by Brian Olsen
“The basement!” Tamsin said. “That is super-sketch!”
Derek was looking at her strangely. “You said this audition was on Wednesday?” he asked her. When she nodded, he continued, “I had an audition Wednesday morning. They changed the location last minute, made me late for work. They never told me what it was for, but the other three people there to audition all worked for Amalgamated Synergy. All temps, I think. They made me read the phonetic alphabet.”
Caitlin’s heart sank. “That’s it. Same audition.”
“Quelle mysterioso!” Derek said, wiggling his eyebrows. “I guess it wasn’t all AmSyn people after all. I thought they were filming a commercial and wanted to use in-house people, but it must have been a coincidence. I didn’t know any filming happened in our building. Marisol, what’s in the basement? Just the mailroom, right?”
“Not any more,” she said. “The mailroom staff were all fired last week. It’s being cleared out this weekend. It’s empty.”
“Don’t you need a mailroom?” Caitlin asked, but nobody had an answer.
“Ooh!” Derek said. “Maybe they’re putting in a film studio! That would be amazing!”
While Derek rattled on about the convenience of being able to have an acting job in the same location as his day job, Caitlin mulled over what Derek had told her. Why would she be the only person who didn’t work for AmSyn to be called for an audition? And then be the one to get the job? This was no coincidence, somebody at the company had wanted her at that audition. She had to find Alan and fill him in.
She excused herself, explaining that she wanted to get a drink. She made her way into the kitchen and grabbed a beer, but there was no sign of Alan. She was about to move on when she got ambushed by a pair of old friends from a production of Merrily We Roll Along she had been in when she had first moved to New York. One nostalgia-fest and two beers later, she realized almost two hours had passed and she hadn’t seen a sign of Alan or Pete.
She scarfed down the slice of cake she had cut for herself – the cake had read “Hooray for High-Fructose Corn Syrup” in frosting on top, but Derek had used chocolate syrup to cross out the bit about corn syrup and scrawl in “Benefits” barely legibly in the corner. She excused herself once again and made her way to the backyard.
It was fairly dark, the only illumination being whatever light escaped from the kitchen doorway. She spotted someone who had been in the show Alan had worked on, and asked if she had seen him. The woman pointed towards the rear of the yard. In a far corner, Caitlin could just make out Alan and Pete. Pete was sitting in a rusty lawn chair, Alan was sitting in Pete’s lap, and they were enjoying each other’s company about as much as they safely could in public.
Caitlin rolled her eyes. She was glad for Alan, but sorry for herself – partly because she couldn’t talk through her dilemma with him, and partly because she had been sure she would be the one to hook up at this party.
“Are you all right?”
Caitlin turned to see a guy around her age looking at her with a polite expression. “Excuse me?”
“Sorry, you looked like maybe you were upset.”
Holy shit, she thought, he’s Australian! Caitlin shook off her self-pity and took a closer look. White, blond, deep blue eyes, athletic build, maybe six-two, jeans look like they were painted on. The pants-meltingly sexy accent has been established. Friendly, open face. The nose has been broken before, but it just accentuated his masculinity. Beautiful smile. Way hotter than Pete. She scolded herself briefly for that last thought, then smiled back at him. She took a breath. Please don’t be gay, she thought.
“I’m fine, thanks. I wanted to check in with my friend, but he’s otherwise engaged.”
The hot dude laughed. “Oh, those two. They’ve been at it for at least an hour. Good on them. I’m Lachlan.”
“Caitlin. How do you know Derek?”
“Roommates at university. I haven’t seen him since we graduated, but I just moved back to the States and he invited me over. He’s a character, isn’t he? Great guy.”
“Oh, yeah, I love Derek.” And she did, usually, when he wasn’t hating on one of her best friends. “I know him from theater, we’ve worked together.”
“You’re an actress?”
“An actor, yes,” she corrected. “Whenever they let me.”
“That’s amazing,” he said. “I used to see Derek’s shows, they always looked like so much fun. The parties were amazing. Sex and drugs and drinking. Much better than the receptions the accounting department had.”
