“Of course she’s creepy. She also gets people on series and feature films.”
“Yeah.” Allison sighed. “So what time’s the audition, anyways?”
“Ten.”
“Who’s driving me?” Allison figured she’d have to ride with Ruth and Bethany Rabinowitz, since Mimi had told her Bethy had a callback, too—not that Allison could think of a single reason why. She’d be all wrong for the part.
“I’ll drive you,” Mimi said.
Allison gave a happy little screech. “Really? Oh, you will? Thank you thank you thank you!” She gave Tina Marie a loud kiss on the nose. Both Mimi and Tina Marie looked at her suspiciously. “What?” Allison said.
“Ration your energy. You have a long time to go before ten o’clock tomorrow morning. You don’t want to have spent it all before you’ve even gone in.”
“I won’t,” said Allison. “Jeez Louise.”
BUT GOOD INTENTIONS OR NOT, AT THE LAST MINUTE MIMI got tied up with an agent, negotiating a contract for Perry, so Allison had to go with Ruth and Bethany after all. And Ruth thought she should have said no, but she didn’t. She went to the studio and picked up the girl—she sat in the backseat, making a show of arranging her clothes just so—and drove them over the hill into Hollywood.
“How are you?” Ruth asked Allison via the rearview mirror, trying to sound neutral instead of the way she really felt, which was sad and angry.
“Fine, thank you.” Allison adjusted her seatbelt over her shoulder, fussed with the buckle.
“Good.” Ruth nudged Bethy a little with her elbow, and Bethy said, “Aren’t you so glad we got a callback?”
“To tell you the truth, I can’t believe you did. I mean, you said yourself that you blew the audition.”
“Well, she must not have,” said Ruth loyally. In the rearview mirror, Ruth saw Allison shrug. She willed the girl to say something, anything, to show she would meet Bethy partway, but she just sat there, looking out the car window.
“Why are you still mad at me?” Bethy blurted out.
“I’m not mad at you,” Allison said coolly.
“Yes, you are.”
Allison shrugged again.
“You’re my best friend,” Bethy cried.
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
“You are.”
Allison arranged her face into a perfect mask and said, “Don’t you think it’s sad when one person thinks someone’s a friend and all the other person was doing was hanging out with them to be polite?”
Ruth could hear Bethy gasp. She imagined herself pulling the car over on the shoulder, ripping open the back door, and giving Allison a very hard slap. Locking eyes with the girl in the rearview mirror instead, Ruth said firmly, “That’s enough.” Allison’s eyes slid away.
They found a parking space almost directly in front of the casting studio—a small act of grace on the Almighty’s part, Ruth thought, in compensation for that remark of Allison’s. In front of the building some blighted shrubs were dying in a strip of dirt the color and consistency of fired clay. Ruth imagined finding a cup and some water and bringing it back to the dirt along with a trowel and some Miracle-Gro. Maybe she’d do it, if they ever came back here again.
Allison sprinted ahead and Bethy fell back, walking with Ruth.
“Sweetie, don’t let her get to you,” Ruth said quietly. “This is an important callback and you want to do your best.”
But Bethy was on the verge of tears. “I don’t understand why she’s being so mean. She’s the one who took something, and we’re not even mad about it.”
“She’s embarrassed,” Ruth said. “We caught her doing something wrong. She’ll come around, but it’ll take time.”
“How much time?”
“I don’t know, honey.”
Bethy drooped. “Yeah.”
The door was still closing behind Allison when they caught up. Ruth hurried to catch it, putting the flat of her hand reassuringly on Bethy’s back as she went through. The girls each signed in. Laurel Buehl was already there. And Ruth recognized Quinn Reilly among the four boys and two other girls who were also waiting. Ruth watched Allison skip across the room to the boy, saying, “Hey!”
She bounced into a seat beside him and chirped, “Hope for a mix-and-match. You and me.”
