"You need professional help," I informed him. "And for the record, no, I'm not one of those douches who thinks acting is the hardest job in the world. I'm sure you lose a lot of sleep while you're trying to relax in your Scrooge McDuck swimming pool filled with money."
It wasn't my best work, and it came out sounding a lot more bitter than I meant. Damn it. His face changed slightly, an expression I couldn't quite identify darting across his face. But he recovered quickly. "Nah, I gave up on that. Too many paper cuts.
***
"Well, this is awkward."
It was the only thing I could think to say. I cursed inwardly, hating myself for being so...well, awkward, when it came to Ben.
We were face to face, having just nearly collided with each other in the cold and flu aisle. Of course, I couldn't be buying cough drops or Carmex or anything like that.
Of course I was buying hemorrhoid cream.
Ben, meanwhile, was buying condoms. Of course he was.
"It's not awkward," he said, lightly. "I mean, maybe now it is, because you pointed it out."
I had the ridiculous urge to shove the box behind my back, but it was too late. I thought I'd be safe here. It was almost four full blocks away from our usual impromptu meeting spot, and I'd never seen him up this far.
I glared at him. He was so fucking carefree, so la dee da, and he didn't even understand what I was going through. I'd been up half the night staring at my head shots, trying to figure out what was wrong, and I finally realized that I looked like a crone compared to the fresh-faced ingenue who stared back at me with those doe eyes. In real life, I looked like I hadn't slept in a week. The stress was wearing down on me. I had to do something about it.
Years ago, I had a drama teacher who told us about the old trick - hemorrhoid cream gets rid of those pesky under-eye bags. Supposedly. I'd never had the occasion to test it, but now, I was starting to get desperate. I just wanted to look in the mirror and see some recognizable version of myself, not a Life Alert spokesperson.
Now was probably not the time to flirt with Ben. I was beginning to seriously question why I'd ever thought it was a good idea.
"Fine, it's not awkward," I said. "I live down the street, you work down the street, of course we shop at the same drugstore. Why does it need to be awkward?"
"You live up the street?" he repeated.
"Yeah, at Regal Arms." I made a vague gesture, unsure why the hell I was telling him where I lived. But it was too late to take it back now. "Got a date tonight?"
He glanced down at the box in his hand. "I just like to be prepared," he said. "Just so you know, I'm not going to sink to your level."
His voice was gently teasing, but I could hear a real level of stress behind it - couldn't be about me, of course, I wasn't that conceited. Either he was nervous about his date, or - and this seemed more likely, judging by the size of the box - the date was actually a foregone conclusion, and at least partially intended as a remedy for whatever stress he was otherwise going through.
I rolled my eyes. "Very noble of you."
"Fine." He gestured at what I was holding. "You know that doesn't work anymore, right? Not for the eyes. They changed the formula. Get witch hazel instead. They sell it next to all the homeopathic crap, but it actually works."
My face was burning. On the one hand, at least he knew why I was really buying it. On the other hand, was it that obvious?
"How the hell do you know this stuff?" I demanded, finally giving in to my stupid instinct to shove the box behind my back.
"I work a lot of late nights. 'Haggard' isn't a good look for meeting with the partners. My assistant taught me all the tricks." He half-smiled. "I mean, uh, not that you look tired or anything. I was just making a guess."
"Thanks," I muttered, willing my face to cool down. My tone said I hope you choke on your activated almonds, which I realized was horribly unfair. He hadn't actually done anything wrong, except commit the cardinal sin of implying that I didn't look perfect at all times. God, how much of a bitch was this whole situation turning me into?
"Seriously, you look great," he said, raising his eyebrows slightly. "Please don't continue attempting to murder me with your eyes."
"I'm sorry." I sighed. "It's just...this whole dog-eat-dog world out there. I've only got one nerve left, and it's frayed to hell."
His smile turned sympathetic. "I hear that. Well, maybe you could take a break for now. Work on something else. Acting will always be there, right? Give yourself a chance to get settled somewhere new. Just living here for the first time is enough to drive a lot of people crazy, and you're piling a lot of stress on top of that."
"I've got nothing else to work on," I insisted.
"But what's your plan to fall back on? I mean, you're not going to act forever - right?"
He said it so matter-of-factly that I wondered if he even knew what he was implying.
"Sorry?" I frowned, pretending like I hadn't understood. Giving him a chance to dig himself out.
"I mean...come on." He let out a little laugh. "It's not supposed to be a long-term career, is it? What are you planning on doing in a couple decades? When, uh..."
My lips thinned as I stared at him.
"When, uh, what exactly?" I said, finally, as he worked his jaw open and closed a few times. "When I get too old?"
"That's not me saying that," he cut in, quickly. "That's just...that's how things work, isn't it?"
He was seriously committing to this. Okay. Fine.
"Oh yeah, sure, I forgot." I laughed a little. "Maggie Smith, Helen Mirren, Judi Dench, you never heard a damn thing from them, once they were out of their thirties. Such a shame. Wasted talent."
