Where did I hear that? People say it all the time, of course—we all have to start somewhere—but now it jogs something in my memory, a specific picture of hearing the phrase, even though the focus is blurred. Then, all at once, it comes to me—Barney Sparks! That day in his office, where he kept quoting his father—all those clichés, but told with such pride and reverence that, somehow, they all sounded profound. Why didn’t I sign with him that day? Or wait to make a decision at least, even when I got the job on Kevin and Kathy? I was so desperate the day I met Joe Melville at Absolute Artists, so unsure of myself and anxious to be liked. Now, I can hardly picture the girl who would choose unsmiling, pink-faced Joe Melville over Barney Sparks. I’m not that person today. Today, I would pick the person who made me feel warm, rather than the one who left me cold.
A wave of perfume crashes over me as I open the door to the ladies’ room. I step into an old-fashioned lounge area with pink carpet and a long mirror against one whole wall, where three leggy girls in short tight dresses are applying lipstick.
“You guys, like, hurry,” one of the girls says to the other two. But, hypnotized by their own reflections, none of them moves.
In the second room, where the sinks and bathroom stalls are, I wash my hands, proving I came to do what I said I was going to, as if James will be able to tell. I examine my face in the mirror. My lipstick has almost completely worn off, except for a strange red line staining the outside of my mouth. My eyeliner has smudged, leaving two black rings beneath my eyes, and the whole effect gives me a dirty, unfamiliar look, as if my face had been colored with crayons by a messy toddler who couldn’t stay within the lines. I take the damp paper towel I used to dry my hands and sweep it across my lips, then dab underneath my eyes, trying to restore myself to something I recognize.
“Thank goodness! There you are!” Penelope’s voice emerges from the very last stall in the row, and her heels clack on the tile as she moves to the sink next to mine, where she gives herself a quick glance in the mirror. “Uchh,” she says, as if it’s all a terrible disaster, and rummages in her small pink satin bag, producing powder and lipstick, even though it looks to me like both were very recently applied.
“I was hoping I’d find you! Here,” she says, handing me my Filofax.
“Oh, thanks,” I say, running a hand lightly over the worn brown cover.
“Did you find him?” she asks. “Did you find James?”
“I did, yeah. He’s—waiting for me. Shouldn’t you be in there, too?”
“Who, me? Naah. I’m not going to the movie.”
“You’re not?”
“No. I hardly ever do. I usually just walk the line and move on to the next thing.”
“Walk the line?”
“The press line. I just come for the photos and interviews.”
“Oh,” I say, baffled. It wouldn’t even occur to me to come to a movie to do something other than watch the movie.
“Plus, and I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable at all, ’cause I’m totally happy for you, but it’s still a little awkward between James and me. I just felt insulted by him, no offense.”
“Because of the soap, you mean?”
“The soap?”
“I, uh, I guess he said it would deaden you, or some—”
“Oh God no,” she says, rolling her eyes at her own reflection. “Isn’t he funny? So serious about everything. Like I need him to tell me those things are a grind. I was never going to sign for years—I was just doing it for some quick cash. I’m moving to L.A. anyway, to do Diamonds Are for Heather?”
“Oh? That’s a—?”
“Just this feature. I’m, like, playing Cordelia Biscayne’s little sister. You know me, always the sassy sidekick!” She laughs then shakes her head. “No, insulted because he offered to pay for me to get my boobs done.”
I can feel my face redden, but Penny continues without noticing, cheerily powdering her nonexistent imperfections.
“But you—you’re perfect,” I stammer.
“What?” she says, turning away from the mirror, flashing me a dazzling smile. “Hardly, but you’re sweet to say so. I mean, I know girls are doing it like it’s the new Rachel or something, and as a concept it doesn’t even bother me, but I make my own money—more than he does—and if I’m going to do something like that, I can effing well pay for it myself!”
It occurs to me that in all the Stavros classes in the world, I’d never learn the things about acting I’ve learned in one evening with Penelope Schlotsky: Angle your body to the camera, Page Six is a good thing, some jobs are just for the money, and tiny perfect blond people can be cast as sassy sidekicks, too. I wonder what else she could teach me, besides the fact that James Franklin’s concept of authenticity involves an idea of perfection that’s completely fake.
Penelope flips her silky hair so it pools over one shoulder. “Never mind me!” she says, closing her compact with a snap. “I totally get it—he’s an awesome, hot guy. I don’t mean to be a Polly Party Pooper!”
“That’s okay, I’m not sure it’s working out with us anyway,” I say boldly, even though it’s a realization I had only seconds ago. Saying it out loud makes me feel strong, takes some of the sting out of tonight. “I wanted it to be right between us, but I think somewhere deep down I always knew it couldn’t work, if that makes any sense?”
“I know just what you mean,” she says, knitting her brow in sympathy. “Like when Julia Roberts married Lyle Lovett.”
“Yes,” I say. “Something like that.”
