Lights! Camera! Dissatisfaction...

by Kim Cayer

“But I wasn’t!” I cried. “You printed my national anthem letter!”

  “And so we’ll print a retraction. That means it doesn’t count.”

  “Does it?” I didn’t quite get his logic, but I had bigger worries. “Hey, what about my check that got stolen? You still owe me money for that!”

  Dave walked over to his desk and picked up a bank statement. “No, we don’t. You reported your check missing too late. That mugger had cashed it already. But YOU owe ME 50 bucks still.”

  “I don’t have it,” I admitted.

  “I want my money!” Dave began yelling again. “Pay me!”

  “Pay me for my anthem letter!” I yelled back.

  “Get outta here!” Dave screamed, red in the face. “You’re fired! Fired! Get out!” A crowd had gathered to watch my lesson in humility so I took Dave’s advice and split.

  Friday morning, I woke up in better spirits. Last night, instead of crying the blues, I felt an urge to quell my misery in another way. I gathered up all the Daily Times’ in my room, went into the back alley, and burned every page slowly, one by one. By 11 p.m. I was cold, tired and hungry, but more at peace. So I lost a job. I could always find another one. I wasn’t qualified for much, but I could wash dishes.

  The first thing I did when I awoke was buy myself some breakfast. I knew that this fiasco would blow over soon and I’d be a speck in everyone’s memories, so I kept my head held high. I did order take-out though.

  After my meal, I busied myself by packing a few things into one more carton. Today was moving day! At least my first and last month’s rent was paid, all I had to concern myself with was feeding myself. As I shook a bug off my housecoat, I gleefully thought of my new place. One of the things that sold me on it was that it was cockroach-controlled.

  A knock came at the door. The Daily Times, begging me to come back? Ha ha! Even my sense of humor was coming back. I opened it and saw three men standing there. All three immediately flipped badges at me. “Police?” I asked.

  “Immigration,” all three responded. One looked into my room. “Good,” he said. “You’re leaving.”

  “Yes,” I replied. How’d they know? Did they say Immigration or CIA?

  “We have to give you an escort,” the same man said.

  “An escort?” I repeated. “Why? I’m nobody special.”

  “You are Alice Kumplunkem?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But I don’t need an escort! I’m not going far.”

  The three men glanced at each other and made a motion to grab their guns, just in case. “You are going back to Canada?” another one asked.

  “Yes, I guess so, eventually,” I said, starting to get a bit annoyed with their line of questioning. “But today, I am only going a few blocks.”

  “No,” the guy said. “Today you’re going back to Canada.”

  I remembered my visa was up today but decided to play it dumb. “Oh, did my visa run out? Look, on Monday, I’ll go to your office and straighten it all out, alright?”

  “I wouldn’t bother,” another officer informed me. “The US Embassy considers you an undesirable alien…”

  “Fuck them too,” I said. They all stiffened, the loyal peons.

  “We have been instructed to put you on a bus for Toronto, Canada; your last place of residence. Pack only what you can bring on a bus, which is three suitcases. I’m also instructed to tell you that you may not apply for citizenship again for the next 10 years, and that all customs points across the US will have your photo and statistics…” The officer went on with his litany; USA vs. Kumplunkem. In stunned silence, I packed my most precious belongings.

  I was sent back to Canada in disgrace.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Upon arrival in Toronto, I gathered my suitcases out of the Greyhound Bus. Those three suitcases represented everything I owned in the world. I didn’t care. I walked over to a bench in the bus terminal and sat down. Now what? What did I do with my worthless life now? And I meant NOW. I had nowhere to live but I didn’t care. I had almost no money and I didn’t bother to count just how much I did have because I didn’t care. I really didn’t give a shit about anything.

  I am not a suicidal person. I may have felt extreme misery at times but I’ve never considered killing myself. Life was a real drag but I wouldn’t choose death over it. I wondered if there was a place I could go to, just to check out of life for a while. If it would have been possible to freeze my body cryogenically for the next 100 years, I would have done it. I no longer wanted to think or make decisions anymore. I was tired of thinking. My brain had so many thoughts in it, it just overheated. Now it was a lump of sawdust in my head and I was left with an ambivalent personality.

