12 year old Mark O’Malley had been practically typecast as the dopey sidekick because of his role in the runaway hit Disney production, “My Brother Mark”. But while on the set of his older sister Krissy’s much darker sci-fi movie production, a misheard comment leads to a whole new branch in his career, and in his life.

Megan and Juliette were cuddling on the couch again. It had been a day since Amber’s massive birthday party, and the two had nothing planned at all today, so they were watching movies together. Megan’s phone rang with Brianna’s ringtone..

“Montana residence, this is Hannah speaking,” Megan answered.

“Hey pop star. I’ve got a car coming to get you, the doctors office called and said your HRT implant was ready.”

“Oh, would you believe I actually forgot about that?” Megan said sheepishly. “The last few days has been such a whirlwind, and I’m still recovering from Amber’s epic party. We’re still in our jammies,” she giggled.

“You’ve got a few moments to get dressed.” Brianna laughed.

“We can do your hair in the car,” Juliette added, already on her way to the bedroom.

“Thanks Brianna. I’ll be ready to get ready when the car gets here,” Megan giggled.

After about 20 minutes there was a honk outside. Megan had just gotten her top on. “Holy crap they are fast.”

“Oh, socks,” Juliette said, passing Megan a pair of blue socks to match her top. Megan grabbed them and raced out the door barefoot, with Juliette not far behind carrying her makeup kit in one hand, and two hair brushes in the other. Alice watched the chaos from the driver’s seat, trying her best not to burst out laughing.

“You eh, want me to drive around the block a few times then come back?” she asked. She had gotten comfortable enough with the girls to joke with them without fear of reprimand.

“No no, it’s fine.” Megan giggled.

Alice smiled as she pulled off and headed towards the doctors office, “I’ll take my time then.”

“We just didn’t get any warning we’d have to go anywhere today,” Megan laughed. “We were taking today to catch our breath. Preliminary script stuff Sunday and Monday, that huge party Saturday, filming for Dark Days, and planning a wedding on top of all that.”

“Aren’t you two a bit young for planning your wedding though?” Alice teased, grinning. “Your sister’s engagement’s the talk of the social media world I hear.”

“Not all of it good, sadly,” Juliette answered as she started working on Megan’s hair. “But it’s nice to see the bigots getting run out of discussion threads.”

“Live and let live - that’s my philosophy,” Alice answered. “I mean I’m as white bread boring as they come. I drive a limo for just above minimum wage and my date nights are sitting at home with my two cats,” she laughed. “But two blokes or two gals have as much right to be happy as a man and a woman do.”

Megan smiled brightly at that. “That and they make such a cute couple.”

“I’m jealous,” Brianna giggled. “Not of Tina specifically. I’ve just given up on romance entirely. At least I get to be her maid of honor. Maybe I’ll find a nice hunky surfer while we’re here,” she teased, as the limo pulled up to the clinic “Alright,” she said, “According to Dr. Miller, this shouldn’t take very long at all. Once you’re done, we’ll drop you off at Amber’s. If you need anything, I’ll be a phone call away.”.

Megan and Juliette stood on Amber’s front door and she knocked a second time, “Wonder if she’s home, or if she forgot about that interview.” Megan sighed. After a few moments the door opened.

Amber blushed when she saw Megan, “Oh god was that today?”

Megan laughed a little and nodded. “We can come back tomorrow if you want.” It had been a couple of days since the procedure with no ill effects, and the second 365 interview was coming up fast, but they still had time to spare.

“No no, I got your dad’s list of questions and added a few of my own.” Amber said professionally., “Come on in. Carolyn’s even here so I don’t have to call her over to set up.”

“We’re not interrupting anything are we?” Juliette asked.

“Nope, just a sleepover.” Amber giggled.

“Seriously, we can come back later,” Megan said, shaking her head as she started to back towards the door.

“Nope you’re all good.” Amber giggled, “Come on, I was about to fix some food. It’s just me, Carolyn and Rebecca. Jessica was supposed to come too but she got held up at the studio.”

“She might still make it though,” Rebecca called from further inside.

“I tried calling you two last night to invite you over, but I think I dialed the wrong number.” Amber blushed.

Rebecca giggled as she came into the room, not wearing her usual dramatic goth attire, but a plain gray t-shirt and jeans. “She got some cranky old bat on the phone and was too afraid to try again.”

“We’ve really got to get local cell phone numbers,” Megan laughed as Carolyn came in just behind Rebecca.

“Oh, sweet, you did get the message,” Carolyn said cheerfully.

