Hello, Sunshine

by Leila Howland

  “Could you move over?” She’s loud, unable to gauge her own volume. Her skinny fingers pitch a tent on her pale, unblemished décolletage, a word Marisol has taught me. “I, like, don’t have any room to get ready.”

  Pam locks eyes with me, then rolls them in solidarity. I escape into the cooler air of the hallway. Inside me, butterflies beat their wings.

  “Fifteen minutes! Fifteen minute call!” Jesse shouts down the hallway.

  Then: “Ten minutes.”

  Then: “Five minutes.”

  Then: “Places.”

  The entire cast is in the first scene. I’ve never rehearsed this scene because my only job is to stand there for a few minutes, listening to the live music like I’m in an old-timey jazz club. I guess Kingman figured I could do that without practice, but I’m nervous as I crowd backstage with everyone else. I hear the audience rustling in their seats. Reed rolls his neck. Molly jumps up and down. Pam inhales huge whale breaths. It’s so dark back here. The drum thunders. The clarinet sings. The door is thrown open. We charge the stage. It’s ten degrees warmer under the lights. For a full three seconds I’m Becca, orienting myself, holding my breath, looking around. Reed, now in character as a rough poet/bartender, holds out a burning, hand-rolled cigarette. I take it and inhale. It stings. The tobacco sticks to my teeth, and Reed is taking off my knee socks with his eyes. This is going to be fun.

  Forty minutes into the show, when I hear my cue, I fly onstage. For the next several minutes, I’m in the zone. When I exit I hear laughter, and my heart swings in my chest.

  I have various backstage duties throughout the show. They include everything from helping Pam apply bruises to her arms, to hoisting a tree to center stage between scenes, to handing off a broom, to pulling a curtain aside for Shoshanna’s complicated entrance with a tray of drinks. Jesse made it clear to me that if I’m not on top of all my duties, I could screw up the entire show. I follow my script with a miniature flashlight. I forget only one thing: to fill a glass with iced tea meant to be bourbon for Reed.

  “Sorry,” I mouth to Reed.

  “You’ll remember tomorrow,” he whispers. “Besides, my character is supposed to be totally wasted at that point, so he might not even notice that his drink is empty.”

  Jesse fixes us with a hard stare to shush us. Reed squeezes my hand in the darkness, then takes off for his next entrance, once again leaving me with a rabbit’s pulse.

  At the end of the show the cast runs onstage, holds hands, bows, and runs off. I never practiced this bit and just follow along. I have a small part, but no one would guess it by the reaction to my bow.

  “You’ve got chops,” Kingman says as I file out of the dressing room in my jeans, wrap sweater, and of course, my zebra flats. “Good night for it, too. Variety was here.”

  “Variety?” I ask. Every agent, casting agent, and director in town reads Variety.

  “It was one of the good guys, too. Some of them are just assholes.”

  “I didn’t know they covered theater,” I say.

  “They cover us. Be cool, okay? See you at the party.” He claps my back. A woman who looks rich—flawless hair, teeth, and clothes—taps him on the shoulder. “Patricia!” he says, and kisses her, European-style, on both cheeks. “Thank you so much for coming.” He takes her arm and disappears into the crowd before I can ask, What party?

  I rush back into the dressing room, where Pam is pulling on high-heeled boots over black tights. I’m glad to see her and not Shoshanna or Molly. I ask about the party and she tells me that it’s at Kingman and Amelia’s house in the Hollywood Hills.

  Amelia Kirk’s house? In the Hollywood Hills? Holy shit, this is real.

  “Whatever you do, don’t get dressed up,” Pam says as she writes the address for me. “This one girl showed up in a gown. It was really embarrassing. Also, FYI, Amelia just wrapped a movie, so there’ll probably be some other celebs there.”

  Oh my God—I’m going to be at a party with celebrities!

  I fold up the address and put it deep in my pocket. When I look up, Marisol and Raj are walking toward me. I fly into Marisol’s arms and semi-collapse.

  “You’re a star,” she says.

  “A constellation,” Raj says.

