Sarah Anne Sumpolec - Chasing the Spotlight

Riverbend Friends

Real, Not Perfect

Searching for Normal

The Me You See

Chasing the Spotlight

Chasing the Spotlight

2021 Focus on the Family. All rights reserved.

A Focus on the Family book published by Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188

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Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The characters and events in this story are fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

Cover design by Mike Harrigan. Interior design by Eva M. Winters.

Interior illustration of drama masks copyright streptococcus/Adobe Stock. All rights reserved. Interior illustration of emoji icons copyright Marc/Adobe Stock. All rights reserved.

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ISBN 978-1-58997-650-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data can be found at www.loc.gov.

ISBN 978-1-68428-230-2 (ePub); ISBN 978-1-68428-231-9 (Kindle); ISBN 978-1-68428-229-6 (Apple)

Build: 2021-12-15 11:58:43 EPUB 3.0

T HE STAGE IS EMPTY. Only the ghost light glows from center stage, throwing light out in a circle on the black floor. Even though I cannot see in the pitch dark beyond, I feel the vastness of the empty auditorium as I step toward the light. I feel the moment when the light finds my face. It is utterly still and silent. I sing a ballad, of course, because every musical and every Disney movie has that song. The song where the main character tells everyone what they want the most. Ariel wanted legs, Simba wanted to be king, Evan Hansen wanted to belong.

My ballad is simple. I want THIS. The stage. The spotlight. An audience that leans forward to listen and hear every story my character wants to tell.

I wish I hadnt argued with my mom about piano lessons when I was younger because if I had taken them when she wanted me to, Id probably be able to write my own ballad by now. Write a musical starring me and telling my story. Some girls see their life as a movie: long, lingering shots of their mundane and magical moments, their moody feelings. Not me. Hands down, my story is a musical. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and plenty of random dancing and bursting into song. If I lived in New York City, Id see a Broadway show every day. But I dont live in the greatest city in the world. I live in Riverbend, Indiana. Seven hundred and fifty-nine miles away from any Broadway show. I mean, yeah, University of Indiana has hosted many touring companies. But it wasnt the same. Anyone who loves musical theater understands that.

I told my parents repeatedly that the only thing I want birthday, Christmas, both, whatever was to go see a real Broadway show. In New York. I even found the cheapest flights, where we could stay and everything. They were sympathetic to my plight and offered morsels of hope that one day we will get there. It was too expensive right now.

I knew my wish was akin to asking for a pony to put in our backyard. But at least you dont have to keep feeding a trip. It was a one-time thing.

Who was I kidding? If I got to go to a real show, Id instantly be begging to go to the next one.

During our conversations, I knew money was only part of their concern. My parents didnt travel often and never very far. They visited family or stayed close to home. Adventurous trips were not in their repertoire. I was the adventurous kid of our family, always pushing to explore and experience. I could imagine that traipsing off to New York City sounded scary instead of exciting to them. They were satisfied with their everyday normal while I was itching to explode out of it. I loved my utterly normal family. But I wanted more.

I brought my arms up and out in a dramatic gesture seen at least once in every Broadway show. Dropping my head back, my heart silently belted out the ballad stanza about how people here dont understand me.

Except for one. My brother, Josh.

A pang squeezed in my chest and my head fell forward as images flipped through my mind. Images of his engagement to Jessica, their wedding, and him moving the last of his boxes out of our house into his own grown-up home. Mom said I needed to give him space now, but I didnt understand why. Just because he got married didnt mean he stopped being my brother.

To banish Josh and my urge to text him, I looked up tickets on broadway.com to see how much it would cost to see Dear Evan Hansen for tonights 8:00 p.m. show. A mere $259. Sigh. Why did Broadway have to be so expensive? And so far away?

Whatcha lookin at, Amelia? Six-year-old Emma jumped in between me and my phone, yanking me from the stage back to my basement and knocking the phone from my hand and into the pile of cushions and blankets strewn over the floor. Although we werent related, Emma looked a bit like me. Her hair was redder than my own, but I had way more freckles than she did.

Nothing, I told her, letting her little sister Ainsley paw through the blankets for the phone. When she dug it out, instead of handing it to me, she tried to unlock it.

Their sister Parker was pouting on the couch. The girls were getting bored. I was getting bored. My parents were meeting with their parents Jon and Leah Burfield so, of course, I was expected to babysit. Usually these impromptu counseling sessions lasted about an hour, but we were pushing two and there was no sign of the adults.

Felix, our giant Labradoodle, rolled around in the blankets. I bent over to give him some good tummy scratches. Emma squatted next to him and joined the scratching. Felix was in doggie heaven.

Then we heard something. Ainsley looked up at the ceiling.

Someone was yelling muffled and impossible to understand. I watched Parkers face twist like she was trying not to cry.

Hey! Lets make up a play! I said. I put the needle on the Annie record Id listened to earlier and turned it up so they wouldnt hear the muffled yelling. Parker balled herself on the giant gray sectional couch with her head down, arms wrapped around her body. She was eight, and there was no way she didnt know what was happening upstairs. Her parents had been coming for counseling for weeks, and shed mentioned the yelling problem before. The other girls were younger though, so they were easily distracted.

Whats that music? Emma wrinkled up her nose, staring at the record.

Its from a Broadway show called Annie, I said.

I dont like it, Ainsley said. Its too loud. She covered her ears.

I turned it down, then moved the smaller chairs and glass coffee table out of the way. Look! We can make up a play! And this will be our stage! I gestured at the area around me. Ainsley and Emma looked unsure.