29
As I pass the three girls again, still primping in the mirror of the lounge area, it occurs to me how young they are. It’s odd, because when I entered the ladies’ room, I didn’t notice any difference between us, but I feel older now, and wiser somehow. I know more now than I did just moments ago, before entering the bathroom. I know, for instance, that James won’t be in the lobby by the pay phones waiting for me. I know he left almost immediately after I went to wash my hands. I know he didn’t wait one minute, let alone five, before heading to his seat, and just a glance in the direction of where we were standing earlier tells me I’m right.
I also know I won’t be staying for the movie and that I won’t even try to find James to tell him I’m leaving.
I haven’t yet informed the driver of the taxi making its way slowly through the traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge that I don’t have a penny in my wallet—that I don’t, in fact, have a wallet at all. Before I hailed the cab, it had occurred to me to jump the turnstiles at the 47th and Sixth Avenue station in order to get home, but even if I could manage to get over the lawlessness of that plan, I couldn’t picture how I’d pull it off in such a tight dress.
For some reason, the thing I’m worried about the most isn’t James’s reaction when he realizes I’m not coming back to sit beside him, but how I can pay him back for the dress he bought me. For now, I push the thought away. I can’t think about the dress, or talking to him, or seeing him in class. I can’t think about anything except getting home.
As the taxi glides over the Brooklyn Bridge, I look up at the lights, a series of white globes strung together like pearls, and I silently count them as they pass: one, two, three … until my eyes start to tear from not blinking. When I tilt my head back down again, my vision is still blurred so that the taillights in front of us melt into a series of shimmering red balloons. But then I see there is a balloon, a single red balloon floating in front of the taxi, its white string just brushing the windshield, before the wind pulls it past us and it drifts up, up, up, and out of sight.
“You see that?” The cab driver says to my reflection in his rear-view mirror.
“Yeah.”
“How’d it get this far and not go pop?”
“I don’t know,” I say, still craning my neck to see if I can catch it one more time.
Eight days from now, I think, as I absentmindedly run my fingers over the worn leather cover of my Filofax, noticing that the sti
tching around the edges has started to unravel. I haven’t said it out loud even to myself, but I know my deadline is just eight days away, and all I have to show is a calendar full of doodles and lists of what I ate that day, movies I saw, two days crossed off except for the word “shoot,” Katie Finnegan’s wedding where I leaned my head on Dan’s shoulder and was happy, but felt his hand in mine and panicked.
My deadline is here, and it isn’t even a tough call to say whether or not I’ve achieved what I came for: no agent, no job, and as of tonight, no boyfriend—or whatever it is a person who says he loves you but ignores you in public should be called. How’d it get this far and not go pop?
As the cab pulls up to our building, I pretend to the driver that I’ve only just realized I’m a little short on cash. “I’ll be right back,” I try to reassure him, but he doesn’t seem convinced.
“This is why I hate coming to Brooklyn,” he sighs, hitting the steering wheel emphatically with the palms of his hands.
I fly up the creaky stairs, barefoot, carrying my shoes by their heels, my Filofax tucked under my arm. The door is open a few inches, and there, at the dining room table, his bangs completely covering his eyes, is Dan, sitting in front of his computer. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so comforting.
“You’re writing!”
He looks up at me, startled. “Oh—hello—yes. Something came to me after you left.”
“I’m glad you found my absence inspirational.”
“I don’t mean it like that,” he says, his face solemn. “In fact, just the opposite. I actually think it’s—”
“What?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way. I don’t want to scare you. But I think it’s something I’m writing for you.”
“How many heads do I have?”
“Very funny. Actually, I’m trying something new. No creatures this time, just people.”
“Why would that scare me?”
“I have a history of freaking you out.”
“Only when you’re nice to me.”
“Or affectionate.”
“Well, naturally. Who wants kindness or affection?”
“Exactly,” he says with a nod. “So I hope you’ll take this—whatever it turns out to be—as merely a gesture of cold-hearted professional respect. Nothing more.”
“That I can handle. I’m definitely more comfortable with your feelings for me as an actress.”
“Good. We’re agreed, then. I appreciate you solely as a professional. As a person, I have no thoughts regarding you whatsoever.”
“I’m so relieved,” I say, grinning like an idiot.
I hear the sound of angry honking and remember I’ve left the cab running outside. I grab my purse—my actual purse this time—and I fly down the stairs barefoot. I pay the driver and tip more than I normally would, both because I’m feeling guilty for forgetting about him and because I’m inexplicably giddy to be home. He drives away but I stay there for a moment on our stoop, listening to the trees rustle up and down Eighth Avenue, feeling the spring air across my face and letting the cement cool my bare feet.
My brain has been shrouded in a cloud since I left the movie—everything happened so fast. But the cloud is dissolving now, and the reality of the evening is beginning to show through, sharp and cold. My stomach flips as I think again about the empty theater seat beside James, the dress I can’t afford, and my looming deadline.
My momentary relief at being home has faded, and my footsteps are heavy and slow this time on the way back up the stairs, and while the sight of Dan in his regular spot is still comforting, it can’t take away the pain that’s begun to gnaw at my stomach.
No job. No prospects. No relationship.
I drop my purse on the table by the door with an unintentionally violent thud, and Dan glances over and cocks his head.
“So?” he asks after a moment, leaning back in his seat, his long arms raised in a stretch.
