Tessa moved forward and stood in front of the table, her hands firmly clasped behind her to hide their trembling. They had such friendly smiles, these two women. What was the worst thing they could do, after all, except send her away?
“I’m sixteen,” she said, “and I live in Santa Monica with my parents and Maggie, my baby sister. We moved to California more than two years ago from Greenwich, Connecticut. My mother’s from a big Irish family and my father came here from Hungary back in the 1950s. Now he’s head of the music department at the Harvard School. There’s nothing particularly exciting about me, except that I’ve always wanted to act. No, that’s wrong. I have always acted.”
“Do you have any professional experience?” the casting director asked. As Tessa recounted the simple outline of her life, Peggy had felt unexpected chills racing up her arms and crisping the nape of her neck.
“I’ve never been in anything but a school play,” Tessa answered. “This is my first real audition, unless you count the ones at school.” She spoke with a simplicity that was as strong as her sudden sense of fearlessness.
“I see,” Peggy said slowly. “So you wouldn’t have any head shots, any eight-by-ten glossies?” Good God, a schoolgirl without an agent or experience or even pictures … but those chills … how long had it been since she’d felt chills when an unknown spoke?
“I have snapshots in the family album, but my mother didn’t bring them,” Tessa answered. “I didn’t know I needed glossies.”
“Actually you don’t. It’s just that some of the girls leave them behind so we’ll remember what they look like.”
“Just think of the girl in the dumb uniform.” Tessa laughed with an utterly spontaneous sense of the ridiculous, a wonderfully affirmative sound that rang through the little room.
Peggy and Fiona looked at each other swiftly. Normally, at a first audition of an inexperienced unknown, they’d just chat, make notes, and send her on her way, after getting her phone number in case they decided to reconsider her. But neither of them would have dreamed of letting Tessa go without a reading.
“Take off your blazer and sit down, Tessa. Let your hair out of the ponytail so we can see it, and undo the top buttons of that very well-ironed blouse, so you can breathe a bit,” Peggy continued, writing a note to Fiona. That laugh! Trained voice???
“Have you had voice lessons, Tessa?” Fiona asked.
“No, I haven’t, but I’ve sung in the choir all my life—I’m a contralto. And my father’s very insistent on proper speech. He learned his English from an Englishman at school in Budapest.”
“Choir?”
“At the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Greenwich and now, at Marymount.”
“So you’re a very, very good little convent girl, are you?” Peggy asked on a teasing note.
“I feel like the original model, from day one,” Tessa answered, shaking out the gleaming tumble of her hair and trying, without success, to make its lively waves fall neatly with her fingers. “But I can’t answer for the good part,” she continued thoughtfully. “It’s really hard, almost impossible, to be good, because it’s so surprisingly easy to commit a venial sin.” She’d forgotten herself while she tried to respond as honestly as possible to these women who seemed so interested in her.
“So all your acting has actually been done in a Catholic school?” Peggy probed gently.
“I haven’t been to any other kind of school, or to summer camp either. But the Madams at Sacred Heart put on a wide range of plays, and so do the Sisters at Marymount. Of course I’ve had lots of chances to play a boy, since I used to be taller than most of the other girls. I think I’ve stopped growing now. Last year’s uniforms still fit.”
“You’ve been given the four pages—sides—we’d like you to read. The context of the scene is that Jo March, the part you’re reading, is having an argument with her older sister, Meg, who’s dignified and proud and proper. Jo is independent and tumultuous and rebellious. You don’t remember the book by any chance? No? Well, it doesn’t matter, we’re just looking for a rough idea. Fiona will give you your cues. You read the lines that are underlined. I think you should read the scene over again first, several times, to feel a little familiar with Jo.”
“Yes, please.”
As Tessa bent her head over the pages, Peggy and Fiona turned their swivel chairs away from her and conferred quietly.
“Isn’t she much much too beautiful for Jo?” Fiona whispered. “Jo isn’t supposed to be a raving, tearing beauty, she’s a tomboy whose ‘hair is her one beauty,’ remember? What a glorious kid! Those eyes! Have you ever seen a green like that? Glenda would throw a fit.”