“Nope, I’m just an idiot,” Amber sighed. “I forgot that we had today down for the big interview. So I’ll need you to set up the studio in a bit.”

“And you laugh when I bring my DSLR everywhere,” Carolyn said with a smug grin. “Sure, I can have something nice set up in no time. And with your new lappy we can even make it look pro. Call me when the food’s ready.” Carolyn grinned as she disappeared.

“And she’s off,” Rebecca laughed.

“When Carolyn’s doing a setup, you’ll be lucky to get three words out of her,” Amber giggled as she led the remaining three to the spacious first floor kitchen. “It’s like Zen meditation for her.”

“Yeah, but I can’t blame her,” Rebecca sighed. “The way kids used to tease her, becoming an AV geek probably saved her life.”

“Most likely.” Amber sighed as well. “Now she works with me on my blog. Wish I could go pro and pay her.”

Megan sent off a few quick texts to Brianna while Amber made food for everyone.

“You know you guys have the makings of a real life iCarly though,” Juliette giggled.

“I know right?” Rebecca laughed. “We talked about that a few times actually, but we wouldn’t be able to keep up a regular schedule like they did on the show. It’d be random stuff like what Amber’s doing today.”

“Hope you guys like tacos,” Amber said as she began browning a big pan of hamburger meat. “They’re the one thing I can cook really well.”

“They have to be better than Taco Bell.” Megan giggled.

“Taco Bell used to bring loads of food for the meal table when we filmed.” Juliette laughed. “Some days Megan’s mom or mine would sneak us something from Subway just for a change of pace.”

“Ick,” Amber laughed. “I like Taco Bell, but every day?”

“Sometimes we’d get a catering company, but it usually is whatever is easiest.” Megan nodded. “When filming you don't have time for much of anything.” Just then Megan’s phone buzzed her text message tone. Megan grinned and put her phone away. “So how much do you think you’re worth as a PR person?” she teased.

Amber laughed at the question. “Considering I’m doing it for free, as a hobby? I’ve had people ask me why I don’t donation beg, but I don’t feel like my writing is exactly up to par for that sort of thing. It’s just something fun.”

Megan pulled a piece of paper out of her purse and a pen and wrote down the dollar number Brianna gave her. “How does this sound, it’s an equal split for you and Carolyn.”

Amber blinked at Megan, looking down at the piece of paper. Her breath caught in her throat. “... Wha?” was all she could get out.

“That’s if you agree to become Juliette and My person PR people.” Megan giggled.

“And before you say no,” Juliette chimed in quickly, “Just remember Jessica is our age just like you, and so are the other people who do the Disney 365 stuff.’

“Yeah but ... They’re trained actors or writers,” Amber protested.

“You are a skilled writer.” Megan shot back.

“Mrs. Potter,” Rebecca giggled, causing Amber to laugh too.

“Yup. Our year 6 English teacher Katherine Potter. She was kind of a grump, but she loved writing, and really made me fall in love with it too. She’s the whole reason I started blogging - because I wanted to get better as a writer.”

Amber reached over and turned off the burner, letting the hamburger meat simmer for a moment. She stared at the number thoughtfully. It was a lot of money - a lot a lot of money, especially for two kids, but there was the work to think about as well.

“What would we even do?” Amber asked. “Oh!” she said a moment later and raced to the doorway. “Carolyn! Tacos!”

“What would happen is you would get together with a Team and have them build a website around your designs, and you would write articles and stuff about us, and Carolyn would be our official camera woman.” Megan said.

“Sorry, all I heard was official camera woman?” Carolyn said as she bounded into the room. “Man that smells good.”

Amber giggled as she started laying out unfolded soft flour tortillas and crunchy shells alongside a huge bowl of cheese, another bowl of shredded lettuce, and even some bean dip and guacamole along the breakfast bar island. She picked up the piece of paper and laid it beside Carolyn’s plate as she sat down with the others.

“That’s USD by the way. I forgot to get it converted to AUD,” Megan giggled. “Granted it would be split between you. We want to hire you and Amber to be our publicists.”

Carolyn gave Megan a sidelong glance, and then looked down at the piece of paper. She froze.

“Not enough?” Megan giggled as she casually spread some guacamole and bean dip on her tacos before adding some cheese. “I can always ask Brianna for more.”

“Way too bloody much,” Carolyn answered finally finding her voice. “That’s if you’re even serious. No way I’m worth even a quarter of that. Amber, sure.”

