Picture Perfect

by P. G. Kain

  “Hi, Rory,” I say as naturally as possible, ignoring the fact that my hands are in an incredibly unnatural position. He must think I’m practicing to be a trained seal.

  Rory gives me a strange look and says, “I hope I’m not bothering you. Were you . . . uh . . . praying?” The inflection in his voice makes me think he’s not even sure if he has the right word, but seeing me bent over with my hands strangely clasped together, what else would he think?

  “You aren’t bothering me at all.” I quickly pull my hands apart and stuff them in the front pockets of my jeans. I feel the rubbery glue sticking to the inside of my pants, and for a second I wonder how I will ever get them out. “I was just hanging out before my callback.”

  “Cool,” he says, and smiles at me. His smile is a thing of beauty. “What’s your callback for? Is it Happy Family Cruises?”

  “Yeah, it’s over there,” I say before realizing that I should not have said something that needed a gesture to go with it. I sort of use my elbow to indicate the general direction. I’m sure Rory thinks I am having a spasm.

  “That’s so awesome. I just had my callback this morning. I can walk you there.” I pause for a moment; as my hands are permanently attached to my pockets, it makes going from sitting to standing a bit more difficult than I imagined. Somehow I do it without losing my balance, although the possibility of falling over on the sidewalk is not out of the question.

  I follow Rory out of the park, and we start walking toward the casting office. We are walking side by side, so I have to use my peripheral vision to look at him. The thing about Rory is that he always looks the same, like he just stepped off a set. His brown, slightly shaggy hair is always perfect, his slightly tanned skin is always perfect, his just-got-out-of-soccer-practice clothes are always perfect. He has this smile that is dazzling, but he clearly knows how to use it. He’ll look very serious for a few seconds and then all of a sudden laugh at a joke he just made, and there is this explosion of teeth and charm.

  We have been walking for a few blocks when I realize Rory has been doing all the talking. I don’t really mind, because it means I don’t have to talk at all. He’s not grilling me about my feelings about the divorce or asking what I am going to do when my dad moves to California. He’s not ruining this perfectly lovely walk to my callback with a lot of hard questions about my real life, and that’s fine by me.

  We finally get to the building where the callback is, and Rory is still talking. I like to watch the way his lips almost bounce off each other as he talks. Maybe everyone’s lips do this, but on Rory it is particularly charming.

  “Well, this is the place,” he says. I nod but don’t say anything.

  “Hey,” he says, suddenly very excited. “Did you know that they’re gonna shoot the commercial on the actual boat and not on some set?”

  “Really?” I ask, finally uttering a sound.

  “Yeah. It’s going to be docked in the Hudson River at one of those piers on the West Side. Isn’t that cool?”

  “Totally,” I say, wondering when I will move beyond one-word sentences.

  “I guess it’s lucky I got the right callback,” he says, and his usually open smile subtly changes to more of a grin, prompting me to go into full sentences once again.

  “What do you mean, ‘right callback’?” I ask. How can you get a wrong one? I wonder.

  “Well . . .,” he says, turning his face away. “I got called backed for one of the cruise passengers. It would have been weird if I had gotten called back for the brother and you were being called back for the sister . . . because then it would have been weird. . . .”

  “What would have been weird?” I ask, not sure what he is getting at.

  “Well,” he says, looking down at the ground. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Inside my brain I am shouting, Ask! Ask! Ask! but outside I just calmly look at him and say, “What did you want to ask me?” I smile and flip my hair from one shoulder to the other.

  Rory looks up and says, “I wanted to see if you would go with me and a few friends to hear a band in the park on Saturday, and if we were playing brother and sister it would be weird.” He laughs this fun, flirty laugh that shows he is maybe a little bit nervous. “So what do you say? Do you want to go?”

  “YES!” I shout with way way too much enthusiasm. I try to remain calm and cover with a more neutral but affirming, “Sure. That sounds like fun.”

