[What's Luck Got to Do With It 01.0] Some Lucky Woman: Jana's Story

by Carmen DeSousa

  Since I had forty-five minutes to kill, I pulled my iPhone out of my tote and decided to chat with a few of my online friends. My avid-reading friends were on pins and needles waiting to hear about the filming. I uploaded a few of the images I’d snapped of the Pittsburgh skyline, the hotel, the Speakeasy, and added a few captions on each image so readers would know what was what.

  Immediately, some of my most faithful fans clicked like and made short friendly comments.

  So excited. Can’t wait to see my favorite book on the big screen.

  Oh, so jealous. You look like you’re having so much fun.

  Why Pittsburgh? I thought the story took place in Florida?

  Do you know who’s gonna play the lead yet?

  As always, I hit like on each comment, but then responded to several of the comments with one reply, knowing all commenters would see the answers.

  Thanks, I can’t wait to see it on the big screen too. So far, the screenplay is staying true-to-form. Evidently, PA is very movie-friendly, so it’s less expensive to film here. Plus, the producer/director wants to use some of the whitewater scenes in the book, and West Virginia is only about ninety minutes away. As far as who’s going to play the lead … we’re actually starting that today. Not sure if I can disclose any of that information, but all of you know I’ll post whatever I can. :)

  That ought to do it. I signed off and did the same thing on Twitter. My friends knew that I might not be able to answer their replies until late in the evening or tomorrow, but they’d have fun talking amongst one another in my absence, discussing who they thought should play the lead roles. I always enjoyed reading their ideas. Several of my follow-up stories were direct results of feedback from readers on social media and their reviews.

  Forty-five minutes later, Brent navigated the large car through the narrow streets of Greensburg. Like the hotel, the downtown area consisted of limestone and red brick buildings. The impressive domed ceiling of a courthouse came into my view. The historic building sat kitty-cornered across the street from the theater in all its original glory. The old-time feel and then the words Service, Security, and Strength atop a vacant 1900s building reminded me of the savings and loan company from the movie It’s a Wonderful Life. I could imagine the story taking place in this cozy little town.

  Brent parked in front of a theater, which from the outside didn’t look like much, but I could visualize what it must look like at night. The words The Palace were surrounded with glass bulbs, and I could envision how majestic it must have looked back in its day.

  Chills ran down my arms as I stepped out of the car. A line of people stood behind brass stands connected by red velvet ropes. A few of them looked up, but most kept their heads buried in books or smartphones, their lips moving while they read.

  No one seemed to recognize me, but that wasn’t unusual. Rarely did people recognize me from my studio mug shot. Unlike my professional images, where my hair was long and flowing, I usually pulled my unruly hair back with a headband or buried it beneath a Steelers cap. My hair stylist, on the other hand, took the time to blow dry my hair straight, used a flat iron to smooth it, then methodically curled each section, a process that took almost an hour. Not only was I not willing to spend the time to do that every day, but I couldn’t imagine how much the process would damage my hair. Also, as usual, I opted to wear my glasses, which Connie would never allow in any of my profile pics. Hell, she wouldn’t even be caught in public with me wearing my glasses.

  Bleh! She worried too much. I was just me, and I’d always be just me.

  Brent escorted me to the left-hand side of the entry, which prompted a few more stares and mumblings, but still, no shouts for autographs came. The thought took me back to Adrian’s wife requesting my autograph. She really must have been a big fan to recognize me in my workout clothes, my hair pulled up in a ponytail.

  I shook my head, trying to dispel the look in Adrian’s eyes when his wife approached me.

  “Wait here,” Brent said as he held open the door, “I’ll find out where Howard would like to meet us.” He stepped away from the entry and lifted his phone to his ear.

  “You,” a woman’s voice called, “you’re next.”

  I tapped my chest. “Me?”

  “Yes, you. Did you bring your résumé and headshots?”

