Alice in La La Land

by Sophie Lee

  'What happened?' asked Bunny quietly, taking a sip of her drink. Tact had never been her strong suit. 'Was the cast not ready?'

  Alice's mouth dropped open. 'Was it that bad?' she winced. She was aware her bottom lip was trembling. 'Bloody hell, I've got twenty thousand invested here.'

  'Okay, don't fret, sweetie,' Bunny purred in an attempt to soothe, but her tendency towards brutal honesty won out. She sighed. 'That hoopla in the third act with all the blood. People were groaning. I just . . .' Bunny took a large sip of her champagne and left an impressive pink mark on the rim of her glass. 'The Starmap 3000 pilot started shooting this week. I can't help thinking . . .'

  'Flaming Sambuccas anyone?' Conrad interjected. 'Hi Bunny, how are you? Wasn't she amazing?' He looked flushed and jubilant.

  'Three please,' Alice replied. 'Just excuse me one sec, Bunny.'

  'Go, go, enjoy,' urged Bunny, turning to chat to a man Alice recognised as the theatre critic from The Australian. He looked uncomfortable and refused to meet Alice's eye. She clung to Conrad's arm as they made their way back into the throng of the bar.

  'Oh my goodness, did you see that critic's face?' she hissed. 'He looked as though he'd been sucking on lemons. And Bunny's really busting my balls. Thanks for rescuing me.'

  'What's she on about? You really were fabulous tonight.'

  'Really?'

  'Thanks so much for working so hard.'

  'Stop it,' Alice replied, surprised at the genuine emotion in his voice.

  'Three Sambuccas,' he ordered from the barman. 'Alice, I'll be back in one sec. I've just seen someone I need to speak to.'

  'Sure,' said Alice, trying to peer through the crowd at who the person could be.

  'Three Sambuccas. That's twenty-one dollars,' said the sympathetic barman as he set fire to their tops with a plastic lighter.

  'Oh . . . right.' Alice reached into her purse and handed over the cash.

  'Big night planned, Moon-Face?' came a voice from behind her.

  'Oh, Flick. Thank God you came,' Alice sighed, turning to her friend and giving her a hug.

  'Are all those Sambuccas for you?' she asked, eyeing the drinks on the bar. The flames were dwindling and the drinks looked forlorn.

  'Of course,' said Alice jauntily. 'Everything in threes on an opening night; you know that.' She handed over one of the drinks. It burnt her finger. 'Now where are my three groupies?'

  'I just had my way with all of them and sent them home. Cheers.' Flick tipped back her head and swallowed quickly. 'So Conrad's still scarpering off when it comes to paying for the drinks, I see,' she said archly. Flick was the only person Alice would let get away with this comment. After all, she had introduced them.

  Flick, or Felicity Chadwick, was one of the best theatre actresses around. She had auditioned for the three major drama schools in Australia at the tender age of seventeen and was accepted in all. She chose to attend the one closest to her home town. Flick's father was a prominent federal minister. Once she had joined a street theatre troupe who performed bare-chested on a busy Saturday in a popular shopping district. They shouted things like, 'Would you go out with a man who eats meat? Never!' and banged their drums. Photos of the incident had appeared in the national newspaper accompanied by disparaging comments about Minister Chadwick. From then on, he was never really comfortable with her career choice. Despite being told she had a great head for radio at graduation, she had gone on to do years of top-notch work for the state theatre company.

  'Mind if we pop outside for some fresh air?' Flick suggested.

  'Yeah, sure,' Alice replied. She caught her mother's eye across the room. 'Stepping out for five,' she mouthed. Alice could see that Bunny had finished with the theatre critic and was now bending her mum's ear out of shape.

  Alice and Flick stepped out into the small courtyard at the front of the theatre. The night was warm and they could hear the traffic humming along Cleveland Street. A small throng of devoted smokers had also gathered to service their addiction. A big moth fluttered close to Alice's head and she batted it away. Flick had a joint lit up within seconds and offered Alice a toke.

  'No thanks. I've got to keep my producer's hat on for another hour at least.'

  'Well, old chum,' Flick said, dragging deeply on the joint for a second time, 'you looked good up there.'

  'Oh God. Was it really that bad?'