  “Then it’s a date,” he says, and starts walking away. “Oh and break a leg on your callback. It would be awesome if we were both on that big cruise ship.”

  “Thanks,” I say. The sweat from my palms has released my hands from their pocket jails, and I use one to wave good-bye to Rory as he walks away.

  I have a date with Rory. I can’t believe it. I truly can’t believe it. Rory is so perfect. He is more than perfect—he’s totally “camera-ready.” Finally something in my real life doesn’t totally suck. Now if I can just book this Happy Family spot, I’ll have a perfect social life and a perfect family. Granted, one of them is only on TV, but for now that’s as close as I’m going to get.

  I take the elevator up to my callback. I sign in immediately and realize I am actually a few minutes late. Luckily, there are so many people in the waiting room I don’t think anyone really notices. A casting assistant hands me back the size card I filled out at the original audition and says, “We’re typing out today, so don’t leave until I have you checked out.”

  “No problem,” I say. Usually at a callback you go in, get on tape, and leave, but sometimes they want to see how you look with other people, so they might call you in with one person and then try you out with another. You can’t leave until you’re checked out, so it can take a while.

  As I wait to get called in, I look around the room and enjoy the mix of fake and real families. In some cases there is a girl or boy about my age at the callback with his or her real parent. You can spot the real parents right away, because they look like the parents you might see on the street or at the supermarket. They just look normal. The other combination is a commercial mom or dad who is at the callback with one of their real kids. You can spot these parents right away too, as they are perfectly groomed and poised. The moms are pretty and the dads are handsome. Their real kids are bored and unruly, unlike the fake kids who are anxious and preparing. It’s a strange brew.

  “I need the following four people in the studio,” a young casting assistant says, looking down at his clipboard. He reads my name last, and I follow the others into the room. We stand in front of the camera while about half a dozen people sit on the other side of the camera inspecting us. Of course, no one looks directly at us. They all look at the monitor to see how we look on camera. What we look like in person has little to no bearing on the matter. I remember when I first started going out on auditions how weird it was to be standing three feet from someone and have them stare at my image on the screen rather than at me, but I quickly realized how you look on camera is more important than how you really look.

  “Can you line up in this order? Father, mother, son, daughter. Let’s get a clean slate for each of you when I point.”

  The camera lights flash on and the assistant points at the dad, who steps forward and says his name and agency. The assistant shouts, “Profile,” and he turns left and right, showing each side of his face. We each go through the exact same dance, and then we wait. I just stand there and smile and try not to look nervous or bored. I think about Rory, and that makes it easy to smile.

  For the next twenty minutes it’s like a game of human Scrabble, where the tiles are endlessly rearranged. Sometimes I am with the same brother and two different parents or the dad stays the same and the mom and brother change or the whole family changes. Finally the perfect family takes shape. They seem to settle on me as the daughter with the same brother and dad, but they keep changing out the mom until my old friend Ashley Pruitt walks in.

&n
bsp; I mouth a very excited, “Hello!” to her and wave, and she does the same exact thing back to me. I didn’t see her in the waiting area, so I guess she just showed up. She gets in line but grabs my hand and squeezes it before turning toward the camera to slate.

  Once they have all four of us together, everyone behind the camera seems to nod and smile. The director walks up to us and says, “Looks like a happy family to me. You’re all dismissed. Thanks for your time.”

  A happy family indeed.

  CHAPTER 37

  “How do you think you did on the quiz?” Nevin asks as he walks across the courtyard.

  I am still deep in my daydream about Rory and my callback. The very word “quiz” is like having a bucket of fried chicken thrown in your face. I sigh audibly, realizing that once I’m home there’s no way to avoid reality.

  “Nevin,” I say. “Can we not talk about the quiz right now?” I just want to hold on to my daydream a little longer.

  “Sure,” he says, and follows me into the building. “Anyway, I really wanted to ask you something else.”

