Hello, Sunshine

by Leila Howland

  Mom: Gotta run into a meeting. Doctor is ready for me. Keep me posted. LYTTS.

  Me: AB.

  I don’t want my guilt over my college applications to ruin this day. I splash some cold water on my face and then pat it dry with one of the real towels that are artfully rolled up on the counter. I squirt some of the fancy lime-scented lotion on my hands.

  When I come out of the bathroom, a classic hip-hop song is playing. I wave to Marisol and Raj. As I lip-synch I do one of my favorite moves. It involves rapid slicing of the air with stiff, bladelike hands. Marisol tilts her head back with laughter. Raj makes a lasso gesture. I mime being pulled toward the bar, throwing a kick in the air, and hoist a leg up on the barstool Marisol’s been guarding.

  “That was insane,” Raj says, smiling.

  “It was avant-garde,” Marisol says. “Does that move have a name?”

  “Yes,” I say, and think of something on the spot. “The urban warrior.”

  “Perfect.” A smile spreads across Raj’s lips. “For the urban wilderness.”

  “Exactly,” I say.

  “You didn’t tell me you could move like that,” Marisol says.

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” I say, trying to sound mysterious.

  “Do you have an alter ego?” Marisol’s eyes invite me to play.

  I shrug. “Of course.”

  “I gotta hear this,” Marisol says, looking at me like I’m the most interesting person she’s ever met, like she’s never been so delighted by another human being in all of her days. She hops off of her barstool and links her arm with mine. “Let’s head to the pool.”

  “Have fun, girls,” Raj says, looking as if he wishes he could join us.

  “Women,” Marisol says over her shoulder.

  “Oh, yeah,” Raj says. “Women. Or woman and girl-woman.”

  “Who’s your alter ego?” Marisol asks.

  “Miss Nancy. I’m British and I teach PE at a very proper private school in Boston.” I’m thinking of my own PE teacher, Ms. Bishop, who I adore. Marisol giggles.

  “I believe in freedom of movement!” I say, quoting Ms. Bishop. “It keeps the body alive!” Body is especially fun to say in a British accent.

  Marisol laughs as she strips down to her bathing suit and delicately steps into the pool.

  “You’re leaving your hat on?” I ask.

  “I just got a blowout,” she says. “Tell me more, Miss Nancy.”

  “I wake up every morning at four to greet the day, as one must,” I say, taking off my sundress to reveal the vintage two-piece bathing suit I borrowed from Marisol. “I eat an egg with sliced to-mah-toes, and I do my Chinese exercises.”

  “I’d love to see those,” Marisol says.

  “They’re quite invigorating.” And with that I jump into the deep end, letting the soft pool water envelop me. Without coming up for a breath, I swim toward Marisol with open eyes. I rise to the surface in front of her.

  “You’re a true original,” Marisol says. “You know that? A classic.”

  “I am?” I ask, dropping character. “Wait. Me or Miss Nancy?”

  “You. I’ve never met anyone like you. You’re going to make it. I feel it so strongly right now.”

  “Thank you.” It feels so good to hear this. It also feels foreign, new. “You know…I think Alex basically broke up with me because he didn’t think I was good enough.”

  “Wait—what?” Marisol says, tilting her head, her eyes swimming with compassion.

  And suddenly, without warning, here on the rooftop of Hotel Uno, I remember our breakup conversation. The parts of it that I pushed away. That I don’t want to remember. “He didn’t think we belonged together because I didn’t get into college. He didn’t say that exactly, but that’s what he meant.”

  “Wait a second, here,” Marisol says, holding my arm. “He didn’t believe in you?”

  “I thought he loved me.” I hold my breath to try not to cry.

  “Honey,” Marisol says, placing her hands on my shoulders. I stare into the water. My tears drip into the pool. “Look at me.”

  I look up. Behind her, a dull layer of sunlight pushes through the clouds and pollution. The water catches the muted rays, reflecting triangles of light on our faces. We both sink down so the water is chin level.