“Glenda doesn’t have casting approval,” Peggy hissed. “That middle-aged love goddess begged Roddy to let her play Marmee so the Academy members will take her seriously come Oscar time. If it should, by a miracle, turn out that Tessa can act, Glenda won’t have to worry about anyone saying she can’t be believable in a serious role as the mother of four. They’ll be too busy looking at Tessa.”
“Still, she’s not at all the character, except for her height and her hair,” Fiona fretted.
“Miss Bridges, this is Hollywood, not the BBC. Kate Hepburn played Jo in nineteen thirty-three and trust me, she was never an ugly duckling. Casting to type bores me, anyway. All the other girls have to be pretty but Jo has to knock you right off your chair, one way or another, because she’s the heroine. It would be more constructive if you’d worry that Tessa can’t act, that maybe she’s all looks and no delivery. That’s what you should really be afraid of.”
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” Tessa said.
Fiona started to recite the cues she’d memorized in the course of the past three long days. Tessa read without gulping the words, giving herself an instant to look up from the pages whenever she could, look straight at Fiona and say the next line as if she’d learned it, as if she were living it, before having to consult the script again.
In spite of this being a first reading, Tessa’s luminous intensity was immediately switched on. All the light in the room seemed to condense around her. Tessa became Jo March as if she’d been inhabited by an uncompromising spirit. To Fiona, the words she’d spoken so often became new and fresh with meaning as she awaited Tessa’s response. Then, so suddenly that Peggy shivered in surprise, the four sides were over and the reading ended.
But I want to hear what she says next, I need to hear her, Peggy thought. That hasn’t happened in ten years. Fifteen! “Thank you, Tessa,” she managed to say, calmly. “That was excellent.”
“Is that it?” Tessa asked in evident disappointment, withdrawing from the character slowly and dreamily. She struggled to put on her blazer, the young, arched fullness of her breasts evident for the first time against her starched white shirt as she wriggled her arms into the sleeves.
“Oh, no, I doubt that’ll be it,” Peggy said, blowing her nose violently. She had tears in her eyes, another thing that hadn’t happened for fifteen years. That’s not it, not if I know anything about this damn business, and I do. This girl is unconditional; it’s all or nothing with her. She already knows all those essential things you can’t teach. But I can’t make any final decisions, all I can do is point her in the right direction.
“Ginger,” she said, buzzing the secretary. “Would you please ask Mrs. Horvath to come in?”
Agnes entered, wearing a resolute smile.
“Mrs. Horvath, can you bring your daughter back tomorrow?” Peggy asked without ceremony. “I’d like to have her read for some other people. And there are some more pages I’d like her to study overnight. Oh, and be sure she wears her uniform again, if you don’t mind.”
“Tomorrow? Of course,” Agnes said, coming forward quickly.
“But, Mother, tomorrow afternoon there’s that field hockey match with Westlake—” Tessa reminded her, unwillingly.
“Sister Elizabeth told me not to bother about it if these ladies wanted you back.”
&n
bsp; Her mother would have to confess before communion, Tessa thought with glee.
“Sister Elizabeth? Don’t tell me she’s still at Marymount!” Peggy Westbrook exclaimed.
“Do you know Sister Elizabeth?” Tessa asked in amazement.
“She was head of the English department and also coached the plays when I was there, a long time ago, and she wasn’t young then,” Peggy confessed.
“But, you never said!”
“No, I never do … usually. I’ve spent more time in that uniform than you have, Tessa.”
“We just did Saint Joan,” Tessa offered eagerly.
“What part did you have?”
“Joan.”
“And you satisfied Sister Elizabeth?”
“She said I was right for the Maid of France, that’s all. She doesn’t give an opinion if she can help it.”
“So I remember. Thank you, Tessa. We’ll see you tomorrow. And Mrs. Horvath, please leave your phone number with the receptionist.”
After the door closed behind Agnes and Tessa, Peggy and Fiona sat in silence for stunned seconds, both of them struck by the sudden flat dullness of the room as soon as Tessa left it.
