by Leah Stewart
“I’m really sorry,” Josie said. She was absent of jealousy, no part of her wanting to point out how much she’d like to be where Cecelia is right now. She understood—and understands—what a blow this is, not to get the part that spoke to you, the part that felt like the vehicle for expressing the full range of your capabilities. Yes, Cecelia is in a privileged position as an actor with steady, high-paying work. But we know from Michael Chekhov that the actor’s nature longs for transformation. Cecelia has been Agent Corbett for years.
“I was right for that part,” Cecelia said. “She’s younger and thinner. You think this time it’s not going to go that way and then it goes that way. I’m just mad at myself. I shouldn’t have let myself get excited about it.”
Cecelia said this with tears in her eyes, and Josie scooted closer on the bench to put her arm around her. “I don’t know how you could’ve helped it,” Josie said.
Could she have helped it? Can Josie stop herself from feeling what she feels right now, which is a potent and unpleasant combination of nerves and self-loathing and hope? Hope is the irreducible ingredient. You can’t get rid of the hope. Actors and gamblers are in thrall to the same irresistible fact: There’s always a chance you’ll win.
The second actress disappears, and now Josie sits on the bench alone. “You know what? I’ve got some pineapple soda,” Josie murmurs. She says it lasciviously, then coyly, then with blunt aggression. Should she try impatiently? Angrily? Apologetically? It’s hard to deliver a line when you don’t know what the fuck it means.
Josie’s phone ticks down toward her test—she clocked the time between the first woman’s departure and the second’s so she’d know how long she had to wait. Five minutes before she expects the casting assistant, Josie’s phone rings. Now is not a good time to answer, but when she looks at the screen, she sees a 513 area code. She doesn’t recognize the number, but 513 is Cincinnati, which is where Charlie’s from. Is it possible he’s gone home and is calling her from an unknown number?
When she answers, a woman’s voice says, “Josie. Allison Outlaw here.”
Charlie’s mother always announces herself to Josie, and almost everyone else, with her full name. Charlie jokes that it’s a habit so ingrained she does it with her kids as well. Josie knows that’s not true. To her kids, she says, “Hi, sweetie, it’s Mom.” Josie once expressed surprise to Charlie that a woman like Allison had taken her husband’s name. “Oh. Yeah,” Charlie said. “She said she couldn’t resist becoming an outlaw.”
“Hi, Allison.” Josie has gone very still. She feels a perfect crystalline terror, a certainty that Charlie has died.
“I still have a Google alert on your name,” Allison says.
The statement takes a moment to absorb. Then Josie breathes. “Oh.”
“Are you pregnant?”
Allison is never one to waste time. She probably has ten free minutes between a conference call and a meeting. She probably has CALL JOSIE in this block on her calendar. Allison has always been nice to Josie, but her businesslike certitude has the effect of making her feel like a small, faintly ridiculous child. “Yes,” Josie says.
“Is the baby my son’s? Or this, uh . . .”—Josie can picture Allison leaning into her computer screen, squinting at whatever she finds there—“ . . . Max person.”
“It’s Charlie’s.”
“Does Charlie know about it?”
“Not yet.”
“All right, here’s the thing. Charlie is out of the country, I don’t know if you know that.”
Beneath her wary numbness, Josie feels the stirrings of relief. “I haven’t been able to get in touch with him.”
“Well, that’s why. He said he was going to turn off his phone, that he wanted to go dark. He said he was going to hike and camp and be alone in the wilderness.”
“Oh, that’s why. That’s why.”
“Yes, so that means he won’t have seen this, which I think we can both be grateful for. But I don’t want him to find out this way, Josie, if that’s all right with you.”
“Of course.”
“I don’t know if you know how broken up he’s been, but I don’t want him to go through thinking that this baby is another man’s. He said that this ‘going dark’ was about that ridiculous kerfuffle over the article but, of course, it’s also about you. He loves you, and you’re right to be angry, but I’m his mother and I can’t help but tell you that he’s terribly sorry.”
