by Hazel Kelly
Fortunately, I had my kindle and a healthy appetite to distract me from the stress of waiting to hear whether they wanted to see me again.
God I hoped they did.
It would be so embarrassing to have to tell my mom and my professor and Brandi that I’d flubbed everything up. I knew she was only joking that I was her ticket out of our one tanning salon town, but it was sort of true, and if I did make it big, I wanted to be one of those stars that had all their same childhood friends… so I’d have someone to hang out with when I wasn’t playing drinking games with Amy Schumer.
And of course it would be nice to have good news for Ethan so he didn’t feel like he’d put me up for nothing. Plus, getting a callback might make him take me more seriously.
I knew he thought I was still the same nerdy girl who co-directed Bye Bye Birdie in high school and read books about the golden age of Hollywood, but I wasn’t completely talentless. I mean, I had to cry in a production I did last year.
Surely that counted for something.
I managed to find a little cafe within a few blocks of the studio, and since I didn’t have to do any more dancing or singing for the day, I ordered myself a New York sized chocolate milkshake and a chicken sandwich to enjoy while I read.
The milkshake was so delicious I was almost sexually aroused by it, and the sandwich was the perfect thing to nibble mouse sized chunks of in order to keep the table.
After all, I was in no hurry to start wandering the city streets without somewhere to go when I was liable to get trampled.
And as ridiculous as it was, I felt like I’d already made it.
I mean, I was on a veritable lunch break in downtown New York City a few blocks away from a studio where I’d just auditioned for a role in a real Off Broadway production. It was an amazing high.
Sure, I felt like a big girl when I went away to school, but this was different. I’d finally done something that most people never do, and that made me feel special. Like the whole trip had been worth it. Like no matter what happened now, I was one step closer to sticking my hands in cement on Hollywood Boulevard.
And the people watching was amazing.
I’d never seen so many severe bobs and wacky glasses and amazing coats. Everything was bolder and louder and more colorful, and I so desperately wanted to fit in. And yet, it seemed the only way to fit in was to stand out.
No wonder Ethan left and never came back.
I felt like I finally understood.
This place was the total opposite of living in Ohio under his dad’s inflexible military standards or the regimented atmosphere of boarding school. It was wild and alive and exciting and unpredictable.
Better.
And I couldn’t help but feel like I was in a position to appreciate it more than anyone who’d ever taken such vibrancy for granted.
When enough time had passed that I didn’t think I’d be the first person to come looking for the callback list, I paid for my lunch, slipped out the door, and walked purposefully back to the studio, finding that if I just focused on squaring my shoulders directly behind the person in front of me, I was less liable to get knocked around.
And as I approached the typed list in the middle of the large corkboard, my heart was beating in my throat.
I held my breath as my eyes scanned the names of the people who’d earned a second audition, reading slowly to make sure I wouldn’t miss a single letter.
And then there it was- my name. Next to a time to return. Next to the part I’d be competing for.
But it didn’t say chorus line.
It didn’t say surfer girl #4.
It said Marilyn.
I blinked.
Then I blinked some more.
Then I stepped up to the list and dragged my finger under my name and the time and the role just to be sure I was reading straight across the line.
I looked around. People in leg warmers and black turtlenecks and Victorian costumes scurried around the entry way. Going places.
Like me.
But I still had my doubts.
What if it was a mistake?
What if I told my family I was up for a leading role and it was just a typo?
I hoisted my backpack over one shoulder and walked up to the front desk where a woman with jet black hair sat with lime green glasses perched on the end of her nose.
“May I help you?” she asked without looking up.
“Hi, yeah. I have a question about the auditions for Life’s a Beach.”
“They were this morning.”
“I know. I was there.”
She lifted her eyes and pointed a pen towards the corkboard. “The callback list is over there.”
“I know. I’m on it.”
She kept her eyes on a computer screen I couldn’t see. “Congratulations.”
“I just want to make sure there hasn’t been a mistake.”
“If there were any mistakes, their names aren’t on the list. That’s how this works.”
“But I’m on there for Marilyn, and it’s a leading role.”
She straightened up and looked down her nose at me. “Let me guess. This is your first audition in the big city?”
I nodded.
“Thought so. Listen-”
“Jennifer. Jennifer Layne.”
“As I was saying, I hope I have a reason to remember your name someday, but unfortunately I already forgot it.”
I forced a smile.
“And as far as the list, the person who made it isn’t a lowly illiterate volunteer. They’re a professional, a professional whose job it is to make sure that list is error free. In fact, his job depends on it. So how about you trust him to do his job, and we’ll trust you to do yours which is to come back here- when?”
“Two thirty on Thursday.”