  “Guys, come here.” I pull them into a quiet corner near the bathrooms. “Do you know what I have in my pocket? Kingman and Amelia’s home address in the Hollywood Hills. I’m invited to a party there, and I need you two to come with me.”

  “No way!” Marisol cries.

  “This is going to be great networking,” Raj says. “I wonder if her producers will be there. Kingman’s house? This is where things happen. Where cards get handed out and deals get made.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Who knows who’s going to be there?” Marisol says. “The important thing is that we’re invited.”

  I read in an interview once that Amelia likes white flowers. The three of us stop at a grocery store where I pick out a simple bouquet. We grab an Uber to the party and chat about the play, which Marisol and Raj both seem to have genuinely enjoyed.

  As we’re about to cross Sunset, a bus stops in front of us with an ad that takes up the entire side of it. I see hundreds of ads like this a day—on billboards and bus stops, on coffee sleeves and plastered repetitively, Andy Warhol–style, on the sides of buildings—but I’m taken in by the girl in this ad for American Express. She’s a waitress, and the slogan is about dreams being priceless.

  Just as the last traveler steps aboard, I realize that I know this girl’s face, and know it well. It’s Brooke. Brooke Ashworth, huge and groomed within an inch of her humanity, pretending to be a waitress. Which I actually am!

  “Holy shit,” I say.

  “What?” asks Raj.

  I point to the bus. “I know that girl. She’s going to NYU. She’s not supposed to have her face on a bus yet!” An inflight safety video is one thing, I think, but this is a whole other level. “She’s supposed to be taking pantomime classes and listening to lectures on the history of theater.”

  “That’s a nice gig,” says Marisol. “I went out for that. It’s a big deal. Print, TV, the web. I’m talking international.”

  “That little hack. How? How did she do it?” I look at Marisol pleadingly, like she might really have the answer. “How?”

  Marisol holds up her hands as if she’s under arrest. “I don’t know. I don’t know everything, you know. She made a lot of money, though. And that’s a union job for sure.”

  “Ugh! Why’d I have to see this right now? It’s going to ruin my night!”

  “Don’t let it,” Raj says.

  Like it’s that easy. The Uber car ascends into the Hollywood Hills, where the roads are impossibly narrow, steep, and twisting.

  “You’re right,” I say. “I know you’re right.” I open the door of the Uber in front of Kingman’s address. No matter what Brooke is doing, she’s not going to a party with celebrities tonight. And neither is Alex. This night is mine.

  IT DOESN’T LOOK huge from the outside, but this place is amazing. There are probably fifty people here, enough to make it feel like a big party, but few enough that I feel selected. I spot Pam talking to a salt-and-pepper-haired gentleman. I think I see Reed outside with Jack and some of the rest of the cast. The other guests are adults, full-blown adults. Dancing, laughing, partying adults. I feel this wave of triumph over Alex, who even with Stanford and his family’s connections would never get invited to a party like this. At least not as a fellow artist. He thought I’d never make it. He felt sorry for me when he broke up with me, again when I called him, and the worst was seeing him feel sorry for me in Venice. I take a Polaroid and stick it in my coat pocket. Then I take another picture with my phone and post it to Instagram: #HollywoodHillsParty #TheGoodLife. And then I just can’t resist…#Blessed.

  In your FACE, Brooke and Alex! Ha!

  Brazilian music plays. At first I think it’s live, but then I see a DJ spinning out by t
he infinity pool.

  The style of the house is modern with bohemian touches. There are real works of art on the wall and careful-yet-casual arrangements of black-and-white photographs. There are also movie posters and theater posters, all framed. There’s a grand piano. There’s an open glass door that leads to the pool. There’s a fireplace. I feel like I’ve landed in a magazine. I take in the views of the blinking city.

  “Pick your jaw up off the floor,” Marisol whispers.

  “I’m totally screwed,” I say, and shake my head.

  “Help me follow your logic,” says Raj, who’s stuffed his hands in his pockets.

  “Well, I can never be something normal now.”

  “Who said anything about being normal?” Marisol asks.

  “And I can’t settle down someplace like Portland, Oregon, and, like, work for an environmental nonprofit.”