  “Fine,” I say, “but let me just get upstairs and wash my hands.” They are still a little sticky from the gum situation earlier. Nevin follows me into the apartment, and I go right to the sink to really scrub off the goo. As soon as I get off the last bit, I turn off the water and the phone rings.

  “Do you want me to get it?” Nevin asks.

  “Let me just dry my hands. I’ll do it.” I grab a towel and look at the caller ID. I don’t recognize the number, so I just pick it up and say hello.

  “I’m looking for Professor Herold. Is she available?” a female voice asks.

  “That’s my mom. Can I take a message?”

  “Yes, please. I already left her a voice mail on her cell phone, but please tell her that we had to reschedule her appointment with Ms. Bueno because she was called into court for a case she’s working on. Can I give you the new information?”

  I grab a pen and notepad from the kitchen counter and write down all the information and hang up.

  “I wonder why my mom has an appointment with a lawyer,” I say out loud, forgetting that Nevin is waiting for me.

  “Oh,” he says, and looks down. “I guess it’s . . . the . . .”

  “The what?” I ask. I truly have no idea what he is talking about.

  “Well, it might be your mom’s . . .” He stops midsentence as if he is gathering some courage and then says, “Divorce lawyer.”

  The words pierce my heart.

  “I think I overheard my mom talking to your mom the other day, asking for a recommendation, and Ms. Bueno was my mom’s lawyer so . . .”

  My face turns red and my eyes tear. Of course it’s for the divorce. I’ve done a good job blocking the whole thing from my mind over the past few days. It was one thing to hear my parents say they were getting a divorce. It’s another thing to be taking messages from lawyers who are about to tear my family apart. I pick the piece of paper with the message on it off the counter and start ripping it into little pieces as the tears fall down my face.

  Nevin doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t tell me to stop. He just quietly watches as I turn the information into confetti.

  Finally Nevin says, “I hid car keys.”

  “What?” I ask, wiping the last few tears off my face.

  “I hid car keys. My dad would leave at night to go visit his new girlfriend after they told me about the divorce, and I would hide his keys so he couldn’t leave. It would stop him from leaving that night, but that was about it.”

  I look down at the small pile of confetti and wonder how many notes, legal papers, and letters I would have to tear up to stop this from happening. It would be a mountain.

  “The thing is, I knew it wouldn’t stop the divorce from happening. I mean, who stays married just because they can’t find their keys?” Nevin does his weird snorty laugh, but it doesn’t bother me at all. Instead I actually find it comforting. “I just did it because it felt like something I could do. I bet it felt good tearing up that note.”

  I nod. “It did.” I think I finally get what he’s trying to say. “It felt like I had control for just a few seconds.”

  “Good for you,” he says, and smiles at me. I smile back. Nevin has been the one person I’ve been able to talk to about the whole horrible mess that is my family, and it’s not just the fact that he has been through it that makes him easy to talk to. Being with Nevin feels easy. I don’t have to worry about what I say or how I act. I’m about to thank him for being so understanding when there’s a rapid knock at the door. I give my face a final wipe of my hand so whoever it is won’t know I’ve been crying.

  I open the door and it’s Ginger. “Did he tell you the good news?” she asks, unable to control her excitement.

  “What good news?” I ask.

  “Well, I was about to ask you,” Nevin says. “My dad has rented that house at the Jersey shore that we used to all go to when we were kids. Remember?”

  “Yeah,” I say, thinking about the crazy sand castles we used to build with moats filled with ocean water and spires topped with tiny shells. We went there a couple of times as kids and loved every second of playing in the cool ocean water during the day and playing games on the deck at night.

  “Well, we’re going the week after our summer class gets out. . . .”

  “And my Chinese school,” Ginger adds.

  “Right, and my dad will be there with my stepmom and my stepbrother José, and he said I could invite you and Ginger like when we were kids. Would you like to celebrate the end of class at the beach?”

