The lines, learn the lines: “… smelling like a fresh spring day … waterfall take me away … Niagara—honeymoon in a bottle.” I don’t quite have them down, but I’ll be fine. The material doesn’t seem particularly original, thank God. For once, I’m relieved to have just the same generic mom commercial I’ve had a dozen times before.
I take a deep breath as Vintage Glasses snaps a Polaroid of me against the stark white wall, stapling it to my eight-by-ten head shot and résumé so the casting people can see what I actually look like today, in contrast to how my face looks when I’ve had a chance to have it enhanced and retouched.
I follow her into the audition room, which is carpeted and windowless and bare, except for two chairs where the casting people are sitting, and a rolling cart with a TV and VCR on it. A video camera is set up on a tripod, which is pointed at a T-shaped mark made of masking tape on the floor where I’m supposed to stand. Facing me from about fifteen feet away are two women, both in their thirties, with matching parted-down-the-middle stick-straight hair. Vintage Glasses pops a tape in the camera and a red light near the giant black lens comes to life. The lens feels like another person in the room, a person who never speaks or smiles, who only stares without blinking, never looking away.
“Hi, Franny, how are you, great? Great. Really great to see you,” one of the stick-straights singsongs without looking up from her clipboard. “If you don’t have any questions about the material, then state your name and agency and go ahead whenever you’re ready thankssomuch.”
I try to swallow, but my throat is too dry. This is the kind of room that’s hard to do well in. If they’re in the mood to talk, I can crack a few jokes, make a small connection, and give myself a moment to settle down. But these girls are all business.
I look down at the paper. I’m not going to panic or ask for more time or tell them I didn’t really have a chance to go over it yet. I’m going to remain calm, as if I’m a professional. What does your character want more than anything? Stavros always asks us. Clean laundry, I say to myself. More than anything, I wish I could get my laundry cleaner. I try to breathe, I can only manage to suck in a tiny bit of air. It will have to do.
“You know what’s hard about being a mom? Nothing.” Clean laundry. I smile, as if I’m sure I’ve got this whole mom/laundry thing under control. There’s nothing I want more than whiter whites.
“I always have time for my kids. They’re my number-one priority.” I relax a little, picturing a kid named George I used to babysit in high school. He liked to be tickled, and he couldn’t say his “F”s, so he called me “Whanny.”
“I always have time for my friends. It’s all about balance, ya know?”
The stick-straights are giggling, I think, or is that my imagination? I can’t hear that well due to the volume of blood pounding in my ears. I resolve to speak the lines even more emphatically so they know I’m taking laundry more seriously than anyone ever has.
“I always make time for myself. Smelling like a fresh spring day makes it all a breeze.”
The stick-straights are really laughing now; there’s no denying it. I must be doing a really bad job. I try to finish extra strong, so as not to let them see how disappointed I am. I have the cleanest laundry!
“When my husband asks me how I do it, I tell him, ‘It’s easy!’ Every day I think of our honeymoon in Niagara, and let the waterfall take me away. Niagara. It’s like a honeymoon in a bottle.”
I lower the paper and look up, defeated, only to see that the stick-straights are smiling, beaming, actually. They look at each other and share a nod.
I’m totally confused.
“Awesome!” one of them gushes. “SO funny.”
“Really cute.”
“Quirky!”
I have no idea why they liked what I did, but I know I should play along.
“Thanks!” I say, and then for no reason, “Any adjustments?” Stupid. Stupid. Don’t ask to do it again when you don’t know what you did in the first place.
“Ummmm …” They both cock their heads at the same angle, like two puppies in a pet store window. Then they nod to each other again.
“Sure, yeah, let’s do one more, just for kicks!”
“Yeah! I mean, that was great! But let’s, in this one, like, really have fun with it!”
“But also, take it seriously, like you did.”
“Yeah! Serious, but fun, like you’re talking to your best friend.”
“Yeah! Like you’re sharing a secret with your best friend.”
“Yeah! It’s a big secret, but also it’s really casual. Like, it’s a secret, but also it’s no big deal.”
“Yeah! Just throw it away.”
“Yeah! But it’s important, too.”
“Yeah! And could you, maybe, put your hair in a ponytail?”
“Yeah!”
I’m even less sure of what I did the second time, but the stick-straights laugh again anyway.
“I think her hair is funnier down, don’t you?” one of them says to the other, who nods vigorously back.
As I leave the room, I stuff the paper with the copy on it in my bag, even though you’re not supposed to take it with you, and bolt for the elevator.
I walk a few blocks in I’m not sure what direction. I’m so excited that they seemed to like me that I’m dizzy and disoriented. Finally, I slow down a bit and, finding myself near Union Square Park, decide I’ll stop and sit down and try to analyze what just happened. It’s important to figure out why they thought it went well. A cigarette. I really want a cigarette. I think there might be one left in a crumpled pack in the bottom of my bag. I know there is, in fact, because I pretended to myself that I forgot about it but secretly know it exists.