“You’re an accountant?”
“Yeah,” he said. “You’re going to say it sounds boring.”
“No!” she laughed. “Not at all.”
“It’s all right, it is boring but I love it. And it got me to New York, I wouldn’t be here without my job. Do you want to sit?”
He gestured towards a section of the low wall that surrounded the backyard. A section slightly further away from the door and thus slightly darker than where they were standing. She started to reply, then stopped herself. “Can I ask you a question first?”
“Ask away.”
“This is going to sound strange.”
“Even better.”
“Do you work for Amalgated Synergy?”
“You mean Amalgamated Synergy? No. Why?”
“Do you work for any company they own? Do you have any relation to that company at all?”
He started laughing. “No! I mean, I’ve heard of them, everybody has. I work in finance, so the name comes up sometimes, but my company isn’t owned by them and doesn’t do any business with them that I’m aware of. Is that good or bad?”
She relaxed. “It’s good. It’s very good. Let’s sit.”
They took their drinks and moved away from the crowd. “What brings you to New York?” she asked him as they sat on the wall.
“I fell in love with the States when I was at university. I had to move home after my student visa expired and right away I started looking for a job that would take me back here. Took me a few years but here I am.”
Christ, that accent is hot, she thought. “How long have you been here?”
“Just a few days,” he answered. “We went to uni in Pennsylvania so I don’t know anybody here apart from Derek. You are officially my second New York friend.”
“Cheers to new friends,” she said, clinking his beer with hers.
“How about you?” he asked. “Are you from New York?”
“Nope. Rhode Island. Went to college in Indiana, moved here afterwards with my friend Alan – he’s the taller and skinnier of the beast with two backs over there. Working as an actor whenever I can, as a bartender whenever I can’t.”
“What do you think of the city? Am I going to love it?”
“Well, it’s no Pennsylvania,” she replied, “but it’s pretty great. I think you’ll fit right in. You have to be tough to live here, and you look pretty tough.”
“Tough? Me? What makes you say that?”
“Well,” she said, “you’ve broken your nose before, right?”
He rubbed it self-consciously. “It never healed right.”
“It looks good. Adds an edge to those pretty boy looks. How’d you break it? Rugby or bar fight?”
“Excuse me! That is a prejudiced assumption you’re making because I’m Australian!”
She didn’t reply. She stared at him, eyebrow raised.
“Bar fight,” he said grudgingly, “after a rugby match.”
She started laughing, and he quickly joined her. They laughed so loud that Alan and Pete paused their groping just long enough to look over.
After a moment of pleasant silence, he asked for her number. She was worried that the evening was drawing to a close, but they copied each other’s numbers into their phones and continued talking. “I just want to be sure the night doesn’t end with me not being able to find you again,” he said.
After that, they got a little sillier, a little drunker, and a litt
le closer. She was about to tell him about this one time she had eaten kangaroo when he leaned in and kissed her. Definitely not gay, she thought.
She managed to enjoy herself despite the army of thoughts that marched through her head. Were Alan and Pete still here? She opened her eyes briefly and could see them over Lachlan’s shoulder, once again carnally entangled; she closed her eyes firmly. Lachlan’s breath tasted like beer, but not in a bad way; she hoped it canceled out her own beer-breath. She was grateful she hadn’t tried the garlic-and-onion dip. She felt his hand moving up her back, under her blouse – was he trying to take off her bra? Right here? What the hell? It moved away – probably just getting a feel for the clasp for later. Later. Shit. Did he say if he had found a place yet? If he was crashing somewhere then his place was out of the question, probably. She hated taking guys home – everyone could hear everything in their apartment. On the other hand, she would love to show this guy off to her roommates in the morning. Man, this guy was a good kisser. And smoking hot. She had been a little lonely lately – the guys at her bar were all gross, so on her off nights she always wanted to go to a gay bar to get away from that vibe. Was she only into Lachlan because he was neither gross nor gay? Did she want to see this guy again after tonight? She was rapidly losing the ability to make rational decisions.