  “Umm, no. I’m not —”

  “No problem. We’ll be taking pictures anyway.” The woman thrust a number in my hand. “Sign here.” The lady pointed to the next blank on a legal-sized notepad, the number she handed me listed next to the blank.

  “But I —”

  “Down the hall. The door marked number one.”

  She thought I was here to audition for a role in my own book. I almost laughed, then decided to go with it. I took my number, pasted it to my chest and strolled off in the direction she’d pointed. I looked over my shoulder to see that Brent’s back was still turned. Oh, well. Brent knew I was here, so Howard wouldn’t think I had actually ditched him.

  When I reached door number one, I knocked.

  A man opened the door, immediately jotted down my number, then handed me a folder with several pages. “Here’re your sides. Sit in the next chair, please.” He pointed to the row where he wanted me to sit.

  Sides? I flipped through the pages he’d handed me and smiled. A brief description of the movie, the characters, then a few paragraphs from one of my favorite scenes lined the pages.

  Why not? I thought. I was a little older than the lead character, but most people said I looked younger than I was. I’d heard of authors playing roles in their book adaptations. Of course, I’d never heard of one playing the lead.

  I listened to the women in the room as they practiced their lines. Some rolled their necks forward and backward, side to side, while they spoke. Others rolled their shoulders while scrunching their faces into a pucker, as though they’d just eaten a sourball, then opened their mouths in a wide O as if they’d just won an Academy Award for best actress.

  “Aren’t you going to rehearse?” a tiny thing next to me asked.

  I glanced at the barely-thirty-year-old woman. “Umm …” I stifled a laugh, and I could see her frustration. Clearly, she wasn’t impressed that I could be so cavalier about auditioning for a starring part. “I read the book about ten times,” I offered. Which actually wasn’t true. I’d read it more than thirty times while submitting to agents. Each time an agent requested a full manuscript after I’d sent in the book description and first three chapters, I’d re-read it, making sure that at least the writing was sound.

  The woman smiled. “Me too. Well, not ten times, but at least three times. When I heard they were doing auditions right outside Pittsburgh, I ran out and bought the actual paperback so I could highlight the parts I thought they might ask us to perform.”

  I held up my sides, as the man at the door had referred to the packet. “Did you think they’d choose this part?”

  “Oh, yes! I actually memorized that scene, in case they didn’t give us a script. That was the part where she really changed her outlook on life. I’d highlighted that part in my Kindle the first time I read it.”

  I smiled and buried my nose in my folder, thinking that any minute this woman would call me out. How was it possible that she didn’t recognize me? Then I thought … If she read You Don’t Need a Man on her Kindle, there wasn’t a picture of me there. Even the paperback only had the book description on the back cover. The only version that had my image was the hardback, which had my image on the dust jacket, the image of me that Adrian had hated without even knowing me.

  One by one, the women were called by number. Some I was pretty sure weren’t even women, even if they looked better than me; I was certain I’d seen a few Adam’s apples.

  For some reason, even though the lady in the lobby had assigned us numbers, and we’d been directed to sit in the chairs in the order that we’d walked into the room, the numbers and names were read off randomly.

  In between
casting calls, a woman up front continually answered silly questions. I wasn’t an actress, had never been to anything like this, but even I knew better than to bug these types of people.

  One woman, who was one of the last actresses to arrive, walked past everyone in the room, rolling a suitcase behind her. Although the woman whispered her request, I — which meant that everyone in the room too — could hear her.

  “Do you know how long this will take?” asked the suitcase-toting woman. “My alarm didn’t go off, and I have a plane to catch.”

  I clasped my hand over my mouth to conceal my laughter.

  The woman next to me didn’t bother to hide her reaction. “Can you believe she’d tell the monitor that?”

  “No. I really can’t.” I’d only worked a few jobs in my lifetime, but I’d learned one thing quickly: people didn’t care about your personal issues. And I was certain that the monitor, who had more than a hundred women waiting to audition to play in a major motion picture, couldn’t care less that some nobody forgot to set her alarm.