I retrieve the pack I fake-forgot about, but I can’t find a light. I keep digging in my bag, hoping something will appear. No matches, no lighter, nothing. I’m the worst smoker. I never have the two things you’re supposed to have at the same time. I hold the unlit cigarette in my hand anyway, for support, and uncrumple the paper from the audition. For the first time, I read the whole thing.
I had assumed from the dialogue what the action would be: generic shots of someone being a great mom, playing with generic perfect kids, drinking generic perfect tea with generic perfect girlfriends, and other predictably generic-perfect-mom activities.
That’s not at all what the description says.
My stomach lurches.
The action between each line is the exact opposite of what the line is. After “Kids are my number-one priority,” it says, “Rushing mom gets daughter to school just as the bell is ringing.” After the thing about always having time for friends, it’s “looks at answering machine guiltily and decides to screen the call.” At the end, the harried housewife stuffs an impossible amount of dirty clothes in the washer, which miraculously come out clean, and she gets a huge hug from her approving husband.
The commercial was supposed to be funny.
They thought I was taking myself seriously as a choice, when I was honestly trying to sell myself to them as a perfect person with a perfect life. If I’d understood it properly, I would have played it differently. I would have played it more obviously sarcastic or something. I would have tried to let them know that I realized it was comedic, to show them I understand funny. But I played it trying to be serious, and they laughed anyway. Which either means I don’t understand funny at all, or I understand it better than I think I do.
They thought I was funny; isn’t that all that matters? Does being accidentally funny count as being funny? I’m not sure what happened in there. Today was either a great success or a terrible failure. I wish there were someone I could call and ask, some sort of all-seeing audition judge in the sky, the omnipotent God of Funny, who could help me decipher this endless parade of baffling incidents. But all I have today is myself on a bench, with a crumpled piece of paper and an unlit cigarette, hoping for some clarity, or maybe just a light.
4
I’m sure he wasn’t there the first two times I checked the traffic headed west on 45th Street, but when I check for the third time, there he is. James Franklin, the working actor who’s still in class, the one who got the part in the Arturo DeNucci movie. He’s wearing a green army surplus—type jacket and faded jeans and has a long blue and red striped scarf looped around his neck. His hair is dark and a little wavy. He’s so handsome that it almost hurts my eyes. Even from across the street he stands out like the sun is shining just a little more brightly on him, giving him the slightest bit more attention and warmth than everyone else.
He’s across Sixth Avenue heading west, and I’m about to head north. If I can cross 45th before the light changes, and stall convincingly for a moment, there’s a chance we’ll accidentally run into each other. Maybe he’ll recognize me, maybe even remember my name, although he’s been back in class only a month or so after being on location and I’d just started with Stavros when he left. But if he does recognize me, maybe I’ll ask him for a light, and we’ll stand on the corner having a smoke and talking about class, or maybe he’ll ask if I want a cup of coffee, and we’ll go to a diner and sit down and talk about … Shit. What will we talk about? I’ll think of something. I’ll think of something funny to say and he’ll say, “You’re funny. I never realized how funny you are. I’m so glad I ran into you.” And maybe we’ll go out sometime, and maybe we’ll fall in love. And someday we’ll happen to be walking down this very street and he’ll say, “Remember that day when we accidentally ran into each other here?” But none of that can happen if he walks by me on the street today.
I make my way across 45th Street and hover near a trash can, digging in my bag as if I’m looking for something I need to throw out, waiting for his light to change. Finally, I can see him start to walk across the street. I look away so he doesn’t see me staring at him, and when I glance up again, I’ve lost him in the crowd. My heart starts to pound in panic but then he emerges again, and my face flushes with embarrassment. Calm down. He has a tan canvas messenger bag slung across his chest and a pager on his belt. The bag looks pretty full and I wonder what’s inside it. Maybe he had to pick up a script to prepare for an audition. Or maybe he gets his scripts delivered to him by messenger—I’ve heard they do that when you start to do really well. Maybe he’s carrying around books by John Osborne or Charles Bukowski because he’s trying to make sense of his darkly romantic view of the world. I’ll bet he brings a notebook with him everywhere in case he has a deep thought about something, which I’m fairly sure he does on a regular basis.
As he nears my side of the street I focus intently on my bag while facing the trash can, sighing in exasperation and shaking the bag dramatically up and down in an effort to “find what it is I’m looking for.” “Where is it?” I say too loudly for the audience of no one. Finally I retrieve the only believable trash I can find, a thin foil piece of gum wrapper, so light that—even with the force of my melodramatic aim—it flutters, missing the container entirely, and when I look up, James Franklin has disappeared.
My mouth falls open in dismay, and my bag slides a few inches down my shoulder as it slumps in defeat. Seconds later, some pedestrian slams into me, and my open bag is knocked off my shoulder and onto the ground. It’s what I deserve, of course, for my appallingly hammy bag acting, and for moving the bag from a stable cross-body position to the more vulnerable single shoulder in order to capture the attention of James Franklin—who is suddenly standing right in front of me.
James Franklin is standing right in front of me.
