Seeing Stars

by Diane Hammond

  “Honey, is she yours?” the casting director had asked her.

  “I manage her,” Mimi had lied, and why not? Managers needed no credentials, no certification. All you had to do was say you were a manager to be a manager. Lucy had booked the commercial on the spot.

  “Well, you’ve got a keeper there, but you probably know that already,” the casting director had said, and he was right.

  Susan had been thrilled, and Mimi had kept fifteen percent of everything Lucy earned—the standard manager’s commission—which had turned out to be substantial. It turned out that Mimi had a talent for picking a child with star potential out of any crowd. In her experience, it was a rare parent who turned her away when she approached him or her at a mall or farmers’ market with her card extended—

  MIMI ROBERTS, OWNER

  MIMI ROBERTS TALENT MANAGEMENT

  MANAGING THE CAREERS OF

  SUCCESSFUL YOUNG HOLLYWOOD ACTORS

  —and said, “I couldn’t help noticing your son. Has he ever acted or been in a commercial before?” By the end of the conversation Mimi had an appointment to see the parent and child in her studio. The parent was generally goofy with pride and Mimi had a new client with the looks for commercials, at least, and with a little luck and training, some went on to theatrical roles as well. Her own acting ambitions blew away before the winds of solvency and now, when she read the second character in scripts for her showcasing clients, she made no attempt to act at all, but used as flat a voice as possible, so that even a minimally talented child would shine by comparison.

  But the children got older, whereupon they tended to outgrow their looks or their talent, or Mimi and the parents had a falling out, or the parents got cocky and believed they could manage the child’s career, sending Mimi a terse handwritten note or e-mail informing her that the child would be moving on. A few of the kids went on to hit the big time and most did not; but either way, there were a hundred more waiting for Mimi in the provinces, especially once she started her now-famous boot camps for young actors, housing ten or twelve kids for a ten-day intensive course in auditioning and acting for the camera. And since her specialty was bringing in actors from out of town, the boot camps had inevitably led to longer-term housing for kids whose parents wanted them to stay on, until at any given time she had three or four living under her roof. She used to house boys and girls, but six months ago there had been an incident with Quinn Reilly, her boy resident, so now she housed only girls, and except during boot camps, she had a hard-and-fast cutoff age of thirteen.

  Except, of course, for Allison Addison. Allison was a once-in-a-lifetime find, a child who had the looks, the strength, the talent, and the drive to go all the way to the top. Mimi had discovered her three and a half years ago at a seminar she’d given in Houston as a favor when the talent manager who’d put the event together had come down with the flu. Allison had been sitting in the back of the room, small for her age and delicately, even crushingly, beautiful. Mimi had held her breath all that morning while she taught the kids about slating and believability and cold reads and camera angles, until it was time for each one to receive a script from an actual commercial and be put in front of a video camera. One awful child after another got up to read and Mimi pretended to pay attention, but all she was doing was waiting, teasing herself by keeping Allison for the very end.

  And the girl had stood up and smiled and given her name and read through her script fluently, comfortably, utterly believably, like she’d been born to it. Only then did Mimi exhale, feverishly plotting how she could get this child broken loose to come to LA. The mother had turned out to be a back-combed, skinny-hipped, big-busted, leathery-tanned woman with the eyes of a drinker, whom Mimi felt sure had put the girl in the seminar just to keep her out of the way for the weekend. And she hadn’t been far off the mark in her assessment. When Mimi had taken her aside the woman had drifted all over the place, her attention on the quality of her manicure, the size of her diamond, the smoothness of her recently waxed legs. Which had all been fine with Mimi. In the old days, women like this had given their kids up to the circus for a song. By the end of the weekend she had gotten the mother to agree to fly Allison out to LA the following week for a meeting with a couple of talent agents. Three weeks later, Allison was ensconced in Mimi’s back bedroom, and for the most part she’d been there ever since.