  “Doesn’t that sound awesome?” Ginger asks.

  A week away from the city relaxing near the ocean and wiggling my toes in the warm sand sounds spectacular. “Actually, it does. It sounds totally awesome,” I say.

  “Thank you so much for inviting us, Nevin,” Ginger says.

  “Thanks, Nevin,” I say, but I hope he knows I’m thanking him for more than just the invitation.

  CHAPTER 38

  “Ginger it’s just a group date,” I say for maybe the hundredth time.

  “All the other words in that statement do not matter one bit. The only word that has any importance is the last one. DATE.”

  “Oh, no,” I say, and flop down on her bed over the layers and layers of clothes I have been trying on all afternoon. “When you say it like that, it makes the butterflies return.” I put my hand over my stomach just to emphasize the strange feeling I have. “Why don’t you come with me?”

  “No way. I know us. You’ll spend the whole time talking to me and never have any time alone with him.”

  “Oh, I guess you’re right,” I say, and grab whatever garment is lying next to me and use it to cover my face.

  “Cassie, you go on bookings where your face is seen by millions of people, and that never makes you nervous.”

  “Yeah, but I’d rather be in front of a million strangers than one boy I actually know and like.” I pull myself off the bed and stand in front of the full-length mirror in Ginger’s room.

  Why in the world is Rory interested in me? I’m not the prettiest girl he sees at auditions, and I’m not the funniest or smartest. I can’t think of a single thing I have done or said around him that makes me very interesting. Mostly when we’re together we’re either auditioning or he’s talking. Maybe just liking him so much is enough for him to like me back.

  “Okay,” Ginger says very seriously. “We only have a little bit of time left before you have to go and meet him.” She grabs the two finalists I’ve brought over from the hook behind her door. “It’s between this . . .” She holds up a bright blue tiered skirt made of a lacy cotton fabric with a matching blue T-shirt that has some sequins decorating the front. I look at the outfit as she holds it in front of my body. It’s exactly the type of thing you should wear on a group date to hear a band with a boy you like. It’s fun and flirty and has a bit of a sophisticated feel to it.

  “Or
this,” Ginger says, and the other candidate appears beneath my neck. It’s a pink floral print dress that is made of a sheer cotton fabric, with tiny straps that tie behind the neck. The hemline is below the knee, and the skirt is full and bouncy.

  “I love this dress,” I tell Ginger, admiring the delicate flowers in the mirror.

  “Finally, you’ll wear the dress,” Ginger says.

  “No!” I say. “I think I’ll wear the skirt and T-shirt.”

  “But you just said you love the dress. And it’s totally you, Cassie.”

  “I know, but . . .” I trail off. I guess I want Rory to see the girl he expects to see tonight. The girl who would get the part playing this girl on TV.

  Ginger takes the dress from me and hands me back the hanger with the T-shirt and skirt. “You know what? You can save this dress for the beach. That skirt will be perfect for walking on the boardwalk because it will catch the breeze, and that color will go great with a tan.”

  I look at the dress and realize she’s right. “I wonder if that place we used to go to as kids that’s kind of fancy is still there. I could wear it there.”

  “Oh, you mean the Starfish Grill. I love that place. Remember when we got our very first Shirley Temples there, but when they made one for Nevin they called it something else?”

  “Oh, yeah. They called it a Roy Rogers,” I say, remembering that evening a few years back when we were still in elementary school.

  “Nevin swore they tasted different even though they were exactly the same.”

  “I remember,” I tell her, and think about how Nevin used to crack us both up back then.

  “You can save that dress for the Starfish Grill. It will be perfect, and I’ll wear my pink maxi dress too.”

  “That’s awesome.” I love when we match clothes. We haven’t done it in years, but it will be fun to go back to it at the beach. “Maybe we can get Nevin to wear one too,” I say, and Ginger laughs her funny little giggle that sounds almost like she’s sneezing.