  'It wasn't great,' Flick sighed, looking down at the lit joint between her fingers and exhaling a plume of smoke.

  'But Act One . . .' pleaded Alice.

  '. . . was good, but all that postmodern stuff at the end really lost the audience.'

  'Oh shit.' Alice turned to check that her mum wasn't coming out, 'poor Conrad.'

  'I shouldn't worry about him too much, m'dear. He's got the Vienna Theatre Company to keep him warm.'

  'What?' gasped Alice. Her face felt numb.

  'Oops. Oh shit. He hasn't told you.' Flick extinguished the joint and kept the remains to smoke later. Alice felt a wave of nausea almost overwhelm her and thought for a moment she would faint. She shook her head and opened her mouth to speak. This was the last thing she wanted to deal with right now.

  'Look, Flick, thanks for the heads up, but I've got to go back in there. Are you coming to the after-after party at Bar Licks?'

  'Yeah.' She looked at her friend and cocked her head to one side. 'You did a great job up there despite all that. A one-legged pole dancer! Who would've thunk it! How did you get your leg to look so wooden?'

  'That was easy,' laughed Alice, 'it just had to match the rest of my performance.' She turned and walked back inside.

  At 11.35 pm Alice heard Shauna's Mustang pull up in the back. She wasn't playing her usual heavy-metal music, and she shouted up from below before she'd switched off the engine.

  'Alice? Alice, I'm coming! Frickin' battery died!' Alice could hear her taking the stairs two at a time. 'Piece of crap car! I've got your hista-anti-mines!'

  Alice heard her running through the laundry. Shauna stood panting by the bathroom door and held up a paper bag. Her face was damp with sweat and she waved the bag in triumph.

  'Aww, don't cry, Alice,' said Shauna, 'don't cry.'

  Shauna opened the packet of antihistamines and tipped her toothbrush out of its plastic Power Rangers cup on the sink. She gave it a quick rinse then filled it with cold water from the tap. She squeezed a pill out of the pack and held out her palm. It was possibly the most enormous pill Alice had ever seen.

  'Bloody hell, are you sure you didn't get the ones they give to elephants by mistake?'

  Shauna shook her head and handed her the cup. Alice tipped her head back and tried to swallow the pill. On her third attempt, she willed herself to relax her throat completely and managed to get it down, chasing it with a mouthful of water. The pill felt as though it were sitting under her breastbone.

  'God, LA tap water tastes weird!' she said, thumping her chest in an effort to force the pill down.

  'You think?' Shauna knelt down and felt the bathwater with her hand. 'Or maybe I didn't rinse the cup out properly. That bath water sure ain't tepid, Alice.' Shauna mimed quotation marks with her fingers as she said the word 'tepid'. 'You must be freezing your ass off.'

  Alice felt weak but reassured that she now had medicine in her system. 'You know,' she remarked, choking down a sob as Shauna handed her a towel, 'I could've had a major role in Starmap 3000, but I turned it down to do a play that got canned in its third week. And you know what? For the following year I didn't work at all . . . unless, of course, you count a corporate video and a pineapple chunks commercial. So let's face it, my ticket to the big time, a little art-house film I shot two years ago called Cornucopia, was in fact booed at Venice and they still can't organise a release date. I won't even mention the talking horse movie I took on to finance my boyfriend's play so that he could walk out on me and it on opening night . . . Bollocks! I have such bloody brilliant decision-making skills!' Alice's nose was running and tears slid do
wn her cheeks. They felt cool on her facial welts.

  'Wow, you do theatre? That's classy, Alice!' Shauna rolled up her sleeve and pulled out the plug. She exhaled loudly. 'That sucks, Alice, it really does, but you haven't even given yourself a chance here, yet. Neville's been toughing it out here for years, you know.'

  'Yeah, and look how he makes his dough.' Alice wrapped herself in the towel and they made their way down the hall. As she opened her bedroom door, she knocked the accessories off her doorknob and they clattered to the floor like a thousand fairy bells. 'He charges triple the rent for a room that's not even vacant and has his tenants administer eardrops to his cats.'

  'Ear drops?' Shauna winced, 'ewww.'

  'You mean you didn't get my note?' asked Alice, reaching under the pillow for her pyjamas. The walk from the bathroom left her feeling spacey and exhausted. 'Neville emailed to ask that you specifically be in charge of their ears.'