  “Why?” asks Raj.

  “And who knew you had these secret plans?” says Marisol.

  “Because this is what I want. And now I have proof that it’s possible. All you need to do is be a successful actor.”

  “Or director,” Marisol says, nodding at a guy with black glasses and red hair.

  “Malcolm Barclay,” Raj says, and pales. “I need a drink.”

  I spot one of the cast members from Saturday Night Live laughing as he sips a glass of wine. “Shut the fuck up,” he’s saying. “Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”

  “Join us,” a barefoot Kingman says to me as he gestures to the party.

  “Thanks for having us.” I hand him the flowers and introduce Raj and Marisol. “No one else brought flowers, did they?” I feel suddenly embarrassed.

  “No one else has such good manners,” Amelia Kirk says in her trademark Southern accent. She’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt. She’s so tiny. There’s no way that she’s taller than me. She must weigh only enough to survive, and yet she emanates health, her skin glowing as if she’s been brushed with starlight.

  “Follow me to the kitchen and we’ll put these in water and get you a little something to wet your whistle. I’m so glad you could join us. I’m Amelia, by the way.”

  “I know,” I say as Raj, Marisol, and I follow Amelia and Kingman to a modern kitchen.

  “Well, I know who you are, too,” she says. “And you were dynamite tonight. You have a luminous future.”

  “I do?”

  “I think so,” she says.

  “Oh, thank you,” I say, my hand to my chest. “Thank you.”

  “What can I get you to drink?” she asks as she unwraps the flowers and quickly arranges them in a vase. All three of us are silent. “How about some red wine?” She wipes her delicate hand on her jeans.

  “That would be lovely,” I say.

  Someone calls her name from the other room and she sighs. “I’m being summoned.” She hands me a bottle of wine and points to a cabinet on her way out. “The glasses are in there.”

  I look up at Kingman as if to confirm that a real movie star, one of the biggest of our time, told me that I was luminous.

  “Make yourself at home,” he says, and follows her out.

  “Luminous!” Marisol says. “She thinks you’re luminous.” Marisol and I jump up and down in a victory dance. Raj points to a Post-it on the fridge on which is scribbled Malcolm and a phone number. “Um, this is Malcolm Barclay’s number, right here on the fridge, in the same spot where I have my Hollywood Pizza magnet.”

  Oh my God! I silently exclaim. As Marisol and I do another victory dance, Raj uncorks a bottle and pours us each a generous glass of wine. We raise our glasses in a giddy toast.

  “She’s got to be over forty. How does she look so good?” I ask.

  “If we had a nutritionist, a trainer, a makeup artist, and a personal shopper, we’d look that good at forty-five, too. Come on. Let’s find a bathroom. I’m going to do our makeup,” Marisol says.

  Raj looks at us, panicked. “What do I do?”

  “Mingle,” I say.

  “But I have social anxiety.”

  “Raj, you’re a bartender,” Marisol says, with one hand on her skinny hip.

  “I hide behind the bar,” he says. “Sometimes literally.”

  “You do not,” I say, and without thinking, I give his hand a squeeze. I look around for Reed, but I don’t see him anywhere.

  Once in the bathroom, Marisol pulls out her makeup bag. “I’ve got to teach you how to do this yourself. I’m really not helping you. I need to teach you how to fish instead of just handing you the sea bass.” I laugh as she opens her lip gloss palette.

  Two hours later, the crowd has thinned and Raj is playing Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll” on the piano. The Saturday Night Live star, now totally wasted, is singing along. “Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh!” He bellows as Raj pounds the opening chords. I see Amelia sitting on the sofa, talking to a woman with almond-shaped eyes, narrowed in concentration. I pull up a cowhide-covered stool. I smile as they continue to talk about some island I’ve never heard of. I try to find a place to chime in, but it doesn’t feel natural, so I wait, smiling, for them to change the subject. The woman with the almond-shaped eyes excuses herself. For a second, Amelia’s face goes blank, so blank that I wonder if she’s fallen asleep with her eyes open. Maybe the lighting isn’t as good in this corner of the house, or maybe her makeup has faded, but for the first time she looks her age. Amelia leans forward on the sofa as if to stand. I sense that the party is winding down; this might be my last chance to talk to her.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Hi, there,” she says, snapping to life.