“Totally serious, and it’s if you two are serious.” Juliette stated. “We’ve seen some of your vlogs, and I watched a couple of your Let’s Play videos on youtube. It’s pretty obvious you put a ton of work into every video you do.”

“So we’re willing to give you two jobs with us.” Megan spoke up before crunching into her taco. “Oh man these are great! If you're serious you’ll have to call Brianna and set things up with her, she’ll hook you up with a web design team, and get you rolling.”

“But what about school?” Carolyn asked. “I’m homeschooled now, but Amber still goes to public school. I mean not that it matters while we’re on holiday,” she added with a laugh. “What would we even have to do?”

“Well you both will be home schooled with us, I think.” Megan giggled, “And well Carolyn gets to shoot behind the scenes videos of Juliette and I when we film movies, and Amber gets to do our official site interviews and stuff.”

Carolyn and Amber both looked at Rebecca, who had been staying out of the conversation entirely. She looked up, with a mouth full of soft taco, and slowly looked between the two of them. “... What? I’m staying out of it.” She giggled. “You’ll want to talk to my Mom if you want a makeup artist, unless you want to look like the Wolfman. That I can do.”

Juliette looked at Rebecca, “We’re also offering you a off and on job designing outfits for us to wear when we're not filming.”

“I appreciate the offer, but...” Rebecca shook her head. “I’m no fashion designer. Everything I own is off the rack.”

Megan grinned, “That's not what I heard.”

“You ARE homeschooling with me and Jessica anyway,” Carolyn added, elbowing Rebecca.

“I guess I can try,” Rebecca answered reluctantly.

“Yeah, I’m pretty much the only non connected person here,” Amber laughed.

“Says the girl who got Debby Ryan to sing at her birthday party,” Rebecca teased.

“Hey, I had nothing to do with that. I was as shocked as you guys!” Amber giggled again. “I just meant that Carolyn’s Mom is a director, Rebecca’s does wardrobe and makeup, plus her dad does set design, and Jessica’s like a second gen Disney brat - which I mean in the nicest way possible by the way.”

Juliette laughed at that last part. “Oh, no offense taken. We always joke about being Disney brats, or, what was it Devin used?”

“Disney-boppers,” Megan giggled.

“My Mom is a veterinarian,” Amber said sheepishly. “My Dad’s military.”

“We’ll make sure the sharks don’t get their teeth on you,” Juliette said with an affirming nod. “Since technically you’ll be working for us you’ll have access to Brianna’s managerial services as part of the deal I think?” she asked, looking at Megan, who had just finished licking bean dip off her fingers.

“Yup. Provided her parents agree Brianna will shield her from being sniped by scouts without full contractual disclosure. Like I said you have to call Brianna and get everything straightened out, along with your contracts.”

“Cool. I’ll tell Mum when she gets home this evening,” Amber said.

“Maybe we can get Brianna to draw up something for you to look at and drop it off when we beg her to pick up our sleepwear,” Juliette giggled.

After they all ate Megan sat down in the room Carolyn setup for the interview, Carolyn smiled as she got the camera ready, “Ok so not sure how they do this professionally.” she said nervously.

Amber sat across from Megan, “I paid attention when we visited your mom. You're supposed to count from five, like, ‘in five, four, three’ I think?” she giggled.

“Yeah, but whatever you’re comfortable with works,” Megan said. “The cue-in is as much for the person doing the editing, so they know when to start the cut, as it is for us to know when to start talking.”

“Why mess with what works?” Carolyn answered. “Alright, lighting looks good, camera’s ready,” she said as she made one last quick adjustment to her digital SLR camera. “This thing only shoots 1080p, but I don’t think that matters,” she said, winking. “We’re rolling in five, four, three...”

Amber smiled brightly at the camera. “Hi everyone out there, thanks for joining me on a special live Vlog! Today we have a special guest, you might know him - or rather her, from My Brother Mark!”

Megan smiled and waved, “Hey everyone. If you don’t recognize me, that’s okay too,” she laughed a bit. She had worn a nice, navy sweater with a khaki skirt in order to present a professional appearance for the cameras, though she had on a casual t-shirt underneath so she could take off said sweater and actually be comfortable once it was over.

“I have some questions here that I wanted to ask you, then after, we’ll take some questions from the viewers.”

“Sure. I bet everyone’s got a lot of questions, not the least of which ‘Who are you and what have you done with the weirdo with the frazzy hair,” Megan giggled. Carolyn quickly jotted something down on paper, ‘Current view count 5,000.’ and held it up.

