“Don’t freak out,” Vee reassured her. “I mean, she obviously had low blood sugar, right, with the yogurt thing. So that could make the reception go all haywire, right?”
“It’s not TV,” said Ruth.
“Well, yeah, but she’s getting signals, right?”
“I guess.”
“Anyway,” said Vee, “you don’t know.”
“Here’s something I do know: I just ate thirty dollars worth of baked goods.”
“Ooh. Where’d you go?”
“Porto’s.”
“Yum,” said Vee. “What did you have?”
Ruth told her. “They were good and everything, but I mean, for that much money they should have had gold flakes in them or something. And get this—Bethy’s at a class right now that costs a hundred and ninety-five dollars. For three hours.”
“The kids’ stunt school costs eight hundred and seventy-five each,” Vee said reassuringly. “Better?”
“No. I feel just as worried and now I’m about two thousand calories fatter, on top of it.”
“Look at it this way,” said Vee supportively. “You’re now a bona fide Southern Californian.”
THE MORNING AFTER THE CALLBACKS, JOEL SHERMAN HAD phoned Mimi Roberts to tell her that neither Bethany Rabinowitz nor Allison Addison would be going any further with After. That was the language casting directors used to soften the blow: she won’t be going any further. The fact was, the Rabinowitz girl had never had a shot anyway, he’d just wanted to see what she could do with the role. But Allison Addison was a different story. She had had a shot, so imagine his surprise when the kid had turned into a train wreck.
“I’m dandy,” she’d said, though she’d looked like she might pass out. “Just dandy.” False and bright as a theater moon. She was stunning, he’d give her that, but she’d been too nervous to hang on to her character. Which was funny, because he hadn’t remembered her as a nervous kid, but just the opposite: the last couple of times he’d seen her, she’d been a little too breezy and a little too flip. It had been just as well that at the table, Camilla David had been on her BlackBerry lining up her next lay.
“Look,” he’d told Mimi Roberts when she tried to finagle another chance. “The kid choked. And if she’s going to—”
“What do you mean, choked?”
“Just what I said—she got nervous. Freaked out. Then she tried to talk me into a mix-and-match so she’d have a scene partner. If she’s going to try and direct me, what’s she going to do with Gus Van Sant? I had to physically walk her out of the room before she finally gave up. Kid must get her way a lot.”
He could hear the woman wheezing on the other end of the line, weighing her options.
“Look,” he said impulsively. “Keep an eye on her. Something’s odd there.” Never let it be said that he was a cold and callous bastard. He’d done his bit, run the old storm flag up the flagpole. When he hung up, Mimi Roberts still hadn’t said a word.
Goddamn managers.
IT CAME AS NO SURPRISE THAT BETHANY WAS DONE. MIMI had guessed that Joel was just trying her out, seeing how she’d do with a part completely different from the one she’d played on California Dreamers. Ruth Rabinowitz, of course, had nearly broken down on the phone, so real had been her evident delusion that Bethany had ever had a shot.
But Mimi was deeply disappointed that Allison, too, had been dropped. She had had hopes that the girl might have a real shot at Carlyle. Jumping ahead into a lead role wasn’t unprecedented for a young actor with Allison’s looks and capabilities. Unlikely, yes, but by no means impossible.
But Joel’s warning, though chilling, rang true. Mimi didn’t know where the girl’s mind was these days. She’d been uncharacteristically edgy over the last couple of weeks, alternately agitated and subdued. Except for Carlyle the girl had shown no interest at all in the several costar auditions Mimi had sent her on. She’d been so disruptive in Donovan’s last two sessions that he’d taken Mimi aside and told her point-blank that unless Allison could settle down, he’d have to ask her to leave the class. And now she’d fallen apart at an audition, when she’d always been one of Mimi’s most rock-solid, reliable actors. You could throw the girl into the deepest ocean and she’d come up with something that floated every time.