"Come on, Jenna." He was raising his voice slightly. "Why do you always have to take things in the worst possible way? I'm just trying to say that maybe you'd do better if you weren't hanging all of your hopes on one thing that's probably not going to work out in the long term. That's just realistic. It's not because you're not talented, I'm sure you are, it's not because you're a woman, it's just...things don't always work out. You should get used to that idea, because trust me, that's one thing not even a Scrooge McDuck pool of money can change."
There was a real bitterness in his voice, and it had nothing to do with me. But I was the one on the receiving end up of his cold glare, and I'd had enough.
I stared down at the box he had clutched in his hand. "Magnum XL? Are you sure that's really necessary?"
"Oh, ouch." He clutched his hand to his chest, smirking.
I gritted my teeth into a smile. "What? I'm just being realistic. Statistically, do you know how many men actually need extra-large condoms?"
"Never researched it." He folded his arms across his chest. "If you don't believe me, I have several references you could call."
Rolling my eyes, I turned away from him. But I had to give the guy credit for not offering to show me A lesser man would have.
God damn it, stop trying to make excuses for him.
"Give me your number, and I'll prove it for real," he called after me as I walked away.
Well, so much for that.
***
I spent the next two weeks not thinking about Ben.
I didn't think about him while I made Laura her lunch, helped her arrange her Little People by profession and hairstyle, and prevented her from attempting to cut off her Barbie doll's hair with a nail file she'd somehow found wedged behind the bathroom vanity. After I told Maddy and Daniel about that, they spent about twenty minutes blaming each other for letting it fall down there and forgetting about it, and I just quietly assured them it was completely normal, that I'd never seen any structure built by human hands that was one hundred percent child-proof, and quietly slipped out the door.
The next day, judging by the tense way Maddy was holding her shoulders, they still hadn't quite resolved the issue.
I didn't think about Ben.
I didn't think about Ben while I submitted to a few more calls
, attending more open auditions, showing up earlier and earlier, hoping for a chance to read. Somehow, it never worked out. Somehow, no matter how hard I tried, I never managed to get there early enough. I was always on time for my nanny shifts, but when it came to auditions, I found myself hitting the snooze button over and over.
It was nothing more than self-sabotage. I knew that. The crushing sense of doubt made it so difficult to put the effort in. Best case scenario, if I arrived early enough, all I got was a chance.
A chance wasn't enough. I was sick of chances. I wanted something for real, I wanted all of the time I'd spent hoping and dreaming to actually mean something. But I knew that was silly. Conceited. Ridiculously so. Everyone else hoped and dreamed too. That wasn't enough. I had to work for it.
I just wished there was some guarantee. It wouldn't take much. Just an assurance that I wasn't chasing a mythical pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
Ben might have the stress of a billion-dollar company bearing down on him, but he didn't know what it was like.
Don't think about Ben.
I finally crawled out of my own ass long enough to actually secure myself an audition, and get up when my alarm went off. The first time. More or less.
I had a good feeling about this one, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. It was posted on classified ads instead of the big industry-only site that I'd subscribed to, but there were plenty of indie filmmakers doing totally legitimate projects without going through the normal channels. I just had to have a little faith - that was all.
Besides, the supposedly official, fully-vetted industry-only site was so archaic and slow that it made me want to cry. I always expected to see a dancing skeleton in the corner of the page. It didn't exactly inspire confidence.
The audition was much further uptown than I was used to going, and I walked past the building three times before I found the creepy little cement staircase leading down to the unmarked door.
A quiet little warning bell went off in the back of my head, but all of this was consistent with a smaller, indie project.
I had to stop self-sabotaging.
Inside, everything was eerily quiet, except for a faint mechanical buzz from somewhere underneath the floor. A few other girls were sitting in the waiting room in mismatched folding chairs, at least a few of them looking incredibly strung-out, and the others on the verge of it.
Turn around. Walk away.
The stubborn determination rose up in the back of my mind. Do you want this, or don't you? Stick it out. No more excuses.
One by one, we were called into a back room by a guy in a dark hoodie with lank, dirty-gray hair. I stayed frozen in my seat. I waited.
Minutes passed, and I decided I'd had enough.
This wasn't it. This wasn't the time to get motivated, not in a sleazy basement office for a movie that might or might not even exist. I stood up and started to head for the front door.
Right on cue, the door in the back of the room popped open again.
"Hey, where are you headed?"
Clearing my throat, I turned around to face him. "Uh...I just, um, I have to go. Sorry. I hope you find somebody."
He shook his head, gesturing me towards him. "Nah, come on. We can get you in right now."
There was a noise of protest from the other girl who was still waiting, but he silenced her with a look.
"Uh...okay. I guess." I followed him into the back room. None of the other girls left in tears, so whatever was going on, it couldn't be too bad.
The back room was even more depressing than the front, somehow. Before I knew it, I was alone with this guy, and the single flickering fluorescent light didn't do much to make this place not feel like a repurposed closet. He handed me a few pages; they said UNTITLED PROJECT.
He grinned at me, and I was actually surprised that he wasn't missing any teeth.
"Welcome, hon," he said. "You're gonna be reading the part of Nicole, okay?"