“Ok first question, this is a standard one, but it should help clear some things up, What was your character on My Brother Mark, and what did you find fun about playing that character?”

“Well, I played Mark Mason, Michelle’s annoying, borderline evil brother,” Megan giggled. “I loved playing Mark because I got to ad lib a lot of my lines. Sometimes I’d try something crazy like spraying silly string in Michelle’s hair, and we’d end up keeping it because the Director was laughing too hard to yell ‘cut’.”

Amber laughed softly, “Sounds like you guys had a lot of fun on the show. “ she paused as Carolyn held up another sign saying 15k viewers, “For all of you just joining us, We’ve got the actor behind Mark, from My Brother Mark with us. My second question is Are you dressed like this for an upcoming movie?”

“There’s no easy way to answer that one I’m afraid. Yes, this began as preparation for a big movie role - Snowballed, the Samantha Snow story, but it’s much more than that. I’ve realized something that my co-stars knew all along, ever since the episode, “The Substitute”, where I famously spent the whole episode as Juliette’s character, Michelle.”

Amber asked several more questions which Megan answered truthfully, during those questions their viewer count rose to 1.5million which was way more than any blog that Amber had ever done before. Finally, Carolyn handed Rebecca a stack of index cards. Rebecca passed them to Juliette, who stepped on camera.

“Hey guys,” she said, waving as she sat down next to Megan, handing the cards to Amber. Megan grinned.

“I was wondering when you were going to get your butt over here,” she teased. Juliette laughed.

“I wanted to let everyone get to know the real you first,” she answered, grinning.

“First question, from Angel359,” Amber began, “Is this for real or just a publicity stunt?”

“This is 100% real.” Megan stated, “Just today I began hormone replacement therapy so I can go through puberty like any other girl.”

“Next question is from Missy from L.A., and she asks are you going to continue to make movies after you transition?” Carolyn held up another sign, ‘3 million viewers.’

“Yes, actually. I didn’t think to bring this up before, but I’m in big screen action feature that some of you might have heard of, called Dark Days. I don’t want to give away the plot of this one, but I play the young version of the main character, and Juliette and I have also been approached about voices for the new Pixar’s Brave sequel, so I’m definitely going to continue with my career. I’ll just be doing it as myself, instead of pretending to be a boy.”

“Justin in New York New York asks, I have a signed picture of Juliette and Mark, is there any way I can get a refund and get a picture of the hottie Megan and Juliette?”

Megan laughed softly. “Sure. Just send an email to MJ Productions at gmail dot AU with your contact information and we’ll send a new one out. That goes for anyone who’s interested, by the way. I know my manager’s going to kill me, but Juliette and I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you our fans, so we set up a special contact email outside official channels for you to use.”

“Two more questions and we’ll be out of time folks.” Amber said, “Second to last question, from Sabrina Moses in Sydney.” she paused, “Would you and Juliette like to make a guest appearance on my new Disney show?” Carolyn held up a sign with the number 25, underlined three times, and ‘million’ written after it, her jaw hanging wide open.

Megan smiled brightly, “We would love to! We’ll have our manager get in touch with the studio and see if we can work something out. Thanks so much for the offer,” she said cheerfully.

Amber smiled brightly, “Folks we just broke a record here at Something Special. We have let me make sure I got this right.” she turned to Carolyn, “25 million viewers right now?”

Rebecca slipped up behind Carolyn and gave her a gentle nudge, causing her to step forward in front of the camera involuntarily. “30 million and climbing,” she said nervously as she tried to scurry back off-screen.

“Everyone this is my camera woman Carolyn. She’s the magic behind the show.” Amber said, trying not to giggle. “Ok so we have one last question for Megan.” She flipped the card so she could read it, “This is from several people asking similar questions, “What is the name of your favorite stuffed teddy bear?” she giggled softly.

“Believe it or not, I actually don’t have any stuffed animals. I was so into pretending to be a boy for so long that I never really let myself give in to being a girl, except for when I was playing Michelle on-camera. But the very first one I collect, I’m going to name ‘Princess’ because joining Disney was a dream come true for me, and I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the Disney Princess movies,” she giggled.

“Ok folks you heard it, time to start sending Megan stuffed animals!” Amber giggled. “Maybe after she gets a few she can re answer that question for you all. That’s it for now everyone, I hope you all enjoyed having Megan here as much as I did! And remember, she has another interview with Disney 365 tomorrow!” she waved to the camera which Megan joined in. Rebecca pulled both Carolyn and Juliette into frame so they could wave as well.