“Whoa,” she pulled away. “Sorry. Can we slow down? Not stop, just slow down for a minute.”
“Yeah, of course,” he said, looking concerned.
Good response, she thought. That scored him a point. He had his arm around her and she leaned into his shoulder, looking up at the sky. She could see just a handful of dim stars – not much, but pretty good for a New York night.
“So...” he continued. “What do you want to be when you grow up, Caitlin Ross?”
“What do you mean?” He had a very comfortable shoulder, she thought.
“What do you want to do with your life?”
She laughed. “You either have a terrible memory or you were too dazzled by my beauty to pay attention. I’m an actor.”
He laughed back. “And a bartender, I know. But...never mind. Sorry. I wasn’t prepared for more conversation, I was just reaching for something to ask you.”
They sat there in silence for a moment. Then she sat forward and turned towards him. “Okay, but why did you ask that?”
He took her hand. “I don’t know, honestly, I didn’t mean anything by it. You’re an actress, that’s great.”
“Actor,” she corrected immediately. “You don’t go to the doctress when you’re sick. Your colleagues aren’t accountresses.”
“I’ve made you angry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Finish your thought,” she said. “You said, ‘And a bartender, I know, but...’ But what?”
“You’re just going to get madder and I honestly don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“Too late now, Aussie. Spit it out. But what?”
“But...being an actor and a bartender, that’s great, really, it is. But...they’re not real jobs, are they?”
And there went her evening, Caitlin thought. So much for showing off the hot Australian guy in the morning.
For some reason she couldn’t fathom, he was still talking. “I just mean – unless you’re a movie star or something, you can’t do it forever, right? I was just wondering if you had thought about what you might do when you’re a little older. That’s all. You don’t have to answer.”
“Oh, Lachlan, Lachlan, Lachlan. Beautiful Australian Lachlan.” She pulled her hand away from his. “Acting is an uncertain career, full of insecurity and doubt, and that has been a big, big problem for me lately. I admit, I’ve been having second-thoughts. I haven’t been working much lately, haven’t even been getting a lot of call-backs.”
“Maybe...”
“Shush. I should thank you, I think. What you just said has made me so angry that I’ve realized how important what I do is to me. I really, really don’t give a shit if you don’t see any value in how I’ve chosen to live my life. That doesn’t matter.”
“I...”
“Still talking. What matters is that I see value in it. That I know there is value in it, worth in it, because the times when I’m on stage are the only times when I feel like I actually contribute something of meaning to the world. I’m an actor and I can’t be anything else. So if I really can’t do this for the rest of my life, I guess what I’ll do when I get older is starve.”
Lachlan was quiet, waiting to be sure she was finished. “I’m sorry, really, I am. I didn’t mean to offend you. I don’t know much about acting, I’m a numbers guy, maybe I’m just ignorant.”
“Maybe.” She didn’t look at him. She realized that at some point in this conversation she had decided to take the job at AmSyn on Monday.
He stood up. “The party’s winding down, looks like. I should get home. I’ll...I’ll call you.” He walked away.
She waited until he was gone, then sat there for a while longer, thinking.
Eventually, she looked up. Alan and Pete were in the same place, but were talking quietly. She stood and crossed the yard. “You guys ready to go?”
“What happened with the blond guy?” Alan asked. “Everything okay?”
“It’s fine. He turned out to be kind of a jerk.”
“We can go,” Pete said. “Man, we’ve been out here all night.”
They stood, and the three of them walked back into the house. Caitlin hadn’t realized how long she had been talking, and not talking, to Lachlan. The backyard was empty, and when they stepped into the kitchen they found only Derek, Marisol and Tamsin remaining.
“Well, there are our lovebirds!” Derek said loudly. “I thought I was going to have to turn the hose on you!” He turned on Caitlin. “And just what did you say to my hot Australian ex-roommate, young lady? He slunk out of here looking like a dingo just ate his baby.”