  “Just the fact that you decided to take a year off to find out what you really want to do makes you stand out. Every other person in your school is going to college, right? You’re unique because you decided to do something different, something so daring. You could’ve taken the safe path…” she begins.

  “No, I couldn’t.” I shake my head, then drop my voice to a whisper. “I didn’t get in anywhere.”

  “Okay,” she says, as if this is no big deal.

  “No one accepted me. No place wanted me. I applied to eleven schools, and they all said no.” The tears come faster now. “I’m sorry I lied.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Marisol says. “Besides, you weren’t lying, you were just spinning the truth.”

  “Same thing.”

  She shrugs. “You didn’t know me. You thought I was going to judge you, because everyone around you did, even the person you trusted the most, the person you loved.”

  “In the end, he thought I was a loser like everyone else did. Rejection is, like, contagious.”

  “What a dingbat,” she says, shaking her head with disgust. “Dingbat and idiot. Look, I don’t know why you didn’t get into college, but it’s total bullshit. I know people whose parents paid thousands of dollars for some published author to write their kids’ essays for them and still didn’t get in to their top choices. It’s all so unfair and none of it makes any sense. It doesn’t say anything about you. It just goes to show how screwed up and random the admissions system is. I want you to know that I would never, ever judge you,” Marisol says. “You’re so positive. You’re unpretentious. You see the best in everyone you meet. You’re so funny and honest. You’re not afraid to just be yourself. Personally I think you’re a genius. Hey, you already have a part in a play.”

  “Marisol, would eleven colleges reject a genius?”

  “If they didn’t have the skills to recognize one, yes.”

  “Sometimes I feel like a Polaroid picture that can’t develop,” I say. “I keep trying to show up but no one can see me.”

  “Whoa. First of all, you just proved my point that you’re a genius with that metaphor,” she says. “And you know who sees you? I do. I see you.”

  “Thank you,” I say, nodding, unable to contain my smile. The tears I’m crying now are tears of relief.

  “And if there’s one thing I know for certain in this crazy world, there’s nothing ordinary about you.”

  I tip my head back, look up at the sky, and believe her.

  When we get home, hours later, I smile as I check number eleven:

  THE REHEARSAL SCHEDULE for Baby Bear’s First Hanukkah is a jam-packed three weeks. We’re expected to be off book, which means have our lines memorized, after one week. During my waitressing shifts I go over my lines in my head. I keep pages of my script tucked into my apron, and when I have a down moment, I duck into the coffee station and study them. I finally seem to have the knack for waitressing as long as it doesn’t get too busy and no one yells. Ever since my suspension, I stay as far away from Gloria as possible. When she criticizes me for not looking neat enough or being too slow or saying, “I’ll have to check,” when a customer inquires about every single ingredient in the Cahuenga salad (there are eighteen), I don’t make eye contact with her, but focus on a spot on the wall, nod, and just say, “Okay.”

  One day after Gloria reads me the riot act over a mixed-up order, a bodybuilder leaves me a crisp hundred-dollar bill as a tip on a twenty-dollar check. I can’t believe my luck. It would ruin it completely if I spent it on something practical, so I pop into a cute new boutique in Los Feliz and buy a shirt that costs seventy-five dollars. I know it’s stupid to spend s
o much on a single shirt, but it’s a deep red that brings out my coloring, and the fabric is fine and soft, draping over my body in just the right way.

  And then, even better, there’s a new waiter, a musician named Jimmy. Gloria focuses on him for several shifts, allowing me to fade into the background. I had to cut back two of my shifts in order to make all the rehearsals. When I tried to figure out how I was going to cover my bills this month, I realized there was no way that I would. I put the most basic things, like food, on my credit card and try not to think about it even though the balance is creeping north of three thousand dollars. My limit is five thousand dollars, so I need to be careful. But the truth is that if I were to keep my head above water in LA, I’d never have time to pursue acting. Denial is part of this adventure.

  Almost every day I meet Marisol at the café near the Chateau. We don’t like our jobs and have made a pact to not discuss them so that we can spend as much time as possible focusing on our real lives, our acting careers. I take the last bite of avocado salad. This salad, which has a whole avocado and two hard-boiled eggs, has become our staple. It costs eight dollars. We figured out that if we split the salad and ask for extra bread and butter, it’s enough food for two. We always eat at the same outdoor table.