  Another woman was showing her headshots to the monitor, asking which one she should use. Although the monitor answered the woman politely, pointing to the one on the left, I didn’t miss the eye roll she tried to hide.

  I nudged my neighbor. “Confession. This is my first audition. What’s the next step? What should I expect?”

  My neighbor lowered her head to my ear. “Usually — but they’re all different — the monitor will direct us to the next room, where they’ll take our info again. Most of the time, someone films us, takes our picture. Since they gave us our sides to practice, there will probably be a reader who’ll perform the other characters’ lines. From what I understand, Howard Edwards himself is here today, so my guess is that there are two audition rooms. They’re probably running pre-auditions, and the ones the casting director likes will go on to the big stage.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I heard Howard likes to watch the auditions on an actual stage.”

  My neighbor’s lips turned up, but only slightly before her smile fell. “Howard? You’re on a first-name basis?”

  A nervous chuckle escaped my lips. “I wish.”

  “I think you’re gonna do great,” the woman said. “You fit the image of the character.”

  “I do?” I asked sincerely, since I didn’t look anything like the character in my book.

  She narrowed her eyes. “You do …”

  I could almost see the light dawn in the woman’s eyes, but she shook it off as quickly as it’d come. It was as if the words appeared in a bubble above her head: No, the author couldn’t possibly be auditioning for her own part.

  “Carmen …” the monitor started, but unable to pronounce my last name without butchering it, I assumed, she called off my number instead.

  “That’s me.” I stood up and made my way to the front. I hadn’t lied completely. It was my name. Sort of. I’d written down the name of my lesser-known pseudonym.

  The woman made a note on her pad, then directed me into the next room, where one man, presumably the casting director, sat behind a desk, a clean notepad in front of him. A woman stood behind a camera, her face clear of any emotion. And another man — pretty sure he was what my actress-neighbor had called the reader — stood holding a folder similar to mine, impatiently waving me into the room.

  Within seconds of my reading off the lines, the man behind the desk waved the reader forward and whispered something into his ear. At once, the reader escorted me through another door, the casting director following behind us.

  My heart pounded out a vicious rhythm. I didn’t know why I was so nervous. What was the worst that would happen? It wasn’t as though Howard would cancel the movie because I’d written down my pen-name to audition for the lead role. As a matter of fact, I just realized I hadn’t even requested this part. Certainly the female protagonist wasn’t the only part Howard was holding auditions for today. After all, I’d seen actors in all shapes and sizes, male and female, and different ethnicity waiting in line. So even the woman in the lobby had decided that I was auditioning for the lead role.

  The reader opened another door for me, and I found myself on a wide stage, staring out at the vast two-story seating area of the theater. Several people were sitting in the first few rows, but my eyes fell on one man: Howard Edwards the Second.

  Crap. I’d been found out.

  Chapter 31 – HELL Isn’t So Bad

  The reader walked center stage, then turned to me, “Why are you here?”

  I licked my suddenly parched lips. Was he asking me for real, or was that the script again?

  “Why are you here?” he said louder, sounding more like the Krav Maga instructor from my book … from my real-life event, the night that I’d admitted my fear to myself.

  Deciding to duplicate what I’d just done in the other room, I said without emotion, “To get stronger.”

  “Why?” the reader asked, instead of repeating his first question. So he was quoting from the script.

  “Because I don’t want to be weak,” I answered, standing straighter, but still keeping my face passive, as I’d written in my novel.

  “Why?” he demanded.

  “Because I don’t want to be afraid,” I said louder.

  “Afraid of what?”

  A tear lighted in my eye, just as I’d been unable to control in the last room. “Every … thing,” I sputtered.

  “Then let me see you.”

  I assumed my fighting stance, struck my fist forward, and gave my best warrior Kiai!

  “Again. Harder.”