  'Huh? You're nuts,' Shauna retorted.

  Alice had dropped the towel and was cautiously poking her legs into her pyjama bottoms. She caught sight of the tidy script piles on the bedroom floor; she hadn't managed to learn lines while in the throes of her allergic reaction, after all. Fuck it, she thought. I'll set the alarm for 6 am and go over it all then. I need to get some sleep. Alice picked up her travel clock and programmed the alarm. She looked over at Shauna who was hovering by the door and seemed thoroughly spooked by the evening's drama.

  'You'll be okay now, right?' she asked, flicking at her hair.

  'Thank you so much, Shauna. Yes, I'll be all right. I'm sorry you had to stay up so late before your big audition. Thanks for going out and getting me the pills.' Alice sank back onto the pillows and closed her eyes. 'Let's reconvene at oh-eight-hundred hours,' she murmured. Her skin was still hot and itchy. 'I suppose we'll just need a few more Triple G's in the morning.'

  She could hear Shauna laughing as she pulled the door closed with a click. 'Uh, Alice? What the hell is bollocks?' she asked, through the wall.

  6

  'Oh dear! Oh dear!

  I shall be too late!'

  Lewis Carroll,

  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

  From: RebekahBloomfield@AmoebaManagement.com

  To: AliceEvans@gmail.com

  Re: Goodbye Poinsettia Lane

  You will read for the part of Laura (early twenties). This is a sweet script for the Hallmark Channel and we think you'd be perfect for the female lead. Go in looking as fresh-faced as possible. Please prepare scenes 17, 23 and 39. Appointment at 10.30 am, Samantha Schwartz, Schwartz and Breinhoff Casting, Studio City. (Address and Yahoo map attached.)

  Love Rebekah

  Alice sat puffing in the waiting room of the small casting office in Studio City. The stairs had rendered her breathless. Though running late, she had driven slowly down Laurel Canyon on her way to the audition, afraid that the previous night's allergic reaction would cause her to tumble into the ravine below. The motorists behind her honked in frustration. She was now fifteen minutes behind schedule, pale-faced and very under-rehearsed.

  Alice had called Rebekah at 9 am to ask if she could re-schedule, but it was the last day Hallmark was testing for the role.

  'Well, hon, you could cancel, that's up to you. But they made this time for you even though they were real busy. But, hey, if you can't make it, you can't make it.'

  Alice knew that if she were a Name this would not be the case, but she wasn't one so she had no choice. 'Fine, I'll be there,' she said.

  The waiting room was situated at the top of a set of stairs, in what appeared to be transient office space on a suburban street. There was no receptionist or sign that indicated a casting session was taking place, and Alice briefly wondered whether she had come to the right address. It was as though Hallmark had rented it yesterday on a short lease. Alice imagined it was the sort of office a down-at-heel private detective might use.

  The carpet, once beige, was now decidedly grey and splattered with a number of coffee stains – as though one of the waiting actors had rehearsed a monologue with a Starbucks cup in hand. The faded venetian blinds on the window facing the street were askew and three were broken. Alice had traced a finger along the table at the centre of the room and it came away covered in dust. She'd picked up a fact sheet from a pile in the middle and now began to fill it in, wincing as she wrote her age in the space provided.

  The sunlight coming through the window was painfully bright and her eyeballs ached. Alice craved toast and Vegemite, the delicious black salty spread that had been a part of her daily diet since she was an infant.

  Hallmark's fact sheet was more detailed than most and included a list of additional questions at the bottom. These pertained to the job applicant's skills and listed a range of activities. Levels of accomplishment ranged from poor to excellent, and the actor was asked to indicate their skill level.

  Alice surveyed the list. She vaguely remembered something about horse-riding in the Goodbye Poinsettia Lane screenplay but thought of it mainly as a story about a sick mother and a doomed romance. The fact that she'd got out of bed at 6.15 am to perfect her lines suddenly felt like an exercise in counter-productivity. Alice pulled her compact out of her makeup purse and checked herself in the mirror. She certainly wasn't sporting the rosy hue of a girl from the midwest fresh out of her teens. She hurriedly applied more makeup.

