God, let there be chemistry.
QUINN WAS WAITING ON THE STEPS OUTSIDE BABY-SUE’S apartment building when Evelyn Flynn pulled up. He held the usual headshot and résumé.
“I doubt you’ll need that,” she said. “I think he knows who you are.” He looked over to see if she was teasing him, but he couldn’t read her. Even after all the time they’d spent together—and it was hours and hours and hours—he still didn’t know a damned thing about her.
“So who am I reading with?” he said.
“That shouldn’t make any difference. And evidently Gus Van Sant won’t be there—this is just for Joel.”
“Yeah, but is it someone I’ve read with before?” She didn’t answer, and he decided to keep his mouth shut. If she didn’t want him to know, she must have her reasons. Besides, she looked like she had a lot of things on her mind, and he wasn’t necessarily one of them.
“Remember that this is for chemistry,” she said when they were a block from Joel Sherman’s office. “He already knows you can act. What he isn’t convinced of is whether you can act with somebody. So you’re going to have to prove it. And I probably don’t need to say that even if you do, you’re a hell of a long shot, so don’t fuck up.”
She pulled her car up to the curb and let him out. Just before he slammed the door she said, “Hey.”
“Yeah?”
“You know this one matters.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I know.”
“Call me when you’re done, and I’ll come pick you up.” He shut the door and she drove off without looking back.
Inside, he found Joel Sherman sitting at his desk talking to someone. She turned around, and he saw it was Cassie Foley. They couldn’t be considering her for Carlyle, though—she was two years too young. But maybe Evelyn had talked the casting director into bringing her in to read with him anyway so he could see how Quinn worked. That would be a huge break for him. Even if he passed the test, he’d still have to audition well with the real Carlyle, and for Gus Van Sant, but he was pretty sure he could do that no matter who it was, if he thought they’d cast him. If they cast him. For the first time, he actually thought that.
If.
If!
JOEL SHERMAN GOT ON THE PHONE AS SOON AS THE KIDS were gone. It had been a great read; his hunch had been right on the money. He tried not to think about the fact that he was about to propose something that would fundamentally change the way a world-class director like Gus Van Sant looked at his characters, even coming from a casting director of Joel’s stature and reputation. Interfering with the Vision, and all that crap. Better not to think about it. “Yeah, it’s Joel Sherman. He around?”
But it turned out that he was not around; he was already in Portland scouting locations. Joel checked to see if he’d be there long enough for Joel to actually fly up there in person with the tape he’d made of Quinn and Cassie, but he wouldn’t; he’d be coming back to LA in the morning, after a week out of town. Joel didn’t think he should wait that long, knowing he’d be competing with everybody else for the director’s attention. So he took a deep breath and closed his door so the skinny twit couldn’t eavesdrop on him if it didn’t turn out well.
“I’m putting him on,” somebody said on the other end of the line, and then there was Van Sant.
“Yeah, Joel Sherman here. Listen, I want to run something by you.”
“Go.”
And so Joel laid it out: Quinn Reilly and little Cassie Foley and her widow’s peak and freckles and his little-boy-lost quality and suppressed rage and her sweet charm and old-soul depth. He talked and talked, but when there was still nothing coming back at him, not a single word, he ran out of steam and just stood there, looking out his office window at a bum pawing through a trash can on the other side of Hollywood Boulevard. He’d probably been an actor once. “Hello?” he said.
“Yeah, okay,” Van Sant finally said. “I’m willing to consider it. That’s all I’m going to say until I see the tape. I’m going to put Sybil on, so she can tell you how to get it online or whatever so I can take a look at it tonight. I’m open, though. Okay? Yeah. I’m open. Here’s Sybil.” And there she was. Joel had the skinny twit pick up, because he didn’t know a thing about uploading and downloading and photo buckets or whatever the fuck you were supposed to do, and he had no desire to learn it. That’s what he paid her for. From the sounds of it, they worked something out in a minute, minute and a half, and then she was off the phone and he was having an attack of delayed sweating.