Kerfuffle, Josie thinks. She wonders if that’s on Jamal’s list of criminally neglected words. He loves me, she thinks. He hasn’t been in touch because he went dark, not because he doesn’t want me anymore. Is it safe to believe that Allison is right? Allison is always so sure. “You know I didn’t break up with him because of Max.”
“It’s all right, sweetie. You don’t have to tell me anything. I know I’m intruding on your personal life. I just wanted to let you know where he is because I thought you might want to get in touch with him and tell him what’s going on; I’m sure you’ve been trying to reach him.”
“I have been trying.”
“Well, of course. Of course. He’s on an island I’ve never heard of, and he’s rented a place. So all I’ve got is an address and the number for the management company. Do you have a pen? Never mind, I’ll text it to you. I don’t actually know if you can get him this way or not, but it’s all I’ve got.”
As soon as the text appears on her screen, Josie calls the number. She’s conscious that at any moment the casting assistant will reappear, and the ticking clock and the nervous anticipation combine to make her feel overheated and tremulous. The phone rings fourteen times and every time she endures another tiny cycle of hope and despair. Even though she knows it won’t be Charlie who answers! Pull yourself together, Josie. Someone picks up at last, a man, crisp and irritable.
“I’m looking for one of your guests,” Josie says, pressing her hand to her stupid heart. “I hoped you could tell me the number where he’s staying.”
A pause. A heavily accented “Sorry?”
Josie repeats herself. “Charlie Outlaw,” she adds.
She hears the sound of a tongue clucking in sympathy or irritation. “No English,” the man says. “Sorry.” And then he hangs up.
“Shit,” Josie says. She sees the casting assistant approaching, but he’s well across the room, and she doesn’t care; she calls Allison back before he can get close enough to stop her. Allison picks up immediately and says her own name, of course, and Josie offers up what just happened to her crisp certainty.
“Well, that’s a setback,” Allison says.
The casting assistant has reached her. He waits with a nervous, impatient smile. “What should I do?” Josie asks.
“Josie, sweetie,” Allison says, in a tone that manages to be both exasperated and sympathetic at once. “You’re a grown-up. You decide.”
“Miss Lamar?” the casting assistant prompts. He pronounces it LAY-mar.
Josie gets off the phone and follows him like she’s supposed to. Is that what she should do?
The casting assistant asks, “Is it LAY-mar? Or La-MAR.”
“La-MAR.”
“Lamar, Lamar, Lamar,” he mutters. He’s about to lead her into the room when she remembers the puzzling line.
“Wait,” she says. “Can you tell me what this means?” She shows him on the page.
“Oh, that,” he says. “The writer’s got it wrong; it’s supposed to be pineapple juice.”
“I still don’t get it.”
“Pineapple juice is supposed to make a man’s semen taste better.” The casting assistant turns a faint pink as Josie stares at him. “It’s a blow job joke.”
“Oh.”
“I had to explain it to the other two people, too. It’s kind of embarrassing.”
“At least you don’t have to say it.”<
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He laughs. “That’s true. I’m grateful for that.” He turns toward the door then back again. “La-MAR.” She nods, and as they walk in, he mutters her name once more and then raises his voice to say, “Everyone, here’s Josie Lamar.”
Because she’s a recognizable actress, the ritual demands that she pretend to be friendly, pretend to be comfortable, pretend that she’s not nervous. Even though the casting assistant couldn’t pronounce her name. So she waves, friendly-like, as she makes her way past the suited people to stand in front of the giant TV. “Hey, guys!” She overshoots, the greeting weirdly boisterous. Oh my God, why is she doing this?
“Good to see you, Josie,” says the casting director, a woman named Alma Josie does indeed know, if only slightly. “I’ll be reading with you.”
“Great,” Josie says in a false, bright voice, and then, though she shouldn’t, she adds, “The sides have been changed. So we’ll see how this goes!”
Sometimes during a studio test no one laughs. This doesn’t happen to Josie, which is a blessing. Two or three people in the room are rooting for her and they laugh, looking around to see if anyone joined them. Josie doesn’t notice the looking around. She hears the laughter and is encouraged by it to believe that what she’s doing is not irredeemably awful. A note often given to actors in a comic scene is “speed it up.” Josie herself got this note from the director during her sitcom guest spot. Now she speeds it up without thought, just wanting to get to the end of the damn thing so she can decide what to do.
