, Julia waited for the perfect moment. Soon her mother asked about Brianne’s plans for the upcoming semester. “She is hoping to be in the Senior Drama Class, the auditions are next week. She wants me to try out with her,” Julia said as casually as possible. Her mother merely smiled. “I think I might,” Julia continued cautiously, glancing across the table at her father. “Not really for the stage parts. I would just want a small one of those. But, ‘cause it is going to be such a big production this time, the behind the scenes work is goin’ to be really interesting. I was thinking of trying to get Ticket Coordinator, or Scheduling Manager, maybe part of the Advertising or Budget Committee.” Julia paused to get a sense of her parent’s reaction. Her mother was nodding along encouragingly but her father seemed disinterested and was looking out the window. “Good,” Julia thought, “Maybe I can sneak this next part past him.” Looking at her mother, Julia asserted, “I think it would be a really good fit and is going to look great on my university applications. I was maybe thinking about going to business school.”

“Hmmm, business school would be fun and the play sounds like a great idea,” her mother replied. Julia beamed. She felt like she had dodged a bullet. Returning to her dinner she started thinking about what it might be like to act on stage. She couldn’t wait to call Brianne.

Julia knew the feeling of relief was to be short lived when her father curtly asked, “What about math, Juls?”

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