“Fabulous. So you can read, too. Just like the man who made the list.”
“Okay, thanks for your help,” I said, taking a step back from the desk.
Because a cartwheel would’ve seemed too eager.
Chapter 8: Ethan
Just her presence in the city was driving me crazy.
When she was back in Ohio, it was easy to tell myself there were no feelings there, that even if there were, she was happy sipping overpriced cappuccinos with a bunch of men in black turtlenecks, offering encouragement in their latest attempts at method acting.
But she hadn’t become the weirdo I’d hoped.
On the contrary, she was even sweeter and more beautiful than she was the day I met her.
It was the first week of my sophomore year of high school. I remember getting on the bus and making eye contact with her. And she scooted over.
I don’t know if she wanted me to sit with her or if she was just being polite, but she obviously didn’t know that I had a seat at the back that my friends made it their business to protect.
I never said anything to her about it, never acknowledged the gesture. Instead, I just made my way to my seat and spent the rest of the week wondering what it would’ve been like if I’d sat next to the girl with the freckles and the partially eaten candy necklace.
In my mind, she smelled like candy, but I never got close enough to know for sure.
I had other chances, too, moments when I could’ve gotten to know her. But I chickened out every time. She was too strange, too disinterested in fitting in.
And that was suspect, especially in the small minded place we grew up.
Forging any kind of bond with her could’ve been social suicide.
For both of us, as many of my so called friends back then could be terribly cruel. And I knew it. But as a teenager, you don’t get to pick your friends. You might get to pick one or two if you’re lucky, but everyone else comes with the territory and you make do.
So I kept my distance, convincing myself that it was the best thing I could do to protect her- like a scientist who discovers a rare bird in the rainforest and decides not to tell anyone so no harm will come to it.
/> And then our parents got married and protecting her became my job officially. It was a job she never realized was mine, though it was one I took very seriously.
But she still had that aloof naivety about her. Somehow she hadn’t lost it, which was crazy.
I thought college could’ve beat that willingness to trust people out of anyone. But not her.
Cause she was different.
And here I was again kicking myself for not realizing it when I might’ve actually been able to do something about it.
Like kiss her. Just once.
Cause I’d had years to think about the situation, and as far as I could tell, there were two options.
Either I only thought I wanted her cause I couldn’t have her, or I was genuinely attracted to her soft features and her quirky personality.
Over the years, I’d picked up tons of women who were easy on the eyes, and I could always tell as soon as I kissed them if there was anything there, if they were worth the trouble. And frankly, if I thought I could get Jenny out of my system with a simple kiss, I probably would’ve made a move a long time ago.
In fact, it probably would’ve been the best fucking thing to ever happen to me because then I wouldn’t have had to deal with the heavy, unrequited chemistry that stuck like a thorn in my side from the moment my dad told me he was going to marry her mom.
Sure, my confusing crush on her was only part of why I was horrified at his news. If anything, the disgust I had for my dad was the overwhelming emotion that came over me at the time, clogging my throat like black tar.
I remember it like it was yesterday. He told me in the car.
We used to do this thing on Sunday mornings where we’d go for pancakes and then drop flowers off at my mom’s grave.
I hated everything about it… and not just because it was one more thing my dad made me do that I didn’t want to do.
I didn’t even like pancakes. What’s more, knowing I was about to go visit my mom’s grave didn’t exactly do wonders for my appetite.
Of course, he and I never had much in common. In fact, he was genuinely ashamed of some of the things I liked to do- namely drawing- whereas my mom always encouraged me and made a big fuss about the pictures I made for her growing up.
After she died, he took all my pictures down and would flip out if he caught me sketching. He’d say “Who are you fucking drawing those pictures for?! Your mom’s dead. What are you stupid?”
It was pretty shit. And yeah, I understood that he was hurting, but I was hurting, too.
Anyway, we were on the way home from one of our Sunday visits to her grave. We gave her daisies that day. My dad let me pick them out. I was so happy that I remembered what she thought about them, especially since I was terrified of forgetting things about her.
I still am.
I was helping her hang sheets to dry in the backyard. We had a dryer, but when the weather was nice, she liked the sheets to smell of fresh air. That was the day she told me she liked daisies because admiring them was the closest she could get to staring at the sun.
I didn’t understand why a person would want to stare at the sun, but like any kid, my mind ran away with the idea.
After that, I used to bring her yellow daisies whenever I could find them. Not only because I knew she liked them, but because I was worried that if she didn’t have some, she might be tempted to look at the sun instead.
Then she might go blind, and if that happened, she wouldn’t be able to see my drawings anymore.
The point is, we were driving back from the graveyard when my dad told me he was going to marry Jen’s mom.
I lost it.