  It was possible—and Mimi hated to admit this, even in the privacy of her own head—that when it came to Allison, her judgment was cloudy. Mimi had never had a child of her own. Many years ago she’d thought about it, but she hadn’t wanted to bring up a child alone, and there hadn’t been a man in her life—or a woman, for that matter—in years and years. Her own mother had raised Mimi on her own, and although Mimi was grateful to her, of course, she’d always thought her mother would have been much better off without her. It was bad enough to be poor alone, but how much worse to drag a child along with you. That was a whole different shade of awful: the yearly struggle to put something under the Christmas tree and make it look like the gift came from you and not a charity; birthdays that were undercelebrated; pretty clothes and music lessons you couldn’t afford, not to mention regular dental care and meals that were more protein than starch. Those were the colors of the poverty rainbow, at the end of which there was nothing but an empty pot because somebody had gotten to the gold long before you showed up.

  ALLISON KNEW SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL; SHE’D LEARNED IT early from her mother, Denise, who was, like God’s final rough draft, nearly beautiful but still flawed—her eyes were a little too close together; her cheekbones were flatter, even crushed-looking in a certain light. “You’ve got looks, baby,” she’d told Allison when Allison was nine years old. “Work it, because it’s your ticket out.” That had been before her mother had met Chet-the-Oilman. After Chet, whom she’d met when Allison was not quite eleven, her mother had treated Allison like the competition. She’d been apologetic about it, too: “Honey, I know you can’t understand this but I’ve got to keep him because he’s my last chance.” Allison did understand, at least in a way, because she could feel Chet’s eyes on her all the time. Maybe her mother could feel it, too. In any event, her mother drank a lot more once he was in the picture, and she had this new laugh that sounded like it could turn any minute into a long, thin scream. You’ve got looks, baby. Work it. Allison guessed her mother was working it, too, only she was playing for higher stakes. It’s your ticket out.

  Allison hadn’t been sure what her looks were her ticket to until she came to LA to live with Mimi. Now she knew. She was going to be a star, someone even parking lot attendants would recognize and get nervous around. She was going to be not just famous but ultrafamous—she’d be the face of Revlon or Chanel or whoever it was that Nicole Kidman or Drew Barrymore worked for. She would wear pearls as big as marbles and pose in front of a fan that would blow her hair back in glamorous slow motion, and the whole world would admire her because she’d be exquisite and privileged and could rent a yacht in Cannes or the Caribbean any time she felt like it. She’d go to the best spas and fashion shows and premieres, and doormen would fall over themselves to help her and she’d laugh all the time because she wouldn’t have a single worry in the world, that’s how famous she’d be. Vanity Fair would want her on its cover, and Annie Leibovitz would take her picture.

  Allison knew that Mimi knew she was going to be famous, because Mimi was the one who was going to make that happen. She told Allison all the time that Allison had what it took, and that that was rare. Allison knew Mimi was serious because when Allison’s mom was late with the monthly check, which she was almost all the time, and Mimi had to threaten to send Allison home, she made a point of telling Allison she wouldn’t really do it, it was just her way of shaking loose what she had coming to her—though Allison knew there was no reason for her mom being late with a check, now that she’d landed Chet. Mimi celebrated Allison’s birthdays with cake and a party, which Allison’s mother had hardly ever done be
cause she could never get organized, and she took Allison shopping if she needed something for an audition and let her try on things even if they weren’t on the sale rack. She got her to the dentist every six months like clockwork, because when Allison first got to LA she’d had fifteen cavities and hadn’t seen a dentist since she was eight. Allison and Mimi fought all the time about homework and chores and having to share her room with other kids, but when it came down to it, Allison was pretty sure that Mimi loved her, and she was pretty sure she loved her back.

  AT NINE FORTY-FIVE ON MONDAY MORNING, MIMI PULLED out of her driveway in her Honda Civic. The car was the latest in a line of junkers Mimi traded as freely as baseball cards. A lifelong asthmatic, she turned up the car’s feeble air-conditioning and pulled an inhaler out of her bag. There was a smog inversion—again—throughout the San Fernando Valley. Mimi puffed the inhaler into her lungs, breathed deeply, and felt no relief whatsoever. She looked at the prescription on the side of the canister. Its use-by date was eight months ago. She threw it on the passenger seat, where it hit a small can of Cheez Whiz, rolled onto the floor, and disappeared under the seat.