Then it’s time for the pineapple soda line. Josie looks at it on the page. You know what? I’ve got some pineapple soda. She hears it in her head as if she were going to sing it: I’ve got some pineapple sooo-daaaa. This would be in a musical about blow jobs. Too much silence has happened since Alma read the previous line. No matter what these people think, Josie has good comic timing and knows very well that the rhythm often makes the joke. So it’s too late now, anyway. There is absolutely no point. She looks up from the page to the people. “I’m sorry, I can’t say this. This is a terrible line. I wouldn’t say this.”
“But it’s not you saying it,” Alma explains. “It’s the character saying it.”
Oh, thanks, Alma! Thanks for explaining my job to me. “Yes, but if I were the character, I wouldn’t say this. Not that it matters, because I can’t imagine you have me in mind for this character anyway. I am ten years older than the other two. I’m forty-one and I’ve gained seven pounds and no one thinks of me as funny. I’m not who you cast to be funny.”
“I think you’re funny,” says a dark-haired woman in a suit.
“Thank you. One person thinks I’m funny.”
“Josie—” Alma says.
“Everyone else is horribly uncomfortable.”
“Josie—”
“I’m sorry, Alma. I’ve made everyone uncomfortable. And I don’t even know if I am sorry. I just said that.”
There’s a ripple of nervous laughter.
“Usually in this situation I’m the only one who’s uncomfortable. It’s actually a nice change to have company.”
The scattered laughter is more confident this time. Do they think she’s doing a bit? Part of her wants to disabuse them, to really irrevocably unhinge, to announce that she’s pregnant and can’t find the father because he’s hiding from the internet and meanwhile the father’s mother called to ask if Josie’s been fucking the guy she saw her with on the internet. And how many of you has that happened to? Anyone? Anyone?
These people might already know she’s pregnant. Might know before she’s told Cecelia. Might know before she’s told her mother. She has a chance to keep Charlie from finding out that he’s going to be a father from online gossip. She has a chance to keep him from believing Max is the father, that she’s replaced him with Max. But how is she supposed to reach him? What is she supposed to do?
The woman in the suit, the one who said Josie is funny, is rooting for her to get this job because she loved Alter Ego, and since then, Josie has been criminally underused while that jackass Max Hammons has his own show. He was only good as Malachi because Josie made him good. Josie is one of those performers who can bring up everyone around her, raise the level of the whole production, and she deserves another chance to prove that. The woman feels a helpless frustration now, because it seems like Josie is blowing this audition and she’s not sure she has the guts to advocate for her with these assholes in the face of that, and she really wanted Josie to give her a case to make. God, she hates everyone in this room. What is she doing in this shitty, shitty business? She looks at the despair and confusion on Josie’s face and feels the same emotions.
How does Josie do that? Why can she make you feel what she feels when someone else can’t no matter how many lessons they have? We ask and ask, but do we really want to know? Hard work and good luck can bring admiration, but it’s magic that inspires awe.
When Josie’s expression, her energy, shifts, the woman feels something new—the excitement that comes from watching resolution dawn. Josie’s forehead smooths. Her jaw firms. “You’ve been a great audience,” Josie says. Some people laugh. Some are silent. The woman wonders what everyone else is thinking. For a reason she can’t yet articulate, she thinks maybe Josie hasn’t blown this after all—she was totally right about that line. Josie doesn’t even wait for the casting director to dismiss her with a thanks. She walks out, the woman notes with admiring envy, as if what the people in this room think no longer matters.
What just happened in Josie’s mind? Where is she going? The woman would love to know.
VII.
There are two basic principles involved here, which you can write down if you wish . . . Don’t do anything unless something happens to make you do it. That’s one of them. The second is: What you do doesn’t depend on you; it depends on the other fellow.