“What?”
“How was it?”
“Fine.”
“Then why are you home so early?”
I sigh, then flop down on the couch, shifting my head around on the pillow until I find a relatively comfortable spot where I’m not being stabbed by all the bobby pins stuck in my hair.
“Well, a funny thing happened to me on the way to the bathroom.” I tilt my face up to the ceiling, because I don’t want Dan to see that my expression doesn’t match my lighthearted comment. There’s something calming about looking up into the sea of white and not making eye contact. I’ll just face this ceiling forever, I think. It will be so much easier than talking to people.
“You didn’t faint, did you?”
“What? No, I didn’t faint. Why would you think I fainted?”
“I’m sort of kidding. You just made me think of—that’s what happens to the Franny in the J. D. Salinger story. Do you know it? She has a bad time on a date and then feels sick and faints on her way to the bathroom.”
I have to wrench my gaze from the ceiling I pledged never to abandon. I have to swing my feet to the floor and sit straight up to look Dan in the face, because I can’t believe he’s bringing this up.
“That’s me.”
“What’s you?”
“I’m that Franny. I mean, I’m not her exactly, but that’s the character my mother named me after. Did I never tell you that before?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’d remember. He’s one of my favorites. I’ve read those stories a hundred times.”
“I only read it once, right after my mother died. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t get why she’d name me after a character who wants to make some shallow guy like her, and then gets herself so worked up that she smokes too much and doesn’t eat and faints on the way to the bathroom. Never mind that it’s only a short story. She couldn’t even name me after somebody in a full-length book?”
I realize that as I’ve been talking, I’ve been absentmindedly removing the bobby pins from my hair, so that sections fall in front of my face as they’re released from captivity. I must look terrible, but I don’t care because the pins are hurting my head and I want them gone.
“You were eleven, right, when she—?”
I nod, but the combination of the night I’ve had already and Dan now bringing up the story of my namesake makes tears well up in my eyes. I don’t want them to fall, so I become very focused on lining up all the bobby pins on the coffee table just so, like regiments preparing for inspection.
“Well, I think it would speak to you more now. Franny, the character, is trying to be real in a world full of people who constantly talk about how real they are, but seem to her to be a bunch of phonies.” Dan’s head is tilted back a little, and I can see his eyes are shining the way they do when he’s talking about a filmmaker he loves. “Sort of like Franny the person, don’t you think?”
I think about how often James Franklin used the word “authentic” to describe everything from Arturo holding up the work on set to the Cuban coffee place I didn’t like very much. My chest feels tight and my breathing is shallow. I know exactly what Dan means. I nod a little but keep my head down, still perfecting my line of bobby-pin troops.
“She wants to be an actress, too—do you remember that?”
I shake my head, miserable. I’m remembering how painful it was when I read the story that first and last time, poring over it for clues, trying to find some message from my mother, something she’d left to me, some piece of her tucked into its pages. But I couldn’t find anything at all.
I steal a quick glance at Dan and he smiles back, but in a distracted way. He seems simultaneously very focused on me and entirely lost in his own world, as if it’s very important that he piece the story together properly.
“She’s in a play, remember? But then she quits. She quits acting altogether, almost because she loves it too much. It’s too important to her and she doesn’t want to do it for the wrong rea
sons, for anything resembling ego. She’s ashamed of herself for even wanting to compete, for ‘not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.’ I always loved that line.”
I nod again, but I’m sniffling now and my eyes are so full I can’t hold back anymore, and a few tears spill over. I think of how many times I’ve wanted to quit because I didn’t think I was worthy, and how guilty I felt that I wasn’t satisfied by the idea of a simple, normal life with Clark, and how many clues there are in this story my mother left to me, and how I’m only just starting to understand what they mean.
“Also, there’s the book she carries.” He nods, looking very serious. “The Way of the Pilgrim. Remember that? That’s actually the most beautiful part.”
“Yes, sort of. It’s that—the book is about chanting or something, right? I don’t get it.”
“Well, yes, but the mystic who’s supposed to be the author of the book that Franny is reading isn’t advocating any particular belief. He’s counseling that the repetition of a simple phrase—just the act of repetition itself—will bring enlightenment. That’s the thing that always stuck out to me—the idea that quantity becomes quality. I always took it to mean if you do anything enough, if you keep putting effort in, eventually something will happen, with or without you. You don’t have to have faith when you start out, you just have to dedicate yourself to practice as if you have it. She carries the book to remind her what she’s after.” Dan pauses for a moment, his eyes resting on my brown leather Filofax on the coffee table. “You have a book like that,” he says, nodding toward it.
“This?” I say, picking it up, trying to imagine my worn leather Filofax as some kind of mystical book. “No. This is totally different. This just shows I haven’t accomplished anything. This, in fact, proves it.”
“Maybe you haven’t accomplished what you want yet,” Dan says. “But what that book shows is how you’ve kept filling up the pages. Quantity becomes quality by itself, like the story says. You don’t even have to believe in your success. Just keep at it, like the fictional Franny, keep filling up the pages, and something’s bound to happen.”
Someday, Someday, Maybe: A Novel Page 27