  I released another strike, followed by a roundhouse kick.

  “Face your fear,” the reader said, and I instantly visualized my personal instructor. Those words had made me want to fight instead of spending one more minute of my life wallowing in my grief.

  “I hate you! I hate you!” I screamed, beating up an invisible punching bag that my trainer had held up for me. Sharp stabs of pain soared down my arm, reminding me that I wasn’t completely healed, but I’d gotten lost in the scene, probably because it felt so current. I thought that I’d banished my fear several years ago, but here it was again, rearing its ugly head.

  The reader got up in my face. “Give your fear a name.”

  “Loneliness!” I cried. “I don’t want to be afraid to be alone!” And I didn’t. Now that I knew what it was like to have someone I loved in my life, I didn’t want to lose him. But I had … And here I was. Fighting to stay upright again, because of a man.

  The reader stepped back, nodding.

  Worn out by my mini workout, but slightly relieved that I’d let out that emotion again, I inhaled a deep breath. But I still had a hangover, so now my head pounded out its disapproval of my screaming.

  Howard Edwards stood. Clap, clap, clap. “Way to go, Jana.”

  The reader’s eyes bugged wide, as well as the other man from the first room, whom I still assumed was the casting director, since I hadn’t verified it.

  I inhaled another breath, willing my heart to slow so that I could speak without shaking. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Come on down here, love.”

  I scanned the stage, finding steps on either side. I made my way across the stage and down the steps.

  Howard closed the distance. “Now … if we could just get a few other women to do that.”

  “You mean I don’t get the part?” I asked, a wide smile lifting my cheeks, even though I was shaking from head to toe from the adrenaline. It felt as if my entire body had been submerged into ice water. I was in the first stage of hypothermia, I was certain. Was hypothermia possible in a seventy-degree room? I wondered.

  Howard laughed and wrapped his arm around my waist, then led me to his seat on the third row. “Don’t think I’m not tempted, love, but no, I think I’d rather you sit beside me.”

  Suddenly flushed and still parched, I wished for a bottle of something cold and wet.

  Howard directed me to sit beside his
chair, but didn’t take his seat. “You need coffee, water, something to eat?”

  I nodded.

  “All three?” He turned to a petite redheaded woman sitting in the row behind us. “Anna, grab Jana some snacks and drinks.”

  Oh, she was Anna. I’d wondered if Howard’s assistant would be here or if she just worked out of an office in L.A. I was hoping I’d meet her so I could thank her.

  But Anna ran off before I could say something, and then Howard slid down in the seat next to me, picking up my hand from the armrest and pulling it to his lips. “It is so good to finally meet you, Jana, and I’m positively thrilled by your entrance.” He shook his head, attempting to hold back another chuckle, it seemed. “I knew you had a sense of humor, but I have to say,” he paused as he couldn’t hold back his laugh, “no author has ever made that kind of entrance.”

  I couldn’t help but ask, “Did the other men … Umm … The reader, I think you call him, and the other man know who I was?”

  Howard’s mouth inched up on one side, revealing feather-light laugh lines. How was it that laugh lines and salt-and-pepper hair actually made men look better? “I don’t think so, love. You made it through your first audition. Impressive. Have you ever acted?”

  “I played the witch in Snow White, but that was in high school and that was a long time ago.”

  Howard threw his head back and released another hearty laugh.

  My first reaction — based on him calling me love and kissing my hand — Howard was exactly like I thought he’d be, and yet, nothing like I thought he’d be. The man was world-famous, had houses all over the world, a new woman on his arm at every opening, and yet, he seemed like a down-to-earth guy. An extremely rich down-to-earth guy with the most dazzling blue eyes I’d ever seen. I’d always thought Howard looked good enough on-camera, but up close and personal, I now realized why he had women who were twenty years his junior fawning over him. Howard was one of the best-looking men I’d ever met. And surprisingly, he seemed like a nice guy.