Mainly concerning the scam from Linda and Gerald, where he quite literally acts as the assistant to some big Broadway casting director, having a little summer vacation in this quaint town for the Honey Festival as he ums and ahs over which girl to cast as his leading lady.

Gerald is full of charm. He’s obviously buttering up and selling the act, that’s still the same, but the comments have specifically more weight to Angela!Zoey then they do in canon because of the change in casting and its implications. It’s semi-believable in canon, when you look at all these stories of mezzos being picked out of the middle of nowhere after some college performance or a cover on YouTube; like Mariah was by the Broadway Tour of Mean Girls. But here it would be entirely choreographed to Angela!Zoey.

“We’re going through the audition tapes but we can’t seem to find the right girl for the lead of this new Broadway show. They send us all these sopranos and mezzos, but what we really need is.. an alto. Someone who can sing nice and low for hours on end. If only the right girl would just appear, we’d snatch her up and take her away from all this. … Haha, thanks! You’ve been really helpful. You’re a pleasure to work with - and you’ve got a great look!”

They want an alto. It’s just swapping out the mezzo part form the original. But it means more. People don’t hunt down an altos. If they cast one it’s one of the big already known ones or they just cast a mezzo/soprano and have them sing up. This Broadway casting director though seems to specifically not want that.

The compliment to her working abilities and her appearance is the same, but again means more. It’s always the ones more stereotypically feminine and pretty that get cast. With long hair and long legs, a clear figure. Angela!Zoey does her best to appeal without fully bending to the system, but she does lose some of what would make her appealing to casting subsequently. She’s too butch or masculine looking to make it. Only to be told she has a great look by some Broadway bigwig.

So when given the chance, she performs for hours and hours. Putting every skill and asset at her disposal to prove herself, that she is certainly capable and certainly better than any of the sopranos/mezzos they have there on tape.

“Mr. Broadly was very impressed. Weren’t you, Mr. Broadly? … You may be getting a call from us very soon. … Aw, no. We’re casting directors. We’ll find you.”

She’s assured she did well and that there might be a part for her. They think she’s what they’re looking for. She might make it to Broadway after all!

More than that, they are going to find her. All this time she’s been trying to put herself out there, to be seen. And when given the opportunity, she doesn’t even have to do that. They are here to see and find her. They essentially already have.

Honey Queen isn’t even a thought she has in this moment. She has secured her dream completely on her own. She didn’t need the trending title of Honey Queen or the adoring people of Hatchetfield or the powerful men that sat there as the judging panel she seduced. She did it. Her. There was no other women in the way to compete with, to fight for the spot. There was no men pulling strings to someone prettier or higher or more feminine to their ideal.

For once, an alto, she’s seemingly been given that equal footing.

“Make some good tips last night? … And did you impress Mr. Broadly? … Because I sent him, genius. His assistant you talked to? That was my husband.”

It was a weird thing for Linda to do given their back and forth, but fine. Whatever.

The most important thing on her mind isn’t the why or Linda’s level of involvement or what it means for the competition they are both currently in, it is simply the question of did she get that part.

It’s been possibly a whole day or coming close to it and she’s not received the call she was promised. Sure, calls don’t happen that quickly. And if he’s here on holding for the Honey Festival, the day of the Honey Queen Pageant itself, he is surely busy doing other things. But then that is what his assistant, Linda’s husband, is presumably for.

With this turn of events, maybe she’s not even getting a call. Maybe she’s going to be one of those people who get told in person - those people they just give the job to right on the spot. Maybe it’s going to be announced onstage, right there on live television, so everyone will know the name of Zoey Chambers. A star from nowhere, a hidden treasure uncovered, about to be whisked off to Broadway where she belongs.

“He’s not a casting director, you idiot! I played you! I bought your precious, little voice for 560 bucks. See? Told you you were cheap.”

It’s not real.

Of course it’s not.

She thought this time was different. Why did she think it would be different? It’s never, ever like that for altos! Sorry, I couldn’t help myself for the All You Wanna Do reference. Of course it’s not fucking real, how deluded was she to believe that an alto would ever get such a chance? That she would get the chance?

She isn’t like her brother or Linda or even fucking Hailey who seemingly has the whole world at their feet. The theatre world nonetheless. The dream she wants more than anyone, has worked harder than any of them, is never coming to her. But if any of them simply decided to take it, they absolutely could. There would be thousands and thousands of opportunities for them, and she will still be stuck here.

There isn’t even Honey Queen to fall back on now. She’s exhausted after yesterday, body aching and voice long gone. After everything she worked for, it is still not enough. She is not enough.

And it was cheap.

It’s a cutting edge, but anyone else would have made more. Their voices would have been worth more. When you think of all those sold out shows and concerts and tours. People pay above and beyond for sopranos and mezzos and tenors and baritones and basses. People pay ludicrous amount of moneys for celebrities that are cast in shit nowadays and a lot of them couldn’t sing a single note at all, a lot of them don’t deserve to be on such a stage. She didn’t even break a thousand. With that much money, you could only buy a couple shitty seats in Broadway theatre. She didn’t even lose her voice in front of a crowd, it was a conman and some homeless person and the rogue customer that just happened in for a fucking coffee.

But hey, at least she has the community of her theatre group and local artists that are equally stuck here to fall back on—

“I betrayed you? Zoey. Workin’ Girls? I don’t think so.”

Son of a bitch.

This is cutting enough anyways and of course Hidgens means it wouldn’t work in a solely misogynistic “only men could” way. But there’s the added implication of the fact it was an alto that could have been the lead.

Oh. Zoey. It never would when worked. There are no musicals with an alto lead. Who would ever want to see that?

It never would have worked with her in it as the lead.

There was a “juicy supporting role” that she might be right for. Because that’s all alto parts ever are.

She’s doomed to be stuck here forever. She will live and die here. Nothing and no one.

Phone shattered. All those photos and memories just gone in the blink of an eye, and no one cares.

Something has got to change.

With desperation and determination, she picks herself off the dressing room floor. Resolved. She isn’t going to just stand around while all the people around her get the world handed to them. She isn’t just going to accept it because she’s told that she should, that’s the way the world is; altos aren’t allowed to take centre stage and leading parts. So, for once, she is going to take that from somebody else’s hands.

What will it matter? Linda is only one soprano, there are thousands of others just like her. Rich and powerful, that don’t need or deserve these things, that have loving partners who don’t cheat them, things that already make their lives complete like kids who adore them, as pretty as any doll. Striking red hair and bright eyes.

She goes after her, finally, literally, chasing down what she wants. The life she wants.

She finally, literally, has someone else under her foot. The way she has been treated for so long. And a glorious future just up ahead. She’s going to win Honey Queen and she’s going straight to Broadway. Up there in lights, she’ll be.

“Yes, Zoey, you’re a star on the rise.”

The rope pulls taut on her neck.