Carolyn smiled and said as she turned the camera off, “And that’s a wrap.”

“Oh my God,” Rebecca whispered. She looked positively stunned now as she looked at Amber’s open laptop that Carolyn had been using to monitor views.

“You got an email from our vlog host the moment we hit 20 million viewers.” Carolyn told Amber.

“That’s not all,” Rebecca said. “Look at the final view count. You hit 38 million total.”

“That’s just crazy.” Amber said, shocked.

“Considering my live streams for video games get maybe 300 views, and my youtube channel has 17,000 subscribers,” Carolyn said with disbelief. “Jesus bloody Christ.”

“What’s the email say?” Amber asked.

“It was a congratulations letter for getting a massively high hit count and that they apologize the stream may have cut for a second due to traffic load.” Carolyn giggled as she read it, and Megan’s phone rang.

Megan answered her phone, “Sorry I’m not in right now, I’m helping my friends pick their jaws off the floor, please leave your name and number and I’ll get right back to you.”

Brianna laughed. “You’d better be in if you want an interview with the BBC,” she teased.

“The BBC?” Megan said out loud.

“And CNN, and just about every news agency in Australia,” Brianna laughed again. “My phone’s ringing off the proverbial hook, and my inbox is being flooded.”

“I’ll give the BBC exclusive.” Megan stated, “But only on one condition.”

“Believe me, you’re in a position to name any conditions you want. I’m pretty sure you could get the prime minister jello wrestling a bear in the background right now.”

“I want Juliette, Amber and Carolyn to be there at the interview stand with me.” Megan stated. “And we want a bowl of red m&m’s.” she teased.

“But every fifth one should be blue!” Juliette added as Amber’s phone started ringing as well, and then Carolyn’s, and Rebecca’s.

“You got it,” Brianna laughed. “Anything else?”

“Heck let’s make this really hard for them, instead of Red M&M’s with every 5th blue, lets make it Breast Cancer Pink M&M’s a whole bowl of those, to be passed around the audience.”

“Ohh, that’s a great idea!” Brianna answered excitedly. “Do you want to accept any newspaper interviews or should I tell them no comment for now?”

“For now, we’ll just do the BBC interview, the rest of them can wait, Juliette and I have a busy schedule to keep.” Megan said, grinning at Juliette..

“That’s true, especially now that they want to make Young Alessa a more prominent character.”

“We’ve also got to start prepping for Snowballed too.” Juliette piped in.

“That was the major condition of Megan’s involvement with Dark Days - that it not interfere with the other project, as per Megan’s request. The director’s thrilled she’s even considering doing more work with the movie, and Laura’s over the moon,” Brianna laughed.

“Hey Brianna, can you bring Amber and Carolyn’s contract over as well as some sleep gear for Juliette and I please? We’re still trying to talk Rebecca into being our wardrobe consultant.”

“Sure thing. Anything in particular or first thing I see?”

Juliette grinned, “The matching silk set.”

“Gotcha,” Brianna chuckled. “Oh by the way your Mom texted me during the interview, and told me to tell you you handled yourself incredibly well, and she’s extremely proud, but didn’t want to say so directly and interrupt it.”

Carolyn laughed as she hung up the phone with her mom, “She sent a question in, we’ll use it for the next interview.”

“There were a lot of general comments mixed in too,” Rebecca said. “Our mods got to the bad ones, but not before they got verbally thrashed by everyone else. I love this one though,” she said, and cleared her throat. “I just wanted to say you’re a real inspiration. I’m going to talk to my parents about my GID, and use this interview to help them understand. Thank you so much.”

“Awwww.” Megan said. “I’m glad I can inspire people. Oh if you can get her username and email I want to send her a personal signed picture of me with a stuffed bear the first one someone sends me.” she turned and glared at Amber, and then giggled.

Amber grinned innocently. “What?” she said, pointing at Rebecca. “It was her question too!”

Rebecca giggled, “I posted where they can send the teddy bears too, in care of Megan Stuart via the studio.”

“We’re going to need a bigger bungalow,” Juliette laughed.

“Actually I wanted to ask you two a question, but I wanted to ask in private if that’s alright?” Brianna spoke up.

“Oh! Sorry Brianna, I forgot you were still on the line,” Megan said sheepishly as she grabbed Juliette’s hand and stepped out of the room with her. “We’re in the kitchen,” she said as they reentered the kitchen, a few rooms away.

“Ok, your mom faxed me your financials earlier today, and wanted to know if you both wanted to make Australia your home or were you both planning on moving back to LA?”