  In the studio parking lot Mimi pulled into her usual spot by the Dumpster and extricated herself with some difficulty from behind the wheel. She was fat and she was tired. She’d been carving a living out of the granite face of Hollywood for nearly forty years, and they’d taken their toll. A long time ago she’d been mentored by a talent manager who’d told Mimi if she wanted to succeed, she needed to develop, above all else, the sensibilities of a killer. “You’re at war, honey, and don’t ever forget it. A talent manager is in a constant battle between goods and services, where you’re the services and your client’s the goods, and neither one can stand without the other, which is why they are going to hate you so much and you’re going to hate them. Regrettable but true. And if you’re smart, you won’t get attached to anyone and you won’t let them get attached to you. Otherwise when they go down in flames—and believe me, they will go down in flames—it’s only a question of when and whether they’ll take you with them.”

  From down the block Mimi’s two other current boarders, Hillary Constable and Reba Melvin, waved to her before disappearing into the 7-Eleven. She could probably buy herself a new car for the amount of money those two spent on snacks. Hillary was from Columbus, Ohio, and Reba was from San Francisco; both were twelve and a half, and they didn’t have enough talent between them to fill a thimble. Hillary was wearing one of Allison’s hand-me-down outfits that was about a year away from fitting properly and five years away from being appropriate, and Reba was wearing a sundress that she shouldn’t—the smocked elastic top had migrated up her Tweedledee belly, leaving the hem about four inches shorter in front than in back. God knew when she’d last washed her hair. Mimi sighed. She really should insist that the girls go back to their homes, but the mothers were adamant that their daughters would be stars, and anyway Mimi would miss the combined six thousand dollars a month.

  She pushed through the studio door, which was covered with little handprints and had a tendency to stick, and trudged past the vacant reception desk that one of her young-adult students should have been manning. Waiting for her in the greenroom were Laurel Buehl, one of her newest clients, and her mother, Angie. As usual, both were immaculately dressed and made up. They came from outside Atlanta and favored floral print purses and intricately coordinated outfits. Mimi had found them at an International Modeling and Talent Association meeting in LA nine months ago. At sixteen, Laurel was one of her oldest girls. Normally Mimi didn’t take on child clients older than fourteen because finding them work was so hard, especially when they lacked screen and TV credits. The midteen years, in Mimi’s vast experience, were the Hollywood landscape’s valley of the shadow of death. They were too old to play preteen and too young to play late teen, and no one wrote parts for midteens anyway, so the best they could do was hunker down, do their schoolwork, keep up with as many acting classes as they could afford, and wait it out. She’d explained all this to the Buehls, but they’d been unusually focused and utterly determined to come to Hollywood, with or without Mimi’s help, so what was there for Mimi to do but hop onboard?

  And the girl did have some talent, which, coupled with her obvious drive and focus, might be enough to carry her. She also had flawless skin, so fair it was almost translucent. After Mimi had mentioned almost offhandedly to Angie that Laurel’s hair, though platinum, was relatively limp, the two of them had compensated with hundreds of dollars’ worth of extensions at a Rodeo Drive salon. The girl’s eyes were a striking, true cornflower blue and her figure was trim, though big-boned. She’d have to work very hard to keep her weight down when she entered her thirties, but for now she simply looked athletic and healthy—so much so that whenever Mimi saw the mother, she was struck anew by how off she looked in comparison. Even through her immaculate makeup Mimi could see dark, almost bruised-looking circles under her eyes, and though she was slender, it was in a bony, slack way, as though she’d lost a lot of weight recently and her skin hadn’t sprung back. Mimi had never seen Angie eat, not even at the studio potlucks one or another of the parents convened from time to time—though the Buehls didn’t attend studio social functions very often. Angie did carry energy drinks with her everywhere, which Mimi supposed could account for her pallor and the waxy quality of her skin.