“No prob, boss,” she yelled at him. “I just need the disk.” So he popped out a tiny CD—Jesus, how much smaller could they get before you were recording on Cheerios?—and took it to the desk out in the waiting room and she smiled at him nicely and said thank you. If she got this done right, he might give her a raise so she could take more acting classes, maybe put on a little weight.
Back at the window, he could see that the bum had moved on down the street to the next garbage can. Who knew why an actor’s career lived or died? Sometimes it was just a bunch of unrelated things lining up: who smiled the right way at the right moment at the right person in the right frame of mind to say yes. That same smile, ten minutes earlier or later, and instead of having a star on the boulevard you’d be picking soda cans out of the trash. It was a killer world out there. Despite his many, many successes, if he’d known, when he was just starting out, all the things that he knew now, he’d be selling shoes in his grandfather’s store in Pocatello.
WHEN GUS VAN SANT GOT BACK TO LA, HE WANTED TO see Quinn and Cassie right away. If he didn’t feel they could anchor the movie, he’d told Joel, who’d told Evelyn, he was prepared to open the casting call to nonactors. He often worked with what he called naturals, nonprofessional kids who could read fluently and had a natural ease in front of the camera. And if they did that, it probably wouldn’t be cast in LA at all, but in Portland, Oregon, Gus’s hometown, where most of the movie would be filmed because Gus thought soundstages made movies feel inauthentic.
Quinn and Cassie had exactly one shot. Evelyn had already told Joel that she’d worked with Quinn so he’d have the character down without sounding stale in a cold read. She knew Quinn was ready.
Evelyn picked him up at his apartment at one thirty. She was relieved to see that though shabby, his clothes were clean and his hair freshly washed. They said very little on the way to the audition. Quinn seemed to be in a good frame of mind, though nervous; as she drove, he drummed on his thigh in the supremely irritating way that every teenage boy seemed compelled to do. She let it go, pulling up in front of Joel’s office and letting Quinn out before dealing with the car. She looked at him, he gave her a curt nod, and then he was out and gone. They both knew exactly what was at stake.
By the time she parked the car and got upstairs, the waiting room was empty except for a small, curly-haired woman marooned on one of the heavy wooden benches. She smiled at Evelyn and said, “Are you with Quinn?”
Evelyn nodded. “You’re Cassie’s mother?”
The woman affirmed that she was, but she seemed as disinclined to talk as Evelyn was. They were both trying to overhear what was going on in the next room. There was laughter, but the voices themselves were too low to hear clearly. Then chairs scraped across the floor, and in another minute Evelyn could hear them reading from the script. She identified it as the scene in which Carlyle and Buddy explained to the grandmother that they’d had the household’s landline cut off that morning at the mall, since they both also had cell phones. The grandmother arcs from anger to grief, saying she’d called that number every day since her daughter died so she could hear her voice on the message, and now, by disabling the phone line, it was as though they’d killed her. Buddy loses his temper and storms out of the kitchen and then the house, leaving Carlyle to cope alone. It was a pivotal scene, and a great opportunity for Quinn to rapidly cycle through a range of emotions. The kids read the scene a number of times, presumably on Van Sant’s redirects. Then i
t got quiet for a few minutes and all Evelyn could hear was a single low voice murmuring. Abruptly, chairs scraped against the floor again, the door opened, and Quinn and Cassie came out. Both were flushed.
Joel appeared in the doorway just long enough to say, “Thanks, guys. We’ll be in touch.” He gave Evelyn an unreadable look and then closed the door.
Cassie’s mother gathered up Cassie’s backpack and iPod and led her out into the hallway with a gentle hand on her shoulder. Quinn and Evelyn waited until they heard the woman’s heels fade away down the marble stairs.
Evelyn looked at Quinn, and Quinn looked at Evelyn with a shrug. Without a word, they went into the hallway and down the stairs and out onto the street to the car. They could just see Cassie’s mom pulling away into traffic.
In the car, Quinn finally said, “I think it went okay.”
Evelyn started the car, but she didn’t go anywhere. “Good.”
