That afternoon, Mackenzie was in her last period class, Chorus, singing scales and letting her mind wander. She wasn't a world class singer, but she had a nice voice, and growing up with her musically inclined dad, she knew how to use it fairly well. Although, given her dad's career, she was all to aware that she didn't measure up to the professional singers he worked with, and she wasn't one for delusions of grandeur. That said, when she was feeling introspective, she sometimes wondered if the fact that her parents were both at the top of their fields, held her back from really throwing herself into either the arts or athletics, for fear of coming up short. If she never really tried that hard, it didn't hurt not to be the best.
'That isn't totally fair' she chastised herself while demonstrating her soprano for Mrs. Riley, 'I try plenty at stuff like school, I'm just not leaping at the chance to go into music, or snowboarding and get compared to mum and dad nonstop'. It wasn't like she steered clear of the two fields entirely; she was an avid amateur boarder, and quite good for her age, and of course she took Chorus and had even been in a garage band before it broke up, after Joey cheated on her and she was more keen on hitting him over the head with her bass than playing it. Overall she was caught in the indecision that came from having too many options, too many ways her life could go.
A wry grin crossed her face as the teacher assigned her to a position, and began listening to the next student. If she took a step back, it was a really nice problem to have. Jon hadn't known what to do with his life because he was kind of average at everything; being unsure of what to do because you had multiple talents was really a rather privileged issue to have in comparison. At the moment she was just a little shocked by how moment by moment she was sinking deeper into her new identity; Mackenzie's problems and worries felt like hers, while Jon's were like a distant dream or something she'd heard second hand.
Then again, based on today, it looked like she might have a future in acting, based on how her first meeting with Sarah had gone. Her whole performance at lunch had been a gift of sorts to Dr. Ellis, attempting to show her gratitude for what he'd done for her by giving him the rivalry he wanted on a silver platter. She used what she knew from her Jon memories, and knowledge from outside the show, to slyly but intentionally get under the blonde girl's skin. She hadn't even needed to act that out of character to accomplish it, starting with a minor brush off when Sarah arrived, and following it up by some innocent one upping. Granted, she normally didn't go around bragging about her parents, but she didn't exactly hide her lineage either. The biggest things she'd done that was out of the ordinary for her was show the picture of her with a famous band, knowing it would likely drive Sarah a bit batty. (It wasn't like she was friends with all the people her dad worked with, or like she was there with him in the studio all the time, but he did like to invite her along when he was working with artists he knew she was a fan of.)
The cherry on top had probably been towards the end of the lunch period, when she'd casually mentioned they didn't have Homecoming in Australia, and it might be fun to throw her hat in the ring for Queen. She'd said it in a very offhand way, not committing in any way, but she swore Sarah was going to blast her with laser vision from how fiercely she glared. To be fair to the cheerleader, Mackenzie had made that remark specifically to razz her, both by expressing interest in competing with Sarah, and by treating something Sarah was very dedicated to like it wasn't a big deal. Overall Mackenzie was hopeful she'd given the showrunners something like what they'd had in mind.
She didn't want to be Sarah's enemy long term; for one that seemed exhausting and way more drama than she wanted in her life. In general Mackenzie liked for things to be chill, and an ongoing war with Sarah seemed like a bad way to accomplish that. Additionally, she kinda liked Sarah, or at least respected her. Karyn didn't talk about her old friend a lot, but what she had told Jon, along with the bits she'd overheard from the programmers, painted the picture of a girl under a lot of pressure. She also half suspected that a certain amount of Sarah's current abrasive behavior was engineered, or at least influenced by Dr. Ellis and his team; she was extrapolating that from their mentions of an engineered split between Karyn and Sarah, and a planned reconciliation. In any event, Sarah didn't seem so bad if she was on your side, so Mackenzie was pretty sure that's eventually where she wanted to be.
However, she couldn't start that way, and she didn't want to be a lackey either. She'd give Sarah a run for her money, and then see where things shook out after Homecoming. As the bell rang, signalling the end of school, she shook thoughts of the blonde star of the show out of her head and instead pulled out her phone to do what she'd been waiting to do all afternoon.
TO KIMBERLY: Hey, it's Mackenzie <3! From Psychology. Ya know, in case you met a bunch of Mackenzies today. I was the Australian one, if that helps.
FROM KIMBERLY: Oh, you mean the cute Mackenzie?
Mackenzie nearly squealed in excitement as she read the text, before mounting her bike to head home and decompress from her first day of school in America.