  I look at my watch. “Oh shit, I’ve got to go to rehearsal.”

  “Wait. There’s this agent workshop thing on Saturday, and I know they have some spots left. I signed up for it this morning. It’s at a place called Entertainment Connection Studios. You pay seventy-five bucks and you get to audition for four commercial agents.” She scribbles ECS and a number on a napkin. “Call this number to make an appointment.”

  “Why are you going to one of these things when you have a commercial agent?” I ask.

  “Because I want a better one,” she says. “That guy hardly ever sends me out.”

  “It’s seventy-five dollars?” I ask, even though I’ve just spent that very amount on a shirt.

  “If we get commercials, we can quit our jobs. You can make fifty thousand dollars for a national commercial.”

  “Really?”

  “Think about it. I know a girl who booked three commercials in LA in one year. She bought a bungalow in Echo Park.”

  “Wait, are you going home for Thanksgiving?” I ask. It’s next week, and the closer it gets, the more bummed I am to be spending it alone.

  “Nope,” Marisol says. “I thought I was spending it with you.”

  “Really?” I ask.

  “Of course,” Marisol says. “We’ll think of something fun.”

  “We always do.”

  She blows me a kiss.

  Raj and I have developed a routine. I bring us coffee in my Ikea mugs, which just so happen to be the exact right size for the Corolla’s cup holders, we walk to wherever his car happens to be parked that day, and he drives me to the theater before heading to work.

  On the way, we discuss his screenplay, which he’s making great progress on. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone so into something. Raj is eating, breathing, and dreaming this script, which is now called Hotel California.

  “So I still don’t know why our protagonist Olivia can’t leave the hotel. What’s the psychological reason the spirits are holding her there?” he asks as we make a right onto Santa Monica Boulevard. The traffic is thick.

  “I’m going to be late,” I say, checking my phone.

  “All the more time for you to help me get to the root of this problem. I mean, not that I want you to be late of course.” He places a hand on his chest and smiles at me. “I only have your best interests at heart, despite the fact that you’re awesome at constructing a story.”

  “Flattery will get you everywhere,” I say as a Nissan Altima cuts us off and then slows down so that he makes it through the light, but we’re stuck at the red. “Damn!”

  “Why’d you have to do us dirty, Mr. Nissan?” Raj asks, shaking his head.

  “Talk to me,” I say, surrendering to my tardiness. I’ll have to hope I can sneak by the moody Dawn.

  “Olivia is a control freak. That’s her character flaw. So she needs to get over that in order to escape. She’s going to have to think about her world in a completely new way, but I need to put a finer point on it, and make the psychological fear take a visual, tangible form.”

  “So let’s think about this,” I say. “What is being a control freak all about?”

  “Being a perfectionist,” Raj says. “Not wanting to hear anyone else’s point of view.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I say. “I think it’s about…avoiding chaos. Why do people avoid chaos?”

  “They’re scared,” Raj says.

  “Right. They don’t want to get hurt,” I say. Of course I’m thinking of Alex, who chose to cut me off emotionally so that he didn’t have to deal with the messiness of being separated from me. “They want to avoid pain.”

  “Yes!” Raj says, barely making it through a yellow light.

  “So in order for Olivia to escape the grip of the hotel…” I begin.

  “She’s going to have to deal with some ancient pain.”

  “Something that’s been haunting her,” I say as he pulls into a loading zone in front of the theater. “Only now, it’s literally haunting her!”

  “I’m going to have to park and write this down,” Raj says.

  “Are you sure you don’t mind all these rides?” I ask, stepping out of the car. “I should at least reimburse you for gas.”

  “It’s on the way to work.”

  “No, it’s not,” I say, with a smile. Of course, he blushes. Now I’ve lived here long enough to know that Raj is definitely going out of his way to bring me to rehearsal.

  “It’s fine. It’s actually really selfish of me because you help me talk through all my script issues,” he says. “I owe you.”