“I mean, I think it went okay.”
“Good,” Evelyn said again. “Did he say anything?”
“No. Just what you heard. They’ll let you know. I mean, he didn’t seem excited. Van Sant didn’t. He gave us a bunch of redirects, but he only had us read the one scene.” Quinn thought for a minute. “But a couple of times he said, ‘When we work together.’”
“When we, or if we?”
“No, it was definitely ‘when we.’”
Evelyn looked over at him. He looked back at her. “That could be something,” she said.
“I know.”
“How did Cassie do?”
“She’s great. She was great.”
“Did he tape you?”
Quinn nodded.
“Then he probably wants to see how you look on film before he makes up his mind. He’ll talk it over with Joel, too, try to find out more about how you work, what your range is. And he’ll probably talk it over with the producers.”
“Yeah.”
“So now we wait,” said Evelyn, pulling into traffic. She, of all people, knew the dangers of second-guessing. The idea was to move into a state of serene suspension until the call came. How often had she been on the other side of the table? She’d forgotten how much harder it was when you weren’t the one in control.
“So where do you want me to drop you?” she asked Quinn.
“Oh,” he said. “The apartment, I guess.”
EVELYN TOOK A WORK CALL, AND THEN ANOTHER, AND then they were back at Jasper and Baby-Sue’s. She didn’t even get off the phone as Quinn got out, just lifted her hand in farewell and kept talking. She could be a real dick. But just as she drove away, she winked.
Almost immediately, as he headed over to Hazlitt & Company to see what Quatro was doing, she was on the phone. “He wants you to go bowling,” she told him.
“What?”
“He wants to take you and Cassie bowling. This afternoon at four.” Just under an hour from now.
“Why?”
“Probably so he can get to know you both a little better in a place where you’ll be more relaxed. I think it’s a great idea.”
“I suck at bowling.”
Evelyn laughed. “He’s not recruiting you for a league, honey. He’s just trying to find out who you are.”
Quinn heard his pulse in his ears. Gus Van Sant wanted to go bowling. “Can Cassie make it?”
“Of course she can make it. So can you. He’s going to meet you at Pinz in Studio City at four o’clock. Can you get there on your own? It’s on Ventura Boulevard.”
“I don’t know. Yeah, probably. If I can’t find a ride, though—”
“You can call me if you have to. Do you know where Cassie lives? Maybe they can take you.”
“Yeah.” Quinn just stood there on the sidewalk for a minute, stunned. Gus Fucking Van Sant wanted to take him and Cassie bowling.
“Good for you, honey,” Evelyn said softly. “Good for you both. Just relax and have a good time.”
“Yeah,” he said—like that was going to be possible.
“Strike out, or whatever you do when you bowl.”
“Yeah. Okay.” Then, just as she was about to get off the phone, he said, “Wait—Evelyn?” He realized he’d never called her by her name before.
“Hmm?”
“Thanks. I mean—thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” she said. “Just be yourself. And if you can’t do that, be Buddy.”
AT HAZLITT & COMPANY, QUATRO WAS WORKING ON A client, a young guy—probably an actor, given the safe haircut Quatro was giving him. Quatro caught sight of him in the waiting area, said something to the client, and came up.
“Hey, you okay?” he asked Quinn. “You look a little weird.”
“I’m going bowling with Gus Van Sant,” Quinn said, and broke into a grin. “Gus Frickin’ Van Sant.”
“Get the fuck out!” Quatro cried, pounding him on the back.
“Me and Cassie. At four.”
“No shit!”
“No shit.”
Quatro shook his head. “Wow.”
“Whew,” Quinn said. “Do you think I should wear something, like, special? What are you supposed to wear when you go bowling, anyways? I suck at bowling. I haven’t even been since I was a kid.”
“You’re still a kid.”
Quinn gave him a look. “I mean, are there, like, bowling clothes you’re supposed to have or whatever?”
“Only the shoes, and trust me, no one normal owns their own bowling shoes—you can rent them there. Just make sure you’re wearing clean socks with no holes.”