  “So you know how you said that you liked my work?” I ask. She nods slowly with wide eyes. “That means a lot to me, obviously, coming from you, and I wanted to say thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “The thing is—and I have no idea what your experience was like as a younger actress—I mean, I know you know this. But if I want to, you know, um, be seen, well, it seems that what I really need is an agent.”

  “It’s true,” she says. “And you’ll find one. My momma used to tell me that the cream rises to the top.” She smiles a closed-lip smile. She stands; so do I. I think about one of Suzi Simpson’s anecdotes. She approached a casting director in a supermarket and it led to her first gig. “Take a risk, kiddos,” Suzi wrote at the conclusion of the chapter. “C’mon, what do you have to lose?”

  “So. Is there any way that you could help me?” I ask.

  “Hmm?”

  “Well, since you said I have a bright, um, luminous future, I’m just wondering, do you think you could tell your agent about me?”

  The last vestige of her smile vanishes. “My agent has been my agent for seventeen years. He only works with established artists.”

  “Of course.” Air seems to be pooling at the bottom of my lungs. “I didn’t know if maybe you knew someone. Or he knew someone, or he knew someone who knew someone, or maybe a casting director you knew wouldn’t mind setting up a general. I have this web series on YouTube. It’s called Talk to Me. And I think—”

  “I’m going to stop you,” she says, placing a moisturized hand on my elbow.

  “Oh.”

  “You should know that this is not really something one asks at a private party. It’s very awkward. This is my home. Okay?”

  “I didn’t know,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m sorry.” I open my mouth, wondering how I can possibly turn this horrible moment around. There has to be a way. But nothing comes to mind. My cheeks are so hot I feel like I must have a fever of at least 103 degrees. I look at the floor and she slips away.

  I walk though the party on gelatin legs, toward the backyard, wondering how quickly I can get out of here. Kingman’s earlier request that I be cool now seems like an ominous warning. As I catch my breath in the hallway, I’m met with a portrait of Amelia taken by Annie Leibovitz. She’s in a white gown, seated on a horse, her eyes fixed on something distant and miraculous.

  I slide the
glass doors open and sit by the pool on a lounge chair. There are a few other people out here, smoking pot by the hot tub, but I don’t recognize them.

  “Hey, you okay?” a voice asks. I turn around to see Reed, practically glowing in the moonlight.

  “Yeah,” I say, too embarrassed to tell him what just happened. “Just getting some fresh air. You were incredible tonight, by the way.”

  “You don’t think I was too restrained?” he asks.

  “No, not at all,” I say.

  “Even in the second scene, the one with Dylan?” He sits next to me. “I feel like I was a little off.”

  “Not at all,” I say again. I can tell that it’s all about him, and that’s fine with me. It’s a relief actually. “I think it was your best scene.”

  “Really?” he asks, and his pinky finger grazes mine.

  “Really,” I say, meeting his gaze. Even his jaw is muscular. Even his mouth is hot.

  My phone buzzes with a text.

  Marisol: Where are you? Raj and I think we should leave on a high note.

  I wish I’d gotten this text before my gaffe with Amelia.

  “Who’s that?” Reed asks.

  “My friends want to leave on a high note,” I tell him.

  Reed inches closer to me so that our legs are touching. “I don’t think you’ve hit your high note yet.”

  “No?” I ask. My heart pounds. Maybe someone like Reed is just what I need. Someone who is so hot that his touch can burn away my memories of Alex. Someone whose feelings are hard to find, even if his intentions are clear. Someone to help me forget this night.

  “Not even close,” he says.

  Me: I’m staying. See you guys tomorrow.

  Marisol: Have fun!

  Me: I think I’m going to.

  AN HOUR LATER, I get into an Uber with Reed under the pretense that we’re sharing it to our respective abodes, but somehow, I find myself at his Echo Park apartment.