There was a creeping sensation under my skin.
Walk away. Just walk away.
But I couldn't afford to. Not if I wanted to keep chasing this dream.
It was really, really sweet of Maddy to offer me a job. But Laura would be in school before I knew it, and I couldn't rely on her mother doing me favors for the rest of my life. I wasn't going to give up, no matter how creeped-out I felt right now, with this guy's eyes glued on me, and not another soul in the room.
Looking down at the script, I couldn't suppress the thought that this was one of the worst things I'd ever read. It didn't even seem like it could be real - it was that bad.
"Um..." I said, glancing up at him. "Should I just go ahead and start?"
He nodded.
It was incredibly difficult to inject any passion into the words, but I tried. The guy hardly seemed to be listening. His eyes were all over me, but I had a feeling I could have just started reciting the alphabet.
There was a sinking sensation in my chest. I'd just walked into some kind of scam, most likely, and I wasn't even smart enough to sniff it out beforehand. How the hell was I going to make a career out of this?
"Wow," he said, when I was finished. "Great job. Listen, we had a lot of auditions for this project, and you're one of the best. But there's no guarantees, of course. Thing is, we're always producing something new, and even if we're not, I've got friends who are always looking for talent. If you want, I can make sure to pass your info along. Get you listed where all the big companies really go looking for their talent."
I cleared my throat. "I'm already on Cast Me."
Making a noise of derision, he stood up, his chair scraping against the floor. "Cast Me? Psshh. Nobody looks at that crap. I've got a line on all the best people. Lots of them are looking for girls just like you. I can hook you up - give you a nice discount, even." He grinned. "And for no extra charge, I'll make sure you get on all the lists. Including the extra exclusive ones for the really ambitious girls. Those projects are in high demand, but if you know somebody, you can get in. If you ever decide you want to make some real money, it's a useful thing to fall back on. Real classy productions only. No fetish stuff."
Oh, for fuck's sake.
I jumped to my feet. "Does this ever work?" I snarled at him, as I rushed for the door. Thankfully, he didn't try to stop me.
"Sometimes." He shrugged as I walked away. "If you ever change your mind, just call the number in the ad."
***
By the time I got on my bus back home, I couldn't believe I had any teeth left to grind.
I'd walked right into a fake audition, some kind of porno scam, and I was actually dumb enough to see it through past the first warning signs. What the hell was wrong with me?
I didn't belong here. I never would.
A sort of dark panic was clawing at the inside of my chest. I did my best to ignore it, hugging my knees in close and just staring at nothing. It took several minutes of unusual commotion in the bus, and noticing we'd been stopped for entirely too long, for me to look up and try to figure out what the hell was going on.
"I don't know," the driver was saying, sounding incredibly exasperated. "It's just blocked off. All they're telling me on the radio is the whole neighborhood's shut down."
Whatever. I was only a few blocks away from home. I pushed past the irate passengers and hurried down to the street, stopping in my tracks when I ran up against a sidewalk blockade.
"Sorry, ma'am," said the cop standing watch. "This whole area's closed for an emergency gas repair. They had to evacuate. It's not safe to be around, for at least another six or seven hours."
"Six or seven hours?" I felt like screaming, but it came out in a sort of a numb murmur. "But I live here..."
"What's your cross street?"
I told him.
"Sorry," he said again, shaking his head. "You're right in the middle of it. You might want to see if there's a friend you can stay with, or get a hotel. There's no telling how long this will really go on."
; He said that to me confidentially, like that was some kind of fucking help. I took a few steps back and tried to reorient myself. What the hell was I going to do? All I wanted was to go home and take a long, hot shower and try to forget about my own stupidity. Now, I couldn't even go home.
I weighed my options. Maddy hadn't been kidding about my pay being competitive, but I still didn't exactly want to spend my money on New York hotel rates. Of course, if I called her, she'd immediately tell me to come stay in their guest room. But I'd seen how they were orbiting each other since the Great Nail File Argument. I didn't really want to be in the middle of that.
Besides, she'd done enough for me already. I was sick of being helpless and relying on my rich friend for everything.
Six or seven hours. If I was lucky. Well, this was supposed to be the city that never slept, right? Maybe I could just hop between coffee shops and bars until the street re-opened. Enough caffeine and alcohol, and I'd forget all about my ill-fated "audition." Maybe I'd even find a place to spend the night after all.
I smiled wickedly to myself. No, I wasn't exactly ready for a one-night stand. That had never been my style. Hell, though, it sure would be nice to do something to shake loose all those persistent thoughts of Ben that I definitely was not having.
"...what do you mean, nobody?"
For a second, I actually thought I was hallucinating. My brain must be playing tricks on me, because I definitely did not just hear that voice coming from a few feet away.
"I'm sorry, Sir." The cop was sounding more and more exhausted. "I mean nobody gets through."
"Do you know who I am?"
I turned around, slowly, like the ill-fated heroine in a horror movie.
"Sir, unless you're an emergency worker or a city employee with the proper ventilation equipment, I don't care who you are. I can't let you through." The cop glanced at me, like can you believe this guy?
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