I'm Glad My Mom Died

Since the Winn-Dixie rejection, Jennette has worn the same outfit to each audition, an outfit that she finds embarrassing and unfamiliar. Her mother insists she wears it to an audition for a guest role as a hermaphrodite on Grey’s Anatomy. When Jennette is at the audition, they ask her to read her lines again, but in more androgynous clothing. She borrows a flannel shirt from an assistant for the rest of her audition. On the drive back to Garden Grove, Jennette’s mother receives a call that Jennette did not get the part. At first, she is upset, until she learns that the casting director thought that Jennette was too pretty. Despite being rejected, Jennette notices that her mother does not cry: “I’ve never seen Mom be happy I didn’t get a role, ever…but I’ve also never been too pretty for a role, ever. And now I am” (103).

Jennette, pretending to be asleep, overhears her grandfather tell Jennette’s mother that he thinks Jennette has OCD. He points out all the rituals that Jennette performs, and how seriously she takes them. Despite this, Jennette’s mother insists that Jennette is perfect, and does not need to see a doctor. Jennette wonders why her grandfather didn’t just ask her about her rituals, so she could have explained that it is the Holy Ghost, not OCD. To be sure, she asks the Holy Ghost in her head if He is real, or if He is OCD. He reassures her that He is real. The voice instructs her to do more rituals, and Jennette secretly wishes He wasn’t so loud.

Jennette practices an intense, emotional scene with her mother, violently thrashing and screaming in her bed to the point of bruising herself. Astonished, her mother asks how she learned to do that; Jennette does not tell her mother that she learned it from watching her over the years. Jennette’s mother is impressed and tells her to “save that magic” (108) for the audition the next day. When they arrive at the audition, Jennette’s mother attempts to park closer to the set, in a parking lot they are barred from. She is allowed in by a security guard after she gives her speech about surviving cancer, embarrassing Jennette. Waiting for her audition, Jennette is nervous, but her mother calms her down. She has always been able to affect Jennette’s moods: “Just as she can set my body on edge and make me rigid with fear or anxiety, she can also calm me down. She has that kind of power. I wish she’d use it this way more often” (109). The audition goes well, and at her callback the next day, she gives an intense performance. She feels like she has been wanting to let this out for a long time. The adults start clapping, and Jennette thinks about how nice it is to feel good at something.

Jennette and her mother stand over a video editor as he puts together a demo reel for her. The demo reel is meant to showcase her on-screen performances. Jennette’s mother is hoping to use the demo reel to get Susan Curtis, a talent manager, to represent Jennette. When Susan Curtis accepts Jennette as a client, Jennette’s mother excitedly asks just how much more Jennette would have impressed her with the callback performance. Jennette internalizes this and feels that she ultimately failed her mother.

Jennette’s mother forces her to chug a Gatorade as Jennette heads into an audition with a 103-degree fever. Despite Jennette’s illness, her mother does not want her to miss her first audition under new management. The audition is at Universal Studios, which is Jennette’s favorite place to audition. The role is for a homeless girl on a serial crime show. Despite feeling extremely sick, Jennette auditions and gets a callback for the next day. Jennette makes it all the way to a fourth audition for the role, and she almost wishes she were still sick because she felt less nervous when she was sick. Still, she gets the role, and the director says that he thinks Jennette will make it in the industry. Jennette’s mother is elated, and yells as she jumps up and down: “My baby’s homeless! My baby’s got edge! My baby’s homeless!” (117).