After all, it had only been a year since my mom’s accident. How my dad could even suggest that he had feelings for another woman was beyond my comprehension… along with how he could’ve possibly gotten another woman to fall for him. The fact that he ever wooed my mom seemed miraculous enough.
I told him right then and there that if he got remarried, I would never forgive him.
And I did a good job keeping my promise for a long time.
But as I got older, I started to understand that my dad was one of those men who was better off with a woman.
It softened him.
Not much, but enough to make a difference.
And as hard a pill as it was for me to swallow that he was ready to move on with his life, it beat those sad fucking pancakes.
Chapter 9: Jenny
Initially, I was over the moon. In fact, I can’t be sure, but I might’ve skipped all the way home. That is, if my feet even touched the ground.
I couldn’t recall any hostility on my way back to Ethan’s, couldn’t recall getting honked at.
Sure, one guy flipped me the bird, but I flipped it right back with a big smile on my face so he’d know that his attempt to drag me down had been fruitless.
After all, the part of Marilyn was one of the only speaking female roles in the show. It was a big enough role that the program would have my headshot in it next to a little bio about me that described the show as my “debut.”
To say the prospect of that excited me was a huge understatement.
Of course, that all changed when I started rereading Marilyn’s lines. Not that the lines put me off. Rather, it was the stage direction, namely the stage direction in Act One, Scene 7 when she’s supposed to kiss Brian Wilson for the first time.
My heart sank in my chest as I pulled my feet up onto the couch.
What if I had to do the kissing scene in the audition itself?
I mean, it was one thing to get lines right when they were my responsibility, but a kiss was a totally different animal. It involved another person, and not only could another person’s awkwardness ruin my audition, but what if they had a cold sore or something?
Could I point it out?
That probably wouldn’t be professional, but I didn’t really want to be the kind of person that had to suck on cold sores to get work.
I guess it was a matter of how far I was willing to go to get the role.
Logically, I knew I’d probably have to kiss someone in my career eventually. I just didn’t think it would be so soon.
And when the time came, I’d hoped it would at least be someone gorgeous… like one of the Hemsworth brothers or someone hilarious like Paul Rudd, preferably in a tragic romantic comedy that would really showcase my range.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure my range extended to acting like I wanted to kiss someone I wasn’t attracted to.
I guess I’d just have to picture someone I was attracted to and hope my costar had the decency to keep some mints on hand.
I sighed and reread the stage directions.
It was supposed to be a passionate kiss, a kiss so convincing the audience wouldn’t be surprised to discover the characters were married in the very next scene.
Shit.
I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples, trying to recall if I’d enjoyed any kisses that might inform my performance.
There was Jimmy Watts on Prom Night.
Of course, he ended up moving to Vegas to be a showgirl- or so I heard enough times that it must be true. And that was a shame really because he was one of the only guys at my high school who I didn’t find repulsive… and who actually knew my name.
Then there was Tim Tomlinson freshman year of college, but he was so busy groping my boobs like an animal I hardly remember if his mouth had done anything interesting.
If there was anyone I might’ve practiced with more, it might’ve been him, but when I wouldn’t sleep with him the third time we hung out, he told me I was “a self-impressed prude that wasn’t good enough to suck his cock, much less sit on it.”
I liked to think I dodged a bullet there.
Then there was my T.A. in Foreign Relations who told me that- while he really enjoyed my company and would be happy to take our relationship to a physical level if it was important to me- he identified as asexual.
Needless to say, th
at didn’t exactly make me want to get naked and jump his bones.
After that, I wouldn’t say I lost hope or anything. I just sort of threw myself into areas where I’d had significantly more success- like acting, fundraising, and my studies.
And to be honest, I never really had any fear of missing out because I knew exactly what I was missing out on from having roommates, and I was fine with it.
In fact, never once did I have a roommate describe a one night stand without disdain, regret, disappointment, or distinctly boozy morning after breath.
And it was just as well that sexual adventures weren’t something I was in a hurry to have because most of my male friends were gay, and nothing destroyed the prospect of sex with straight men like being surrounded by gay ones.
In my experience anyway.
So perhaps the truth of it was that I was less worried about kissing a stranger in the audition than I was about being found out for my total lack of experience.
But how hard could it be?
Assuming the guy playing Brian and I both had normal lips, decent breath, and didn’t try anything unconventional with our tongues- like Jimmy the Showgirl did- then it would probably be fine.
Still, the prospect of losing a part for being a bad kisser was a potential career obstacle that had never occurred to me before.
Worst of all, there was no one I could talk to about it.
Brandi would only make a joke out of it. I could practically hear her telling me to go get my tongue pierced and not be afraid to use my teeth.