  Should I call Velda? I hadn’t spoken to her since I left Toronto and she’d probably be as mad as hell at me. So what though? What’s one more person mad at me? Besides, she was probably shooting some film in Paris or something.

  I dialed her number. After two rings, it was picked up. “Hello?” Velda answered.

  “Hello, Velda? It’s Alice.”

  “Alice!” she shrieked. “Where are you?”

  “Toronto,” I replied. “I just got in.”

  “Where are you staying?” she asked.

  “I haven’t gotten a place yet,” I said.

  “Well, you know I have an extra bedroom,” she reminded me. “Come stay with me!”

  “You wouldn’t mind?” I had to ask.

  “Not at all!” Velda trilled. “I’d love to have you!” What a nice homecoming line!

  “Thanks a lot,” I said. “I really appreciate it.” She didn’t know how much I appreciated it.

  “So grab a cab and get over here!” Velda commanded. “We have so much to catch up on! I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

  I lugged my suitcases onto a public transit city bus. I would have loved to take a taxi but my pocket money disallowed that luxury. After getting off the bus, it took another 40 minutes to haul my suitcases the two blocks to Velda’s house. First I’d take the two lighter cases and walk ahead about a hundred feet, just far enough so that my other suitcase was still in my sight. Then I’d walk back, get the heavier case, and walk ahead two hundred feet with that. It was a dumb way to do things but I didn’t want anything stolen. As I said, these suitcases contained everything I owned.

  I knocked on Velda’s door and it was flung open. “Alice!!!” Velda laughed, throwing her arms around me. “Oh, I’ve missed you so much!”

  “I missed you too, Velda,” I said. Seeing her was an instant reminder that she was the only true friend I’d ever had.

  “Let me help you with your baggage,” she offered. “Your room’s a bit messy but we’ll take care of that later.” We threw my suitcase into a room I believe served as Velda’s closet. Not that it was tiny; it wasn’t. It was just strewn with all types of clothing.

  She led me back into the living room and pulled out a bottle of wine. “I’ve been saving this for a special occasion,” she said, displaying a bottle of France’s finest, “and this is a very special occasion. Welcome back!” She poured two glasses full and toasted me.

  “So what’ve you been up to, Velda?” I asked.

  “Me!?” Velda replied, astounded. “I want to hear what’s been happening to you since you left Toronto!”

  “Oh, this and that, you know,” I lacklusterly said. “Nothing much.”

  “Nothing much! Come on! You were working for one of the best soaps!” Velda countered, all wonderstruck.

  “Yeah, but I quit,” I noted.

  “So what? People quit jobs all the time,” Velda reassured me. “And besides, I read you got all sorts of offers to work for other soaps and YOU turned THEM down.”

  “You say what? You read?” I shook my head in confusion.

  “Oh, yeah!” Velda affirmed. “You’re big news here! I wish I could have talked to you but I felt sort of shy.”

  “Shy? Why in the world would you feel shy?”

  “Oh, because you had
this big job and I just felt so small-time compared to you. I didn’t want to bug you,” Velda, my bosom buddy, said. “And I knew you were way too busy to get in touch with me.”

  “That’s not exactly how it was,” I admitted. “And you were thinking stupid.”

  “Oh, it’s so nice of you to say that!” Velda cried, giving me another hug. “We’re still friends, aren’t we?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Hey, Velda, where did you read about me?”

  “All the papers…the entertainment magazines…everywhere,” Velda said.

  “They wrote about me?” I asked.

  “Sure!” Velda replied. “Why not? You had an important job in the United States of America! Canadian Girl Does Well!”

  “Hhmm. My life didn’t go too well after that job though,” I bitterly added.

  “How can you say that?!” Velda asked, her eyes wide. “Then you ONLY got a job as a FEATURED columnist on New York’s BIGGEST newspaper.”

  “Yeah, but I got fired,” I again admitted.

  “In a blaze of Canadian patriotism!” Velda fairly saluted.

  “You know about that too?” I asked, myself now bug-eyed.