Mimi was well aware that Allison was exactly the age when children began leaving the business in droves: they asserted their independence about what they would or would not do, informing the stage moms that they wanted to go to “real” school or that their real ambition was to become a doctor or engineer. Allison might be no exception, though she’d always seemed to have the perfect temperament for a career in the industry: focused without being obsessive, able to let go once an audition was over and move on.
It was five thirty on a Saturday afternoon; the studio was at an uncharacteristic lull. Mimi sat for some minutes, thinking in the quiet. Then she did something nearly unprecedented: she closed and locked the empty studio’s front door and picked up the phone to make a call she’d probably been putting off for too long. Allison’s mother, Denise, answered on the second ring, and the minute she heard Mimi’s voice she said, “Oh, goddamn it. You were supposed to be my attorney.”
“Well, I’m not, but I need a few minutes to talk with you. Can we do that?”
Allison’s mother said, “I guess, but I’m warning you right now, if my attorney calls, I’m hanging up on you.” Mimi heard the sound of a disposable lighter and the long first inhalation of a cigarette. “So is my kid in trouble?”
“I’m not sure. She’s been acting out.”
“Isn’t that what she’s supposed to be doing? I mean, we’re paying through the nose for her to be there.” She sounded sulky.
“Acting out,” Mimi said. “Acting inappropriately.”
“Oh. Like what does that mean exactly?”
“She’s been spending a fortune on beauty products, she’s starting to dress like a twenty-year-old, and she’s disruptive around the other kids in class. Her head’s not in the game.”
Denise exhaled straight into the phone receiver. “So what exactly did you have in mind?”
“I don’t have anything in mind,” Mimi said. “I was hoping you’d have some insights.”
“Nope. Not really. Are you still being stalked, by the way?”
“What?”
“Allison told me you had a stalker so everyone’s phone numbers and e-mails had to be changed. I haven’t talked to her in a couple of weeks. She won’t return my calls.”
“So she hasn’t confided anything in you, then,” Mimi said.
“What do you mean?”
“Some kind of problem.”
Denise laughed so hard she ended up in a coughing fit. Mimi considered the possibility that she was drunk. “Problems? Allison? What problems could she possibly be having? Why don’t you ask me about me? Because I’ll tell you about problems. My husband’s been cheating on me and my marriage is ending and I have a fucking lawyer who won’t return my calls, and everything in general is just turning to shit. Those are problems.”
“How much of this does Allison know?”
“All of it, honey. I have no secrets. I’ve told her she’s going to have to come back home, too. She’s my only family.”
“When did you tell her that?”
“Hell, I don’t know—two weeks ago, maybe. Two and a half.”
Mimi heard her light up again, and then she heard ice cubes clink in a glass. “Do you know about her cutting?” Mimi asked.
“What do you mean, like skipping school? But she’s not even in—”
“She cuts herself. With a razor blade.”
“Where?”
Mimi had finally gotten her attention: a maimed girl was a devalued girl. “Inside her upper arms, from what I’ve seen.”
“Well, thank goodness. I mean, nobody can see that, right?”
“Did you know about this?”
“I might have seen a little mark or two,” Denise said evasiv
ely. “Last time she was here. Like she doesn’t get enough attention already. It won’t scar, will it? Because trust me, that child is going to need every bit of her looks while she’s young. You get older and then you’ve got nothing.”
“She’s a good actor. She’s got that. If she’ll straighten out again and focus.”
“Well, I really don’t see what you want me to do. You know, we pay you an awful damn lot of money to take care of her.”
Mimi flipped her pen to the back of her desk. It fell over the edge and hit Tina Marie on the head. The little dog gave her an aggrieved look. Mimi closed her eyes briefly. “I’m her manager, not her nanny. You pay me to manage her career, not—” Mimi heard a click on the line: call-waiting.
“Well, my God, finally—” Denise said, and then Mimi heard dead air.
Crap.