The boy shrugged. He was tall and very thin, as though he was growing too fast for his metabolism to keep up, and he wore purple Converse high-tops as long and flat as clown shoes, baggy jeans held up by a passing thought and a piece of clothesline, and, incongruously, a peach-colored, badly wrinkled, and extremely stretched-out knit golf shirt that looked like it had been given to Goodwill by somebody’s father. Ruth remembered hearing that the boy sometimes behaved bizarrely; Allison had once said he’d stripped almost naked at one of Mimi’s showcases. There was nothing sinister-looking about him, though; just something forlorn and a little sullen. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Within a minute he was snoring softly. Allison punched him in the arm.
“What?” he said.
“You’re faking that,” she said.
“Faking what?”
Allison punched his arm again and then got up and crossed the room to an empty chair, pulled out her compact, and powdered her nose.
LAUREL AND ANGIE SAT SIDE BY SIDE, LEGS BENT AT EXACT right angles, feet flat on the floor, arms crossed. They often unconsciously synchronized their postures without even being aware of it; they always got their periods on the same day, or at least they had until Angie’s chemo had thrown everything off—and even so, they were closing in again, with only a week separating them, down from three.
In a technique she had learned from all those years of pageants to keep herself from getting nervous—after all, she was here against Mimi’s recommendation, and for a lead role—Laurel tried to think about something completely unrelated to acting: invitations. Though she’d never even had a boyfriend, she and Angie were planning her wedding with the help of a stack of bridal magazines they kept in a willow basket by the living room sofa. Laurel had a specially designated journal where they were keeping a record of all their decisions. Angie had suggested it two weeks ago, saying the project would be great stress relief. They’d already identified the location (their home church, with the reception in the adjacent rose garden, even though it did overlook the cemetery); the caterer (Beauregard’s, the same caterer that had done Angie and Dillard’s wedding seventeen years ago—they were toying with requesting the exact same menu, for sentiment’s sake); and the style of wedding gown they liked best for Laurel’s coloring and body type (a Cinderella style with a tight waist, leg-of-mutton sleeves, crinoline, train, and seed-pearl trim).
“I still think Le Jardin is best,” Angie had argued last night about their choice of florists.
“Okay, but I want to keep Lucy Bee in there, too. They make beautiful bridal bouquets. Remember Halley’s last year?” Halley Martingale, Laurel’s distant cousin, had had a garden wedding the previous year, and it had been lovely.
Angie had capitulated, and Laurel made a note about the florist in the journal. She and Angie, both in their pajamas, had been stretched out on the sofa together, heads at opposite ends but bodies closely connected at the hip like a pair of open scissors. It was Thursday night, one audition away from the end of a long week, during which Laurel had booked and shot the tampon commercial, auditioned for a costar role on Desperate Housewives with a callback next week, and shopped on Rodeo Drive for some new clothes for Angie, who wouldn’t allow Laurel in the dressing room.
When they’d finished the florist discussion, Angie had laid her head back, closed her eyes, and smiled. “One of the very best days of my life was the day I married your daddy. He was so handsome in his tux and tails, standing there at the altar waiting for me, that I started crying before I passed the third pew. They say that there isn’t such a thing as true love, but they’re wrong. There’s true love in my life every day.” Angie sighed. When she opened her eyes,
Laurel had tears running down her face.
“You’re sick again, aren’t you?” she said.
Angie had reached over and taken Laurel’s foot in her hand. “Not yet, darlin’, but that day may be coming.”
“No,” said Laurel forcefully. “It isn’t.”
“No?” Angie had closed her eyes again and smiled faintly. “Well, that’s a relief. We still have so much to do.”
QUINN SAT BACK, STRETCHED OUT HIS LEGS, CROSSED HIS arms over his chest, closed his eyes, and tried to block out the room, block out Allison, who’d clearly gone off the deep end for Carlyle. Why, all of a sudden, did she care so much? She never had before. It was one of the reasons casting directors liked her—she was relaxed, even indifferent. She’d been brilliant, though; he’d give her that. She’d delivered one of the best acting performances he’d ever seen by her or anyone, there in Mimi’s living room where no one even saw her but him.