  “After you got that second job, everyone was talking about how well you were doing,” Velda told me. “But then a few people were getting envious. Then you wrote that letter! You became our nation’s hero! You rank up there with Terry Fox.”

  “Please, Velda, don’t make such a big deal outta it,” I said. “I was pretty mad at something else when I wrote that letter. I took my aggression out on a lot of the wrong people.”

  “Oh, you were always so modest,” Velda chided me. “I’m surprised there wasn’t a big crowd waiting for you at the airport.”

  “I don’t think anyone knew I was coming,” I said, neglecting to add I took the bus.

  “You got deported Friday, didn’t you?” Velda asked.

  She was blowing me away! “How the hell did you know that?!” I asked.

  “Alice, I told you!” Velda huffed, as if she needed to repeat it again. “You’re in the news!”

  “Since I left Toronto?”

  “Here and there,” Velda nodded. “After you got that column, news on you calmed down. Then when the trouble started, you became headline material. They printed your letter to that editor and everybody here flipped. They want to nominate you for premier of Ontario even.”

  “Oh God!” I laughed. “Come to think of it, why not? I haven’t been qualified for any other of my jobs so far. Why not a politician?”

  “Are you serious?” Velda enquired.

  “No!” I firmly stated. “Vel, all I want to do right now is stay OUT of the spotlight. I don’t want any more high-profile jobs and I never want to see my name in the newspaper ever again.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Velda said. “Everybody wants that.”

  “Not me,” I held my stand. “Maybe you, being an actress, wants that, but I’d be happy to toil my little life away as a chimney sweep from now on.”

  “If you say so…” Velda said disbelievingly.

  “So enough about me,” I changed the subject. “What have you been up to? Working a lot?”

  “Let’s see…you’ve been gone about a year…oh, by the way, Alice,” Velda said, “I must say, you’ve changed 100 per cent.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Older, but wiser.”

  “You look five years younger!” Velda exclaimed. “And so thin! Your hair looks like you just got out of a salon.”

  “Really?” I asked. Tell me more.

  “You look amazing,” Velda decided. “I barely recognized you.”

  “I didn’t realize I’d changed so much,” I admitted. “Anyways, tell me what you’ve been up to all year?”

  “Let’s see…I did that Stewardessess of the Americas, but it got cancelled right away. They only showed four episodes. Then I got a couple commercials…four, actually.” Yet Velda looked wistful. “Then this big European director came to Toronto and wanted me for this great role – a lead! Finally, a lead role! But my agent got greedy and demanded I get this and I get that. I told him, ‘Don’t blow my chances!’ but sure enough, he did. They started shooting already and ended up hiring my biggest competition in this town.”

  “Aww, that’s a shame,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Velda agreed. “My agent and I have been kind of scrapping for weeks now. What’s worse, I haven’t worked in weeks!”

  “Oh, oh…so you’re broke too?” I asked.

  “Oh, no!” Velda laughed at the idea. “But you are?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t want to tell you.”

  “Don’t worry about it!” Velda said. “Stay here for as long as you like. I’ll give you a few hundred for play money. I’m honored to have a guest like you staying here.”

  Funny how life works out. I used to be so honored just having Velda as a friend and she’s honored that I’ll be soiling her bedsheets. “Just one more favor, Vel,” I said. “Please don’t tell anyone I’m staying here. I just want to be left alone.”

  I could see where Garbo was coming from.

  * * *

  It was a full two weeks before I started feeling normal again. My ambivalence had left me and I was actually starting to feel bored. Velda wasn’t pushing me to find employment or to help her with the bills, but I didn’t feel right sponging off her. It was time to get a job.

  My room-mate came home from an audition. She was trying out for a sitcom to be filmed in Toronto. Velda slammed the front door closed and stormed over toward the couch. “How’d it go?” I asked.

  “Another blonde-bimbo part!” she griped. “I can’t figure out why Scott keeps sending me to them. Sure, I did a few to get my career started but my agent KNOWS I can play other characters. I’m so sick of doing the wide-eyed, breathy, booby parts.”

  “Just like I got so sick of playing the ugly duckling roles,” I commiserated, then made a suggestion. “Talk to him.”