—SANFORD MEISNER, Sanford Meisner on Acting
Once again, everyone waits for Mystery. It seems this will be the rhythm of life on this beach, stretching into infinity: days of sameness, a combination of boredom and impatience or hope or frustration or fear, depending on which mind you peer into, and then the sudden enlivenment of a visit from Mystery. Again and again they’ll enact the narrative arc of joining and parting, joyful reunion and sorrowful longing, possibility’s renewal and possibility’s end. Imagine a chart with a flat line that extends and extends before it spikes, like one tracking a heart that beats only every few days, or a very occasional lie.
The kidnappers don’t know any more than Charlie does exactly when Mystery will arrive. She said she’d be back in a few days when she could get the boat, which belongs to her uncle. It never occurs to any of them to worry that she won’t come back at all. Given how dependent they are on her now, the absence of worry says a great deal about their faith in her loyalty. On what have they based this faith? Not much, really, as none of them knows Mystery well. She was Darius’s friend, and she’s not a talker. But she’s given them no reason to doubt her. So far everything she has said she will do she has done. Also there’s an intangible factor, an impression she gives of reliability, of steadiness and duty, an impression doubtless augmented by the fact that she’s always in uniform.
When she comes, she will bring food, news of the outside world, and maybe, if they’re lucky, change. When she comes, Denise needs to put a plan in motion. For that, she needs a plan. Darius’s scheme to use hostages to scuttle the incipient resort died along with Darius. There is only one reason to put yourself to the trouble of keeping and feeding an unwilling guest, and that’s money. This truth has long been Denise’s companion. When Darius recruited her to kidnap people, he gave her the impression that ransom was the goal. That’s why she agreed. Then he started blathering on about demands, a bait and switch she took as a profound betrayal. Perhaps that’s part of what was in her mind when she shot him.
Another way Darius betrayed her:
He knew nothing about the rules of kidnapping. He didn’t know whom to contact, what to request, how negotiation works. Denise had assumed Darius had a plan for all this. That is the only reason she was willing to consider him the leader. Planning, negotiating—these are not Denise’s forte. The fine machinery of interaction not only makes Denise impatient, she can’t even see its workings. Certain subtleties are invisible to her, the way brushstrokes on a painting are invisible to those viewers they don’t interest, to those who stand too far away to see. Her understanding is of the larger mechanics. If you hit someone, it hurts. Darius was supposed to be the brains, but Darius proved useless on all counts. It was like hiring a man to build a house and discovering he hadn’t brought a hammer. No, he had brought a hammer: Denise was the hammer. Darius was supposed to design the house. She’d thought Darius was smart, but in the end he’d proven impulsive, emotional, and weak.
Were Darius alive to hear Denise express these resentments, he would want it noted that he carefully planned how to acquire the hostages and where to take them after acquisition. But even he would have had to admit that he’d had a fairly large blind spot. To overcome his ambivalence about capturing people at gunpoint, he put all his energy into that part of the plan. About the justice and necessity of his demands he’d been utterly certain, and thus it never occurred to him to work out exactly what making those demands would entail. We expect our own righteousness to part the seas.
Denise wants money. She doesn’t know any more than Darius did about the process of demanding and collecting ransom. She has left it to the two boys, who’ve seen a great many American movies, to work it out. Several times in the last three days, since Mystery came and went and Denise opened these discussions, they’ve reenacted a squabble about whether it’s better to call the hostage’s parents or e-mail them. Those movies have them concerned about government technologies tracking them down. They can’t call or e-mail from this beach—there’s no service—so either way Mystery will have to do it. The boys think that Mystery is dumb. Denise disagrees. Mystery is silent and watchful. But she doesn’t bother to correct them. What does she care if they think Mystery is dumb? Denise concerns herself with how much money to demand. It is her sense that all Americans are rich, but this American might perhaps be less rich than most. Another thing to hold against Darius, as if she needed one more: The best he could do was a waiter. Now the best she can hope for is that he’s a waiter with rich parents. She doesn’t know how things work in America. Would rich parents let their son be a waiter? Though Denise wouldn’t admit this, even to herself, she feels some uncertainty about getting the amount right. It seems possible that if you ask for too much they’ll just say no.