  “We were hoping you’d have a minute,” said Angie now, jumping up from the greenroom sofa when she saw Mimi.

  “I haven’t worked out the order of the showcase yet, but I still want her to do the Marbles monologue,” Mimi said, because everyone always wanted to know the order of the scenes to be performed in her showcases, despite the fact that Mimi said over and over that she didn’t make up the schedule until that morning, when she had a final tally of who was participating and what scenes they would present. Clear Glass Marbles, the monologue she’d chosen for Laurel, was about a young woman recalling her mother’s very recent death from cancer. When it was performed well it gave the actor a chance to cry, which could bring down the house. Mimi had seen parents and even an agent or two weep by the end, and there was almost always a snuffle or two in the house even if actual tears weren’t produced.

  “That’s what we wanted to talk to you about,” Angie said. “We don’t want her to do that one.”

  “Why?”

  Angie and Laurel exchanged quick glances. “We just think another monologue might be better,” Angie said.

  “Can she cry on cue?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then that’s the one I want her to do. It’s the toughest piece I have, and if she can pull it off, Evelyn Flynn, the casting director who’s coming, will remember her. I’ve been trying to get that woman to come to one of my showcases for years, so don’t blow it.”

  The two sighed as one, but acquiesced. “All right,” Angie said. Probably thinking Mimi couldn’t see, she took Laurel’s wrist in her hand and pressed. Laurel nodded: All right.

  “And I want to see her do it before the showcase.” To Laurel, Mimi said, “Are you off-book?”

  “Yes,” Laurel said faintly.

  “Well, I want you to work on it with Dee before class. I mean that.”

  Angie and Laurel both nodded and turned to go.

  “EYES ON THE PRIZE, DARLING,” SAID ANGIE UNDER HER BREATH.

  Laurel nodded. “I know, but—”

  Angie just shook her head and said firmly, “Eyes on the prize.”

  “TINA MARIE!”

  As Mimi came into her office she caught the little dog squatting in the corner. Bullet-proof Tina Marie simply looked at Mimi over her narrow shoulders and shrugged, as though to say, So? I’m undisciplined. It’s my nature. What can you do? Knowing a lost cause when she saw one, Mimi just sighed, pulled a gallon jug of Nature’s Miracle from the top drawer of her file cabinet, and dumped some on the spot, where it mingled with urine of yore. It was true that the dog, like the rest of Mimi’s operation, was undiscip
lined. Go to the house at two o’clock in the morning on any given day and you might find Mimi popping Orville Redenbacher’s in the kitchen, or Allison cleaning out a closet. And what was wrong with that? Mimi had gone to San Francisco during the Summer of Love, had seen Janis Joplin in concert. She was an old rebel, messy as much by philosophy as by her nature. Allison was the tidy one, an island of order amid the chaos. She did her own laundry and often Mimi’s laundry, too; kept her cosmetics in a musical jewelry box with a dancing ballerina that her mother had bought for her, evidently, when Allison was young, and in which she also kept a surprisingly extensive inventory of earrings, inexpensive bracelets, pendants, and charms.

  Allison imposed some of that order on Mimi, as well. Mimi remembered to color her thinning hair only because Allison reminded her. Sometimes she’d tease the girl by telling her she’d decided to just say to hell with it and let it grow out, as lusterless and gray as a cardboard egg carton. As it was, whenever she let it go too long Allison would take it upon herself to buy Mimi’s L’Oréal hair color and dye Mimi’s hair in the kitchen sink. Mimi loved the feel of the girl’s long fingers working around her scalp, making sure the chemicals were evenly distributed so they’d take the way they were supposed to. They’d had a disaster or two before Allison coaxed Mimi into buying a timer. When Mimi argued that they could just as easily use the timer on the stove, Allison said it had been broken for as long as Allison had lived there—didn’t Mimi know? But, of course, Mimi didn’t know, because she didn’t cook very often and when she did, as a point of pride, she followed no recipe or instructions, which made their rare at-home dinners unpredictable and, as often as not, featuring a dessert course of takeout Chinese.