  “I HAVE been! We must have discussed this a dozen times this year already. And guess what else I discovered!” Velda asked. “The casting director left his desk for a minute and I wanted to see what kind of Polaroid I’d taken. So I go over to his desk quick and I see it – it was fine – and then I see this list. It’s got all the actresses names on it who are trying out for this part, and the amount their agents want them to be paid, right? Well, there’s good ol’ Shirley Bloom’s name, my main competition, and her agent has her down for double scale. I think to myself, Shirley’s moving up in this biz, her agent is asking for double pay. Then I see my name and I see TRIPLE scale! I TOLD Scott not to axe me out of the running by insane salary demands. I’m not a big star yet! And you know what, Alice?” she asked tearfully.

  “What?”

  “Shirley Bloom is gonna pass me by. Why wouldn’t the producers hire someone just as talented as I for half the price? I would.” Velda had a problem alright.

  The phone rang. I didn’t pick it up, as I hadn’t been for the two weeks since I’d arrived. I left the answering machine to its business when Velda wasn’t around. “Hello?” Velda said, then listened. “They made their choice already? Can’t you get back to them and say we’ll go down…? Fine…I don’t agree, you know, but you’re the agent…Right…Sure…Bye.” She looked at me then yelled, “SHIT!”

  I have to admit I was shocked. Velda was so well brought-up. “Wow, you swore!” I gasped. “Must be bad news.”

  “Oh, just another part I didn’t get and Shirley Bloom did,” Velda replied. “You know I never let it bother me when I don’t get a part, but this is different. This goes deeper than not getting a part.”

  “Dump him, Velda,” I suggested. “He’s ruining your career.”

  “But he’s the best agent in Toronto!” she cried. “It’s quite prestigious to belong to that agency. I just wish they didn’t think they knew everything and actors know nothing.”

  The phone rang again. Velda looked at it for precisely two rings and then picked it up.
“Hello…oh, hi, Rafael! …I found out already; I didn’t get it…Oh well…So what time are you picking me up? …What? …Oh, no! I was looking forward to it…Can you? …Maybe I’ll still go…Thanks. See you.” She hung up.

  “Bad news again?” I hated to ask.

  “Remember that opening I was going to tonight?” Velda asked. “That big play at the Royal Alex Theatre?”

  “Yeah, Guys and Dolls,” I said knowingly.

  “Right. Rafael can’t make it. He had an invite to the opening AND to the party afterwards.” She looked at me as if she needn’t say more.

  “You wanted to go to the party?” I asked.

  “Of course!” Velda said. “Those are the places to be seen!”

  I would rather have gone to see the play. My high school had done a production of it and although I wasn’t cast in it, I still went to see it. To my surprise, I thoroughly enjoyed the show. I hinted at Velda, “I’d like to see Guys and Dolls again.”

  “You want to leave the house?” she asked.

  “I’ve been cooped up long enough,” I confessed. “I don’t know if I’m into a party though.”

  “Rafael said he’d drop the tickets off anyways, just in case I wanted to go still,” Velda said. “Let’s go together!”

  It was fun getting ready to go. Old Girls Club. Giggling, trying on each other’s clothes. I ended up wearing a smart black dress that belonged to Velda and she ended up wearing something of her own too. I never thought I’d live to see the day that I would fit into Velda’s clothes. She even gave me a few helpful make-up hints, such as ‘limit blue eye-shadow to just the eyelid’ and how to fill in over-plucked eyebrows.

  The play was even better the second time. And surprise, surprise! My old boyfriend Joe was in the cast, playing a second-banana gangster. He excelled in his role and I knew I was foolish to deny his apparent talent.

  The play left us in exuberant spirits. “I’d love to be in a show like that! It must be fun!” Velda exclaimed. “I’ve never been in a play. Just film.”

  “I was lucky I got to do both,” I said. Time obscures memories. “The good ‘ol days.”

  “C’mon, Ali,” Velda said. “Let’s go to the party.” That was one more reason Velda was cementedly endearing herself to me. She’d found a nickname for me that I actually liked. Ali. Ali. Actually, I loved it.