His canvas book bag hit my canvas book bag just as he passed. It’s like our shoulder bags kissed.
The thought of our shoulder bags kissing and eventually falling in love and moving in together makes me smile a little, which is bad, because finding myself amusing is taking up the space I need in my brain to conjure a way to be charming. I’ve got to think of something to say. Something devastatingly witty. I’m running out of time. He’s just staring at me. I pick my bag up off the ground and stare blankly back at him, frozen like those lottery winners on TV who scream without forming actual words, or one of those actors accepting an award who you know will regret not having written a speech later as the clock ticks by and they completely blank on who they were supposed to thank. “Your wife!” you yell to them through the television, but the orchestra swells and their chance is gone.
“Whoops—sorry about—”
“I’m in class with you!” I announce, too squeakily.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yes! Stavros’s class? I’ve only been there for a few months and you’ve been gone … you … working actor, you.…” I trail off, smiling at him idiotically.
“Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think I recognize you .…” He nods, slowly, and smiles in a slightly lopsided way. “Yes.”
He has some sort of accent, almost a drawl. He’s from the South somewhere. Maybe he grew up on a farm in Texas, or Georgia. Maybe he had chores in the barn every day, and helped his father harvest corn.
He still hasn’t looked away from me. He stands perfectly still, not shifting at all. I can feel myself rocking back and forth on my feet. I try to stay steady, like he does, but it’s impossible for me to do.
“I really like your work in class,” I say, ducking my head.
“Oh yeah?” He looks embarrassed, glancing down at his feet. He’s shy, I think. The city must be so loud for him after all that wide-open quiet space he’s used to.
“Yes! I mean, we’ve all seen guys who yell ‘Stella! Stella!’ Like Brando? But you made Stanley really, uh, you. I think.”
I’ve got to get a grip. I hope I don’t sound pretentious. Anytime a person uses “Brando” in a sentence, the odds of sounding pretentious are high. I take what might be my first breath in the whole conversation. “Anyway.” I smile and try to hold his gaze the way he held mine, then hold out my hand. “Franny.”
“Franny. From class.” His eyes narrow a little, probably to avoid the smoke as he takes a drag off of his cigarette, but I feel like he’s sizing me up. “You said you’re new?”
“Who, me? Well, sort of, yes. I’m new to class, but I’ve lived in New York for a little while—two years. Over two years. I worked for my dad at his school, and then I was in a theater company for a long time before that. Touring. Also, I’ve done one commercial. And uh, that’s it!”
Ugh. I’m babbling. At least I didn’t tell him the company was called GO! KIDS! and we played stupid fairy-tale characters and the only places we “toured” were elementary schools in the tri-state area. Oh God, what if he asks what company I was in? I wish I hadn’t mentioned the commercial, either. He would probably never do commercials.
“That’s cool, that’s cool,” he drawls, giving me a smile. “Work is work, right?”
“Right. Yes! Work is work, isn’t it? How true!” I’m relieved. I must stop repeating him, though.
There’s an odd buzzing sound and James reaches down to check the pager on his belt. “Sorry about that. That’s my agent,” he says, casually. “I’m supposed to meet him somewhere.”
“So you aren’t going to class?” I say, with way too
much panic in my voice.
“No,” he says. Then he pushes his bottom lip out a little. “Not tonight, sweetheart.”
He looks almost sorry for me, as if he’s canceling some sort of prearranged date, or I’m five years old and he just told me we can’t go to the zoo. I resent his assumption that I’m even slightly disappointed that he won’t be in class tonight, although the truth is I’m inexplicably crushed.
“Me neither. I’m not going to class either, because ah, it’s funny, but I have to pick up some scripts, too, actually.” Shit. Lying. Stop lying.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. And then, I have … ah … stuff, you know … with all my uh, agents, also,” I say, hands flapping vaguely in the air.
“Very cool. Who are you with?”
I realize I’m too exhausted to continue. “I’m with It’s All in My Head, Inc.?”
“You’re, wha? Oh, I get it. You’re kidding. Ha.”
“Yes, I’m kidding. I’m currently between agents. Currently and formerly between them.”
“Ah, well …” James trails off. He looks embarrassed. I’ve blown it. We’ll never speak to each other again. I’ll wave to him across the theater once in a while, but mainly I’ll pretend this whole thing never happened. My face is burning as I try to think of a quirky exit line, something Diane Keaton said in Annie Hall, when James lowers his cigarette and smiles a slow, Southern smile.
“Can I get your number?” he asks.
I was definitely not expecting that. It seems to have come out of nowhere. It occurs to me that perhaps this is his way of compensating for my not having an agent. I decide I don’t care.
“My number? Yes. Sure. For representation?”
He looks confused. “No, for—oh. Kidding again. Ha.”
It’s a little weird how he says the word “ha” instead of actually laughing. He must be one of those cool people who appreciate humor subtly from the inside, who never giggle uncontrollably, streaming tears and spitting milkshake down their shirt.
Someday, Someday, Maybe: A Novel Page 4