Quinn nodded. “I’m glad Cassie’s going,” he said, because he was. She’d know what to do. She was just a little kid, but she was much better at people stuff than he was. She had a great laugh, too, one of those belly laughs that makes you laugh, even if you don’t know what’s funny.
“Okay, bud,” Quatro said, grinning. “Knock ’em dead. I better get back to Mario Andretti, there.”
“That’s not really Mario Andretti,” Quinn said doubtfully.
“Nah, just a guy who likes driving race cars and wrote a book about it.” He clapped Quinn on the shoulder. “Call me later and tell me everything.”
Quinn watched Quatro walk back to his chair and say something to the client. The guy looked up to the front of the salon at Quinn, and Quinn cracked a smile. Gus Van Sant.
His cell went off again as he was walking out the door. It was Cassie. “My mom says do you need a ride? We can pick you up. You live in West Hollywood, right? Because we’re over here on La Brea.”
Quinn gave her the address of Los Burritos and said he’d be waiting in front in ten minutes. To the best of his recollection, he was wearing good socks, and if he went back to the apartment he’d just get nervous. More nervous.
THE LITTLE HISPANIC GIRL WAS WORKING, WHICH OF COURSE he knew because it was Saturday. He’d been afraid she’d be on a break or called in sick or something, but she was right there, talking to a woman and her daughter in Spanish. He stood in her line, hoping she wouldn’t take too long because he only had maybe five more minutes. If she smiled at him, it would be a good luck sign. As always, he had the little chili pepper charm in his front right pocket.
She got through with the mother and daughter and looked up at him. He was pretty sure she recognized him. “Hola!”
“Hola,” he said. “I don’t really know how to say anything else, though.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going bowling.” Then he pantomimed bowling, in case that wasn’t in her vocabulary, because why would it be?
She smiled. “Yes?”
“I mean, I’m going bowling with somebody really important.”
“That’s good, then.”
“Sí.” Quinn could feel the guy in line behind him getting restless. “I guess, can I get a Pepsi, por favor?”
“Grande?”
“Sí, grande.” She smiled like he’d done something amazing instead of saying something even Hispanic preschoolers knew. That was okay, thoug
h. He could feel himself blushing. She filled a cup with soda, put the lid on carefully, and then took the straw out of its paper wrapper for him and put it in the cup before handing it over. It was a strangely intimate thing to do. He was pretty sure she wouldn’t do that for most people. “Muy bien,” she said. “Buena suerte. Means good luck.”
He put the money in her hand instead of on the counter, and she closed her fingers over it. “Muchas gracias, señor. Thank you.” She smiled and he thought, for the millionth time, that her family must have a wonderful life with someone like her in the house.
He took his soda and went out onto the sidewalk. Cassie and her mom were just pulling up; Cassie opened the back door for him from inside, and he climbed in beside her.
“Hi, honey,” said her mom. He felt silly sitting behind her, like she was the chauffeur. Little kids sat behind their moms in a car, though, so he knew why Cassie had just assumed he’d sit back there, too. It was okay.
“I gave Cassie enough money for both of you to bowl a couple of games and rent shoes. I’m sure he won’t let you pay, but just in case.”
“Oh,” said Quinn. “Thanks.” He hadn’t even thought about what it would cost to bowl. After paying for the soda, he had four bucks on him, maybe five, plus some loose change.
“I think it’s wonderful that he wants to get to know you both a little better.” She met Quinn’s eyes in the rearview mirror. She had a nice, worn-out-paper-bag kind of face. “Cassie said she thought you’d done a good job at the audition,” she said. “Did you think so?”
“I don’t know. Yeah, probably. I couldn’t really tell, though.”
“I thought he liked us,” Cassie said.
“Enough to take you bowling, anyway,” her mom said.
“I have a new game,” Cassie said, offering Quinn her Game Boy. “Do you want to see?”
“That’s okay,” Quinn said. “I’m kind of nervous.”
Cassie shrugged and went back to her game. “Okay.”
Seeing Stars Page 38