“What was that business about Saint Joan and Sister Elizabeth?” Fiona ventured, realizing that Peggy had gone somewhere she couldn’t follow her.
“Sister Elizabeth never, ever put on a production of Saint Joan unless …”
“Unless?”
“She’d discovered someone she considered worthy of the part.”
“And what’s so terrific about this Sister Elizabeth, besides a long life span?”
“Fiona, she was the best director I’ve ever worked with. Ever. If she weren’t a nun she’d be a Hollywood legend. To my knowledge she hasn’t put on Saint Joan in twenty years. Miss Bridges, you’ve just been fortunate enough to witness a born actress, a schoolgirl with acting born in the bone and muscle and the fiber and the throat, the passion and the pacing, the arrogance and the humility, all there. And we were the first to hear her! You should pay me for letting you be here today!”
“I was over the moon about Tessa before she mentioned Sister Elizabeth. And you … you were gone from the minute she said hello in that marvelous voice. Must be the Hungarian father, I should think. Yummy Hungarians. Seriously, Peggy, did you really think she wouldn’t be able to act worth a damn?”
“Consider it my form of knocking on wood. As for Sister Elizabeth, it never hurts to have a saintly and infallible second opinion when magic strikes. Send the other girls away, Fi, I’m much too excited to give them a fair reading now. I’ve just remembered why I chose this infernal profession.”
“Righto. Want another Coke to celebrate, oh, secret convent queen?”
“You know perfectly well where I keep the Dom Pérignon, so stop being disrespectful to your betters.”
“I’m just jealous of that sexy uniform.”
“As well you might be. Now get out the champagne!”
6
The next afternoon, Roddy Fensterwald sat in the I casting office alongside Peggy Westbrook and Fiona Bridges. Much to his irritation, Glenda Bancroft had insisted on being present. She had heard from her assistant, who had been told by the all-knowing Ginger, that he was reading an exciting unknown for Jo.
“Roddy, lover, I’m thrilled that Peggy has found someone she thinks might do for Jo,” Glenda had said on the phone the previous night. “There’s no way I’d play Marmee with any of the hot young girls who are already out there,” Glenda continued earnestly. “They’ve all been spoiled by too many photos of them making the club scene. I’m dying to see a fresh face. Don’t be an old meanie. I promise I’ll be a fly on the wall. She won’t have any idea that it’s me. I’m aware that might make her freeze. I can’t be good if the whole cast isn’t good, you know that. After all, it is an ensemble piece.”
“You worry me when you make sense, Glenda. What do you plan to do, come in drag?”
“Give me credit for more subtlety than that. I often spend the afternoon shopping at the Price Club—it’s my secret vice. I’ve never been spotted yet. If you have to introduce me, say I’m your secretary. I’ll make notes.”
“Damn it, Glenda—”
“Roddy, you won’t regret it. Till tomorrow, lover.”
He regretted it already, Roddy Fensterwald thought. Glenda Bancroft had taken a chair and put it quietly in a corner, as far away from them as she could sit, a diabolic move that somehow made her a focus of attention. She’d made a genuine effort not to be recognizable, he had to admit, in a truly dowdy pants suit and a head scarf, so that her signature red hair was hidden. But she couldn’t, in spite of not wearing makeup, hide her features, and she exuded that certain power that only a world-famous actress can possess. Bitch that he knew her to be, she hadn’t bothered to turn it off, as he knew damn well she could, if she pleased.
He stood up and walked over to her. “Fly on the wall?”
“You’d walk right past me, Roddy, don’t say you wouldn’t.”
“But this room is a little too small for star power, Glenda. Lose it, darling, or I’m giving you the boot.”
“But of course,” she said, losing it with a small satisfied smile. She did adore Roddy, he never disappointed her, Glenda thought, looking vaguely in the direction of her feet.
“Are we all ready now?” Peggy asked patiently.
“Yup,” Roddy said.