“Sorry,” she said. “We sort of had a fight.”
“And it was going so well,” he mock-sighed. “Okay, who’s finishing off this tequila with me?”
“Oh, fuck no,” Tamsin said. “I’m going home. Are you guys going to the N train?”
“Yes,” Caitlin said. “We’ll walk with you.” She looked to Alan. “Are you...?”
“We’re coming too,” Alan said. Pete was silent, but his smile spoke volumes.
“Pooh,” Derek said. “Everybody’s leaving my party. Marisol, you’ll stay, right?”
Caitlin looked at Marisol. She didn’t seem drunk, but she didn’t seem quite sober either. She was staring at Derek with a vacant expression on her face.
“I’ll stay,” she said quietly.
“Oh my god! My day-job friend has outlasted my theater friends! I never woulda thunk it.”
Before he could harangue them any further, Caitlin gave him a hug goodbye. She tried to shake Marisol’s hand, but the strange little woman ignored her. The departing foursome finally extricated themselves and made their way out the door and down the street towards the subway.
Alan and Pete were in the lead this time. Caitlin was lost in thought when she felt Tamsin take her hand.
“You all right?” Tamsin asked her.
“Fine,” Caitlin replied. “He didn’t think acting was a real job.”
“Oh!” Tamsin cried. “Douchebag! Fuck him!”
“That was the original plan,” she said, feeling a little better. She watched the boys up ahead, laughing, and tried not to feel resentful towards Pete. He seemed nice enough for an old guy, but it was Alan who should have been consoling her.
They reached the subway. As Caitlin pulled out her Metrocard she had a horrible realization. “My phone!” she cried. “Fuck! I lost my phone!”
“Okay,” Alan said, coming over to her. “It’s fine, we’ll find it. You had it when we left the wine bar. Did you take it out at the party?”
She thought. “Yes. Shit. I took it out in the backyard, I must have put it down on the wall. I’m so sor
ry, you guys, I just need to run back. You don’t need to wait for me.”
“Of course we’ll wait,” Pete said.
Tamsin looked less sure. “I have to get up in a few hours, and I have to go all the way to the Bronx...” She looked in the direction of the platform, where they could hear a train approaching.
“Go,” Caitlin said. “It’s fine.”
“Are you sure?” Tamsin asked, already running for the turnstile.
Caitlin turned to the boys. “If you guys don’t want to wait, I’ll be fine.”
“I’ve got nowhere to be tomorrow,” Alan replied.
“Why don’t you run ahead, catch Derek before he passes out?” Pete said, smiling. “We’ll follow along more slowly and see if maybe you dropped it on the way to the subway. Just in case.”
Alan beamed at him. “You are so smart! You’re like a detective!”
Caitlin headed off at as quick a pace as she could manage in the attractive shoes she had chosen to wear that evening.
When she got back to the apartment, she found the front door ajar. Who left – oh, she thought, I did. She had been the last one to leave the apartment, and in her distraction about Lachlan she must not have pulled the door all the way closed. The interior door was open as well, and she could hear the music still playing, more softly than when they had arrived. “Hello?” she said, pushing the door open. “Derek? It’s Caitlin, I forgot my phone.”
She expected to hear a sarcastic response, but there was nothing. Had he gone to bed already? Had Marisol left after all? It had only been a few minutes. She had a quick image of Derek and Marisol moving the party into the bedroom, and stifled a laugh. Not in a million years. She stepped into the living room. “Derek?”
She walked towards the kitchen and time froze. At first she didn’t understand what she was seeing – the shape simply wouldn’t resolve itself in her brain into anything coherent. What was on the floor was too far outside her frame of reference for her to grasp it all at once. It was Derek. He was lying, face up, on the kitchen floor. He wasn’t moving. There was blood, everywhere. All over his stomach, his chest, the floor, the walls, the counters. Blood and other things, bits of him. She could see the inside of him. There was a smell. She thought she was supposed to scream but she didn’t understand what was happening enough to make a sound.