“Oh, no way,” Juliette answered first. “I mean Brooklyn will always be where I grew up, and NYC will always be my home away from home, but I think I want to move here and become a dual citizen like Megan.”

“Ok. Clear your schedules for tomorrow afternoon and I’ll come pick you both up personally after you have lunch.”

“And the 365 interview,” Megan added. “But that’s going to be like, ten minutes of work tops so they can cut it down into manageable sound bytes.”

“Actually they texted me, and want to push it back till monday.” Brianna stated, “They said that there was no way they could top this interview and needed some time to get ready for you.”

Megan laughed. “More like Disney HQ need time to prep the legal team to make sure I’m not going to embarrass them.”

“You said it I didn’t.” Brianna laughed. “Anyway tomorrow about 12:30 ok? If you need me, I’ll be available on Tina’s phone because mine will start ringing again the second we hang up.”

“Don’t you just love us?” Juliette giggled.

Brianna laughed again. “I really do. You two are like little sisters to me.”

As they hung up the phone, Jessica stepped through the kitchen doorway. She looked exhausted, but she was grinning practically from ear to ear. “I knew you were up to something,” she said, giggling.

“We heard they’re getting the legal team fired up.” Megan sighed.

“For what it’s worth, my producers are scrambling to try and figure out what strings they can pull to get you back on contract. You can’t buy this kind of publicity.” She paused and gave them both a hug. “I know this isn’t why you’re doing this - for publicity - but you have a lot of friends in your corner behind the scenes. You should have seen Sabrina’s face when Amber read her question,” she giggled.

“It’s all about the fans.” Megan did a dramatic pose and fanned herself. “It really is though,” she said more seriously. “And I meant what I said, we’d love to be on her new show as guests.” Megan’s phone beeped again, this time with a text message. “Ugh. Sorry, I swear I’m going to turn this thing off,” she groaned as she looked at it. Her eyes widened. “Oh my God.”

“What?” Juliette asked, looking at Megan’s phone. “Oh my God,” she repeated.

“What?” Jessica laughed.

“Laverne freaking Cox just texted me,” Megan squeaked. “Well it’s a forwarded text from Brianna, but still!”

“Oh wow, what did she say?” Jessica moved closer. “You go grrl, hope to see u stateside for TCA & Oscars. Wow.”

“Jess! Jess Jess Jess Jess Jess!” Carolyn bubbled as the three of them rejoined the others still reeling from the show’s success. “Holy crap 38million viewers.”

“Congrats guys,” Jessica laughed. “You’re all officially viral and way bigger than me to boot,” she added teasingly.

“Sure, but we won’t forget the little people like you megastars that made this possible,” Amber shot back dryly, unable to keep a straight face. “Oh my God though. I think I’m going to lose my tacos. I can’t believe this is real.”

Carolyn shook her head. “I just wish Rebecca hadn’t nudged me on camera. 38 million plus people saw me looking bloody foolish.”

Megan shook her head. “I think it added a nice touch, and you did a really good job.”

“It’s like I always say,” Jessica said as she wrapped an arm around Carolyn, “You don’t have to think about who might be watching somewhere else. You just have to think about who’s watching you now. Trust me, if I thought about how many people see my show every week, I’d never crawl out from under my covers in the morning.”

Carolyn blinked, looking at Jessica. “No way. You’re not shy. I’ve seen you give public speeches at big local award ceremonies before.”

Jessica laughed. “Yes, but I didn’t have my contacts in either. It’s harder to be terrified of big amorphous blobs.”

Juliette nodded. “I’ve never had to give any speeches yet, but like Jessica said, I forget about who’s on the other side of the camera and just go with the flow.”

“See, it’s not about being fearless,” Jessica giggled. “It’s about finding ways to trick yourself into forgetting about it - or just plain cheating and not wearing your contacts,” she teased.

“Sorry about the 365 interview.” Juliette sighed, “Megan was really looking forward to it, and so was I. We were going to do another joint thing.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Jessica said, shaking her head. “Lynn, my senior producer said they’re doing the standard precautionary circling of the lawyers because of stunts like Miley and her stripper pole dance when she was still under contract. The interviewer's going ahead whether they like it or not.”

“Okay guys,” Rebecca said as she held up her phone and turned it off. “Let’s party. A little bird told me these two have never had a real slumber party, and we need to fix that.”

Megan, Juliette, Amber, even Jessica took out their phones and shut them off ceremoniously, putting them on the kitchen counter.

“But first,” Jessica said, “I want some tacos too!”