Mimi sat at her desk, her hand still on the phone, and tried to remember what Denise Addison looked like. They’d met only once, during Mimi’s trip to Houston. Just that once, in three years. She had Allison’s long, spare build, only in Denise it had hardened into the stringy muscles and tendons that aging women developed when they weighed too little and lived too hard. On Denise, Allison’s beautiful features were stark, and her hair had been dry, overprocessed, and hanging in a single lusterless hank halfway down her back. There’d been a tattoo up behind one ear that at first glimpse appeared to be an insect bite or a canker. What had it been? The scales of justice, Mimi thought, astrological sign of Libra—as though cosmic issues hung in the balance, to be decided by this trashy woman who had never been to Los Angeles, never watched Allison on set, never attended a showcase or celebrated an achievement. Admittedly, Mimi had never pressed her to do any of those things. Had it been false pride or a simple recognition of the truth to think that Mimi, though childless, made a better mother? Mimi could still vividly picture Allison as Mimi had first seen her. She’d been luminous, the way some young girls were just before they learned the free-market value of beauty.
Mimi closed her eyes. In their first year together, Allison had loved fixing Mimi glasses of Hawaiian Punch, and as she was pouring she’d sometimes whisper under her breath. Mimi had finally asked her about it and Allison had told her, very casually, that she was reciting the ratio of pineapple rum, 7Up, and Hawaiian Punch that went into a cocktail called Hawaiian Death that her mother had taught Allison to mix. Evidently Denise had thought it was hysterical to use Allison as a bartender when she and her girlfriends got together. She said she also knew the recipes for black Russians, white Russians, strawberry daiquiris, frozen margaritas, and something called Blood of the Innocent.
Tina Marie, always attuned to Mimi’s moods, hopped up into her lap, circled twice, and settled. Mimi scratched the bony noggin and labored over what to do. Certainly it would be a mistake to send Allison home to Denise, but it was obvious that something needed to be done.
The phone rang but Mimi let it go to voice mail. It rang three more times, but Mimi ignored it, leaning back in her chair and closing her eyes. Half an hour later, resolved, she packed up Tina Marie, turned out the lights, locked the studio doors behind her, and walked through the stunning late-afternoon heat to her car. Tina Marie minced over to pee near her favorite bush and then they cranked up the car’s feeble air-conditioning and headed for home.
ALLISON HAD A BAD FEELING. MIMI HAD NEVER REFUSED TO take her phone calls before. She stripped off all her clothes, got rid of her makeup, put on an old pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt and flip-flops. With her hair pulled back in a careless ponytail and her face bare, she looked closer to twelve than fourteen. She was sitting at the dining room table, where she had a clear view of the front door, and Hillary was sitting across from her. Hillary was talking, but Allison was concentrating on listening for Mimi’s car.
Hillary said, “She must be mad at you. You must have done something.”
“Shut up.”
“Did you do something?”
“Just shut up.”
Hillary picked at some old nail polish on her thumb. “I could give you a manicure, if you want. You haven’t tried that new color you bought yet.”
Allison didn’t say a word.
“She’s probably just returning phone calls and stuff. Or maybe she’s talking to one of the casting directors,” Hillary said helpfully. “I mean, maybe something wonderful is happening.”
Allison laid her forehead on her folded arms. Half an hour ago Bethany Rabinowitz had called and said neither of them had booked Carlyle.
The one thing Allison was certain of was that nothing wonderful was happening.
Chapter Twenty-two
THE LITTLE CHILI PEPPER CHARM HAD BEEN IN QUINN’S pocket for so long, he had created a sensory memory of it, seeing it by feel alone. It warmed him, somehow, to have the charm with him.
He walked by Los Burritos every single day now. The little Hispanic girl was there Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. She always smiled for her customers, which he liked. It wasn’t that easy to smile at strangers and mean it. You had to open up, take risks, expose yourself to injury. But he was learning from her; he was trying to smile at people, too, and mean it, which was a struggle after so many years of holding people off, keeping them away. He even did that with Quatro, despite their growing friendship. Friends were risky; friends could turn. Friends didn’t necessarily like you or take care with you; sometimes they only wanted to know you in case you got famous or met someone famous that they might like to know, too. Quatro wasn’t like that, though. He fed Quinn excellent food at their dinners out, and he listened when Quinn talked about his auditions and working with Evelyn and how he thought he was getting someplace in his acting that he’d never reached before, a place so deep you didn’t even need words. And, at least so far, Quatro listened; and if he didn’t understand what Quinn was talking about, he did an excellent job of faking it.