When Tessa entered, Peggy introduced Roddy, who stood up, shook her hand, and smiled at her as if he’d never been so delighted to meet anyone in his life. She smiled back at him, thinking how much younger he looked than she’d expected. He’d directed a lot of movies she loved, but she’d never seen a photograph of him. His thick, messy hair, already lightly streaked with gray, fell carelessly to his shoulders, and he wore enormously thick glasses that were a droll contrast to his slightly monkey-like features. His skinny, tall frame was carelessly covered in jeans and a baggy old sweater that had once been either white or yellow. Roddy Fensterwald, Tessa thought, would not reassure her mother.
“I know how hard this is, Tessa,” he said, “but all I really care about today is getting an idea of who you are and who you could be, under the right circumstances. This isn’t about showing me how you’d act in front of a camera, or about becoming Jo March on screen, even though you’ll be reading lines in the context of the scene. For the next few minutes it’s not acting nearly as much as being Tessa Horvath, the one part you’ve been playing all your life, the one part you can’t help but be perfect in, can you, no matter what you do? So consider that you’ve already got that A in drama.”
“Thank you, Mr. Fensterwald,” Tessa said, visibly relaxing.
“Call me Roddy. Everybody does.”
“I’ll try, but I can’t promise.”
“Well, as long as you don’t call me ‘Sister Elizabeth’ we’re fine.”
As Peggy laughed along with the others, she thought that no other name could possibly be as appropriate, and, of course he knew it and knew they knew it.
“Did you get a chance to study the new sides, Tessa?” Peggy asked.
“Yes, I’ve memorized them.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean you to do that. You must have been up all night.”
“I had it memorized before dinner. But I was up all night anyway, too excited to sleep.”
“Well, don’t try to do this from memory,” Roddy said. “It just makes it more of a trial, and I want you to be comfortable. Would you like some water?”
“Yes, please.”
Fiona poured the water while Tessa gazed nervously around the room. Why hadn’t they introduced the slim woman taking notes in the corner? Was she someone important? Even sitting down she had important posture, straight, alert, commanding.
“Before we start reading,” Roddy said, taking the sides from Fiona, “here’s the situation.” Peggy and Fiona darted their eyes at each other in surprise. Usually the director would just sit quietly during an audition, watc
hing with every ounce of his attention and forming an opinion. Roddy was known to be a fine actor, but this was the first time he’d ever read in their office. It was Fiona’s, or, in some cases, Peggy’s job to read with the actor under consideration. As Roddy started to speak, both women sat as expressionlessly as if they weren’t in the room.
“All right, Tessa, this is what’s happened up till now. Jo, and Meg, her older sister, have been invited to an evening party, a New Year’s Eve dance. They each have only one good dress to wear—they’re very poor, you see, but still ladies. The problem is that Jo’s dress has been scorched in the back when she stood in front of a fire, and it’s been mended in a way that would show if she were to dance. She doesn’t really care about things like that, but Meg is so self-conscious that she has made Jo promise to keep the back of her dress out of sight. So not only is Jo out of her element to begin with, but her style is really cramped, because there’s no place she can possibly stand except up against a wall. She feels absolutely out of place and pretty soon she finds herself alone, watching other people enjoying themselves, a total wallflower. Then, to her horror, she spots a boy walking in her direction as if he were going to ask her to dance. She quickly and bashfully disappears behind some curtains.
“But lo and behold, there’s another person there, Laurie Laurence, the boy who lives next door. Jo barely knows him, although they’ve met before when he brought her wandering cat home. He’s hiding in the curtains because he’s been living abroad, at school, and doesn’t know American manners. As they meet, the scene begins. Start whenever you’re ready.”
Tessa looked around the room as she thought over what Roddy had told her. She stood up and started to speak, stammering in surprise.
“Dear me, I didn’t know anyone was here!”
“Don’t mind me, stay if you like,” Roddy said, looking startled but laughing.
“Shan’t I disturb you?”
“Not a bit. I only came here because I don’t know many people and felt rather strange at first, you know.”
“So did I. Don’t go away please, unless you’d rather.”
The Jewels of Tessa Kent Page 6