He tried to chase her out of his mind so he could channel Buddy, be in the moment. This was his third callback, but he hadn’t been in LA for more than three years for nothing; he knew not to get his hopes up. Still, even objectively, Buddy wasn’t nearly as much of a stretch for him as playing a born-again Christian on Grey’s Anatomy, or a teenage assassin on CSI: Miami. Relatively speaking, Buddy was a slam-dunk.
Across the room, Allison was admiring her toenails. She kept stretching her legs out and pointing her toes like a ballerina. She kept sneaking a peek to see if he was watching.
Which, in spite of himself, he was.
JOEL E. SHERMAN CAME OUT INTO THE WAITING ROOM AND picked up the sign-in sheet, scanning the list. He looked up after a minute, pretended to be startled by the nine pairs of eyes looking at him, and then smiled.
“Well, well! Let’s see what we’ve got here.” He shuffled through the stack of headshots, stopped at one picture, looked up and around the room, and then at the picture again. He turned to Laurel and Angie.
“Why are you here?” he asked Laurel.
“I’m sorry?”
“Who sent you over? Because they shouldn’t have. Did you think you’d be reading for Carlyle?”
“Yes,” Laurel said faintly.
“Honey, you’re way, way, way too old.”
“I’m only sixteen.”
“Doesn’t matter. You look eighteen to twenty. Who’s your manager?”
“Mimi Roberts.”
“That woman is a pain in my ass. Okay, look. She shouldn’t have sent you. Go home”—he consulted her headshot—“Laurel Buehl. Go home.”
“What about the neighbor girl?” Angie said with some desperation.
“Who?”
“The neighbor girl. We heard there was a different character she could play. An older one.”
Joel dropped his head in mock despair. “Who told you that? No, don’t tell me. I know. She must have forgotten to mention that that role is for an Asian girl. Is your daughter Asian?”
“No,” Angie said faintly.
“Look, if we change the breakdown and it goes Caucasian again, your daughter can read for it. You can tell your manager that. But I’ve got to say that right now, I can’t see it happening. And here’s a piece of free advice: don’t call my office in a week or two to follow up. Don’t. Because if you do, I’ll remember and I will make sure that”—he looked at her headshot again—“Laurel never, ever auditions for me again. Ever. So don’t do it. Don’t.”
“Yes, sir,” said Laurel, stricken. “We’re sorry.”
But even as Angie and Laurel were leaving the room—Laurel was in tears—Joel had moved on. He picked a headshot off the top of the stack and called, “Betsy Schumacher, where are you?”
A tiny girl bounced up from her chair and spit her gum into a tissue. “I’m thirteen,” she said. “Just so you know.”
ONE BY ONE, ALLISON WATCHED THE GIRLS FILE INTO and out of Joel Sherman’s audition room, confident going in, varying degrees of messed up coming out. Bethany went in third, and came out looking glum. From what Allison had overheard—and she’d overheard everything—she’d given an okay audition, but you might as well have vomited in the corner for all that an okay audition was going to do for you, especially when it came to a lead role. Allison was sure she faced no competition there. As far as that went, she hadn’t heard any of the girls give a decent read. After half an hour, Allison was the last girl left—her and four Buddys.
In the audition room, seated at a large table, Allison saw a spectrally gaunt woman and a man wearing pink glasses. Allison put her tote down by the door, adjusted her clothes—she was wearing a tweeny pleated skirt and a T-shirt she wouldn’t have been caught dead in for any lesser occasion than this—and tried to take a calming breath without looking like she was nervous, which all of a sudden she was. She realized that the casting director had said something to her.
“What?”
“You okay, kid?”
Allison licked her lips. There was a weird humming in her ears. “I’m dandy,” she said. “Just dandy.”
“Yeah? Because you looked a little pale, there. So okay, go ahead and slate.”
As Allison looked into the camera lens and slated, she tried to imagine Quinn reading with her, tried to feel his talent flooding her veins like a transfusion, but it didn’t work. She could hear her heartbeat—Hous-ton, Hous-ton, Hous-ton—racing away on a rising tide of panic.
“So show me something,” Joel Sherman was saying.