If Quatro was his friend, Quinn thought he might be a little bit in love with Evelyn Flynn. Not in that way, of course, because man she was old; but still, he was in love. He knew she would leave him one day; he just hoped that day wouldn’t be soon. Unlike Quatro, Evelyn was a cold, hard person, but even so Quinn sensed that she cared about him and about bringing him along in a way that Mimi never had. She could be cruel if he didn’t do what she thought he should, though. “Go there, for Christ’s sake!” she’d screamed at him once. “You’re standing on the goddamn doorstep. Go! What are you waiting for?” But here was his problem: if he stepped all the way through the door, he knew he’d leave her on the other side and be alone.
These two people, Quatro and Evelyn Flynn, were his life-lines. He almost never saw anyone else now except in acting class or at auditions; he’d even started staying away from the apartment if Jasper or Baby-Sue were there, because if they didn’t see him, they couldn’t kick him out, which he was sure they were getting ready to do. He used his time to walk by Los Burritos and look for the Hispanic girl.
But you can hold off doom for only so long. At the beginning of the third week of March, Jasper ambushed Quinn in the kitchen, saying, “Hey, man, I’m really sorry about this, but we’re giving up the apartment.”
Quinn’s heart sank. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Jasper shook his head sadly, thrust his hands deep in his pockets. “Baby-Sue and me, we’re not making it, man. We’re calling it quits. We gave notice today. We’ve got the place for one more month, but if you find a new place sooner, you can just go and we’ll forget the rest of the rent. Okay, guy?”
And what was there to say but okay?
Where was he supposed to go? He was sixteen and a half. No one was going to rent a place to an unemancipated minor. And that was if he could find a place he could afford on four or five hundred dollars a month, which of course he couldn’t, not in LA. He was pretty sure Nelson wasn’t going to cough up more, though. The latest word from Seattle was that his company was going through tough times, might even be laying him off.
So Quinn had a month. He could ask Quatro if he knew anyone looking for a roommate, but he doubted that anyone Quatro’s age would want a sixteen-and-a-half-year-old roommate, and anyway he wasn’t sure he could handle living with a gay guy. Hearing Baby-Sue and Jasper screwing in the middle of the night was one thing, but hearing two guys doing it was something else.
One month.
He put on a leather jacket he’d picked up in a thrift store—it was actually cool outside, plus he liked the fact that the jacket smelled like somebody’s father—and left the apartment. He was halfway to Los Burritos when his cell went off in his pocket. He was going to let it ring, but then he saw it was Evelyn.
“Come to my office,” she said. She did that: she didn’t ask, she commanded. She didn’t say why, and he’d learned not to ask.
“When?”
“Where are you now?”
“Santa Monica and Havenhurst.”
“Four thirty,” she said. Her office was a mile and a half away. No one ever asked how he was going to get someplace. “Can you make it?”
“Sure,” he said. What the hell—he was already walking.
WHEN HE GOT TO EVELYN’S THERE WERE FOUR OR FIVE eight-year-olds in the waiting room, plus their mothers or nannies or whoever. He’d heard she was casting a spinoff of the American Girl movies for one of the cable channels. She never talked about her work; he knew everything from reading the breakdowns. Baby-Sue was still able to pull up Breakdown Services on Mimi’s account so she could see what was being cast. Jasper and Baby-Sue were always sitting around in the kitchen with their laptops open back-to-back, submitting themselves, and Mimi probably didn’t even know.
The little girls looked him over for about a fraction of a second and then went back to their Game Boys and video iPods and text messages. One by one Evelyn called them in and gave each one about a minute before turning them loose again. One kid came out crying. Evelyn could be a total asshole.
Seeing Stars Page 36