  “You can thank me by giving me a part when you’re a famous director,” I say.

  “You got it,” he says, and I run around the theater to the back door, hoping to avoid Dawn.

  “Guys, something’s up with Dawn. I’m ten minutes late and she just winked at me,” I say as I walk into the small, co-ed dressing room at the theater. It’s our final rehearsal for Baby Bear’s First Hanukkah.

  “She’s in a good mood,” Jeffrey, or Papa Bear, says. “This is what they call an upswing,” he adds gravely.

  “I guess that’s better than a downswing?” I say, and find an empty metal folding chair in the tiny room. It’s about eighty-six degrees in the dressing room with all the bodies crammed into such a small space. Naked lightbulbs border the mirrors. Costumes hang on racks. The wire hangers are labeled for each character with tags fashioned out of masking tape. Little pots of makeup—tiny bowls of blush, eyeliner, lip liners, and jars of cold cream—crowd the counter. I take off my cardigan to reveal my lucky red shirt. I catch my reflection in one of the many mirrors; it was worth it.

  Sally, aka Mama Bear, is in her slip, laughing at something Max, aka Hunter Green, has said. Sally, as true to her part as ever, is our actual den mother, always making sure that everyone’s okay. She’s in her fifties with pockmarked skin and the easy laugh of someone who’s had a lot of therapy and gets life’s ironies.

  “Hey, sweetie,” she says. “You look cute today.”

  “Thanks, Sally. This shirt was way too expensive, but I bought it anyway.”

  “The price us dames pay for beauty,” she says, and bats her eyelashes.

  Jeffrey’s dressed and ready to go a full hour before showtime. He’s sitting in front of the dressing room mirror with his feet on the counter pontificating to Anya, aka Goldie Lox, who is complaining about her Republican boyfriend.

  “You’ve got to be a Democrat when you’re young, and a Republican as you grow older,” Jeffrey tells her, then adjusts his bear costume.

  “He is fifteen years older than me, but I still don’t think that’s any excuse to be a Republican,” she says.

  “How old are you?” I ask.

>   “Never ask an actress how old she is,” Jeffrey says. “Trust me.”

  “I don’t believe in that garbage,” Sally says. “I’ll be fifty-six in May.”

  “A Gemini! I knew it!” Anya says as she takes off her shirt to reveal a surprisingly antiquated pointed bra and grandmother-style underwear. Jeez. Is Anya, like, fifty, too?

  “Do you think these costumes have ever been washed?” I ask Sally, as I slip a leg into my bear suit.

  “Not in the seven years I’ve been doing the show,” she says, and ties an apron around her furry waist. As much as I like Sally, I say a silent prayer that I won’t be wearing this bear suit seven years from now.

  After rehearsal, I head to Entertainment Connection Studios. I tried to simply sign up for an “agent workshop” over the phone, but the young woman on the end of the line insisted that I “schedule a consultation.”

  It’s in a modern building in West Hollywood, and only a short bus ride from the theater. ECS has glossy wooden floors and sleek, modern furniture. I walk down a hallway lined with advertisements for headshot photographers until I reach a reception counter. The pert receptionist adjusts her headset and smiles up at me.

  “I have an appointment with Danielle.”

  “You’re going to love Danielle,” the receptionist says, and presses a button on her phone.

  Danielle appears from around the corner. Her nose looks like it’s being pinched by a clothespin. She extends a hand for a limp handshake, and it feels like it’s made of bird bones. She leads me back to her cubicle, pulls out a chair for me like we’re on a date, then sits and studies my headshot and résumé.

  “You’re like me. You look so young. And you’re very commercial, though I can tell that you’re capable of dramatic roles as well.” She cocks her head to the side. “You might benefit from some headshot advice.”

  Ugh. The headshots again.

  Then, after extracting enough smiles from me to feel we have bonded, she begins a line of questioning: “Have you ever had representation? Do you even know what you’re looking for in an agent? Do you have any idea what the different agencies offer?” She tilts her head like a puppy. “No? This is all so new, isn’t it? What you need is our full membership program.”