“I am. I’m making us argue.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
And that’s when Allison knew she didn’t stand even a glimmer of a chance; it was all slipping away. The gaunt woman was reading e-mail on her BlackBerry, the man was buffing his fingernails on his thigh, and even as Allison was delivering her lines Joel Sherman was shutting off the camera. It couldn’t be over; she couldn’t let it be over. She blew out a big breath and walked across the room.
“Wait,” she said. “Please.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” the casting director said, capping the camera lens.
She put her hand on his forearm. “Please,” she said again, in a whisper only he could hear.
The skinny woman looked up from her BlackBerry.
“Let me do the scene with Quinn Reilly. I mean, he’s reading for Buddy, and he’s right out there waiting.”
“Look—”
Allison was close enough to kiss him. “Please.”
He took one step back and caught both of her wrists in his hands.
FROM THE WAITING ROOM, QUINN HEARD ALLISON ASKING if they could read together—the old building’s walls were thick but the glass transom between the rooms was open—and he couldn’t believe it. She was fucking with his audition, his chance, his shot with Gus Van Sant. Fucking Allison, man. But apparently nothing came of it, because the next thing he knew, Allison was leaving the room like she’d been shot from a cannon, and she didn’t look too good.
She was followed almost immediately by Joel Sherman, who called him in and introduced him to the people at the table. Then he started the camera and said, “Go,” and Quinn went, with rage still ringing in his ears. But maybe fury gave his Buddy the extra edge he and Evelyn had been looking for, because when the scene was over he knew by the quick, almost furtive way the producers and Joel Sherman looked at one another that he’d brought that scene home like a perfectly fired missile.
Chapter Twenty-one
RUTH AND BETHY SAT IN SILENCE IN THE CAR OUTSIDE Joel Sherman’s building. Ruth knew without even asking that the audition had been a bust. The child looked like she could burst into tears at any moment, and Ruth was filled with a sudden and disproportionate anger toward not only Allison but also Mimi, who’d conned Ruth into doing her bidding one too many times. Carlyle could have been the opportunity of a lifetime for Bethy, and it had been thrown away. And now, when the best thing for them would have been to cut their losses and run, they were stuck sitting at the curb like a hired car, waiting for the one person who’d most di
rectly ruined Bethy’s chances.
“Honey, are you sitting there trying to figure out what to tell me about the audition?” Ruth said.
Bethy nodded mutely.
“It’s okay. You don’t need to,” Ruth told her, and pressed her hand. “I know.”
And then came the tears, a torrent of them. When she could talk again, Bethy said, “I just feel like I let you down.”
“Let me down?”
“I mean, this was for the lead, and I know you thought it was really important and I tried, but they weren’t even paying attention. Not Mr. Sherman, but these two other people, I don’t even know who they were, and one of them kept looking at her cell phone and then she started texting someone. I forgot a line, and before I could make up for it Mr. Sherman just said, ‘Thank you, honey, you can go.’”
Bethy cried bitterly, and Ruth started crying, too, and they hugged each other, and then Ruth said, before she knew she was going to say it, “I’m starting to wonder whether we should even be doing this,” and by this she meant everything. Then Bethy wiped her nose on the back of her hand, and out of habit Ruth gave her a look, and Bethy said, “I’m sorry. It’s not like I have a tissue,” so Ruth fished a crumpled one out of her purse and Bethy took it by the extreme corner, like it was a dead rat, and said, “You didn’t already use this, did you?” which was how Ruth knew the worst was over. On the sidewalk a couple of tourists stooped to read the name of the actor whose name was embedded in the star in the sidewalk.
The car door opened and Allison got in. “We can go,” she said, and Ruth thought she looked a little shaky as she settled her tote in her lap.
Ruth started the engine, rolled up the windows, and turned on the air-conditioning. No one said a word until they were back on the 101. When Ruth looked into the rearview mirror, Allison was staring out the window fixedly, petting her upper arm under her T-shirt sleeve. Maybe her callback hadn’t gone well, either, only she didn’t have her mother or even Mimi to comfort her. Despite herself Ruth said, “Honey, are you okay?”
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