  Horse-riding was the first skill listed. Alice tilted back her head in contemplation. It would have to be said that her skills were minimal. Six years ago, she had an ongoing role in an Australian outback hospital series. For one of the second series' episodes, the script writers had suddenly decided that her character, who'd had the good fortune to be appointed hospital administrator at the age of twenty-one, was also a champion horse woman. After multiple lessons, the producer visited the stables to assess Alice's riding skills whereupon it was quickly decided it would be best for all to put Alice on top of an upturned milk crate instead of a horse. They were forced to rely on a stuntwoman by the name of Bucky for the other footage. Alice sighed and wrote 'excellent' in the space provided.

  Next on the list was parachuting. Obviously, large parts of the script were missing from her memory. Well, how hard could it be to parachute? They'd have to give people refresher courses for insurance purposes. She had bungy-jumped once. She was the only person, they'd remarked, to have been whacked in the face by the cord on the bounce back up. Alice scribbled 'good'. Surely, a 'poor' parachutist was a dead one?

  Alice noticed an actress in a fluffy pink cardigan coming out of the casting room. She was chattering away to the casting lady like a baby monkey. The girl was at least ten years younger than Alice. She was extremely thin and wore tight jeans that accentuated her bony legs. She could easily have played a fifteen-year-old.

  'Thanks so much, Samantha,' the girl twittered on her way out. Alice shook her head in exasperation. Perhaps the girl was going for a different role, she considered, hopefully. She turned back to her fact sheet, aware she needed to finish it before being called in.

  Driver's licence: Yes or no, manual or automatic. Well, she needn't lie about that one. She had a bona fide driver's licence and could drive both manual and automatic. Alice grinned uncomfortably and shifted in her seat. When she was twenty-two, she'd scored the female lead in a sci-fi movie shot in New Zealand. It was her very first lead. Hugger Muggers was a futuristic tale about a race of genetically engineered pod people who lived happily on a utopian-style farm until something very bad happened to them. Alice lied at her audition about having her driver's licence. Two weeks later, her agent was thrilled to announce that she had won the role over three hundred others. Alice was triumphant. In the excitement, she omitted to set people straight. Hope I don't have too many driving scenes, she thought briefly, then put the matter out of her mind.

  The amended script arrived shortly after she had packed all her worldly belongings in readiness for the three-month shoot abroad. It quickly became apparent that not onl
y would she have to drive, but that driving was her character's 'special skill'. All pod people had heightened individual talents, such as gardening or firing guns or cooking, and driving was hers.

  Alice's very first scene of the shoot took place at night halfway up a mountain on the North Island of New Zealand. The rugged Wellington coastline lay beneath them and cabin lights twinkled in the distance. Though still summer, it was cold and the unit team provided the cast with hot drinks and extra blankets.

  The opening scene involved Alice fleeing the enemy in a jeep. While the first shot was being set up, the director calmly informed her she was required to drive an ex-army vehicle extremely fast and in reverse, coming to a sudden stop on a precipice a few inches from the camera lens before delivering her lines. 'You can handle that, can't you?' he asked confidently.

  'Not a problem,' Alice declared.

  Alice's co-star was a ruggedly handsome English actor named Rupert who was just beginning to make an international name for himself. Alice could still remember the expression on his face when she'd quietly asked him how to start the jeep. Soon after this incident, Alice had secretly enlisted the help of a grip to teach her to drive on every available weekend. A lot of her per diems went straight into his pocket. She wrote 'excellent, manual and automatic' in capital letters in the space provided.

  'Alice, isn't it?' asked a bespectacled casting lady, coming out of the office.

  'Hello,' said Alice, trying to sound youthful. Standing suddenly made her feel dizzy and she thrust the fact sheet forward. She hadn't yet answered the question relating to ice-skating but thought this was possibly a good thing. The amount of lying she'd been forced to do so far made her uneasy.

  'I'm Samantha. We're just in here, okay?' The woman indicated that Alice should follow her into the room ahead. The space was small and a camera was set up to her left. The right side of the room housed a number of metal filing cabinets that leaned dangerously to one side as though they hadn't been assembled properly. Someone, presumably Samantha, had tacked up an actress's head-shot on the wall under the name LAURA. Alice recognised the face as the tween who'd been in before her.