I had an idea. “The standards are different in the acting world.”
“By different, I hope you mean crazy stupid.” She patted my behind. “Look at you. You’re as pretty as a peach. Plus-sized my booty.” She laughed. “I sure hope you told them to stick it where the sun don’t shine.”
I wished I had, but my career was already destroyed enough. Aside from any couch gymnastics I’d never do and had never been offered anyway, thank God, if I had any chance of a career revival, I had to tread the waters carefully and telling Off-Broadway where to stick it was more like drowning.
“Are you plannin’ on actin’ in the community theater out here? My cousin is an actress. She auditioned at one of them, but she said they’re too uppity for her, so she got herself a job with an agency in town. Said she loves it. You might could work with her. Said it’s always looking for good people. You want me to get the number for you? I could send her off a text right quick?”
“I tried the community theaters, none would hire me.”
“Sugar, this ain’t one of those. It’s an agency like I said.” She took her phone from her pants pocket. “Gimme a minute, let me get the name for you.” She worked the keyboard on her cell phone like an expert. Tapping into it with multiple fingers without pause. Seconds later the phone beeped. “Here you go. Exit Stage Left is the name of the place. What’s your cell number? I’ll text you the info.”
I gave her my number, and she typed a message with rapid speed. My cell notified me of her message like every other message, with the main song from the musical Rent, the musical I’d hoped to perform in one day.
Grief instantly washed over me like a hurricane. Get over it, Mayme. What’s done is done, I thought. I’d made a conscious decision to stop whining about what I couldn’t control and control what I could, my attitude.
“She said it can be a full-time gig, but it ain’t like the theater. Won’t give me any details. Said you got to check it out for yourself, so that’s why I gave you the address, too. I don’t know if you can do both this and that, but it might be worth checkin’ into if you still got your heart set on being an actress.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it.”
We spent the rest of the early morning hours sorting and scanning medical claims and chatting. The chatting I didn’t mind, but the sorting and scanning did nothing for the creative side of me and left my brain bored and empty. In between conversations, I plotted my escape from the health insurance claim world. By the end of my first shift I’d mapped out a plan to get me back to New York City and back onto Off-Broadway, and that plan started with Exit Stage Left.
I rushed home, jumped in the shower, scrubbed the stench of the United States Postal Service and a stuffy, dark claims mail room off my tired body, deep conditioned my hair at the same time, and then prepared for battle. Okay, I didn’t exactly prepare for battle, but I did prepare for what I considered was the role of a lifetime.
My career comeback.
My re-do.
My last chance.
One day I’d be like Winona Ryder, a fallen superstar who came back and everyone forgot why she’d needed to come back in the first place. Only I wasn’t exactly a superstar when I’d fallen, literally, through the stage floor, but that was just a minor detail. Sure, I was a bit of a drama queen, but acting was my field, so...
I sifted through the clothes in my closet searching for the perfect outfit. When one prepared for the role of her lifetime, clothing mattered. Previously my black Michael Kors slingback pumps and very likely overly-applied Bobbi Brown makeup didn’t cut it, and I’d broken the heel on one of the shoes anyway, so instead, I went for an understated look with a hint of something I couldn’t quite define. Maybe a touch professional but sexy? I’d chosen a fitted black, knee-length skirt, accentuating my curves with a low heeled boot I’d picked up at a high-end discount store, and a tight but not too tight V-neck sweater with black and white pinstripes, vertical, never horizontal. I considered it something akin to conservatively sexy, but when Momma asked where I was going dressed like a two-bit hooker, I thought otherwise.
“People dress like this in New York all the time.”
“Because people in the big city like to show everyone their promised land.”
I glanced down, but if my promised land was visible, I certainly couldn’t see it. I rolled my eyes, guzzled down a cup of burnt coffee, and marched toward the door.
“Where you goin’?” Momma asked.
“To an acting agency someone at work mentioned. I’ll tell you about it when I get back.”
As the door shut behind me, I heard Momma holler, “I got me an appointment at the hairdresser today, and then I’m closing the store, so you’re on your own for dinner.”
I nodded, knowing full well she couldn’t see me.
My car engine did its clanking and complaining thing again and along with it added a new grinding sound. My-lanta, if something good didn’t come from all the troubles in my life I’d end up addicted to Tums, I just knew it. I practically felt the ulcers shaping in my stomach right then and there.
The drive over to the agency didn’t take long, nor did it use much gas, thankfully. Primed for a perfect presentation of my acting skills, I didn’t rest on my laurels and spent the few minutes driving practicing my various strengths along the route. I got a few questioning glances at red lights, but I didn’t let them stop me. I needed the gig, and no matter what it was, I would get it.
A soft bell jingled when I opened the door to Exit Stage Left. No one sat at the reception desk, but there was a bell sitting next to a stack of pamphlets, so I rang it, grabbed a flyer, and took a seat in one of the chairs lined up against the gray wall.
As I read the pamphlet, I realized I’d made a colossal mistake. My comeback dream had suddenly turned into a nightmare.
Exit Stage Left wasn’t an acting agency, not exactly anyway. It was a place that hired actors and actresses as professional mourners. People that posed as mourners and such for dead people. Funeral fakers, I’d thought. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t done any research. Desperate and determined to rebuild my ego, not my career, I didn’t do my due diligence. I let my big head get in the way of my small town values. Tears pooled in my eyes. I crumpled up the pamphlet, and just as I’d stood to toss it in the trash and leave, a middle-aged looking woman stepped into the room.
“Leaving so soon?” She flicked her hand toward the crumpled brochure. “Those aren’t cheap. I’d prefer you didn’t treat it like that.”
Even though I didn’t think I liked her business, I was ashamed of my behavior. “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry. I don’t think I belong here. My apologies.” I did my best to straighten out the crinkled paper and handed it to her. “I’ll be going now.”
“You’re not the first person to say that, and you won’t be the last one, either, but you’re here for a reason, and I suspect you think something about my business that isn’t correct.” She coughed. Actually, she hacked, repeatedly, and I backed away, worried one of her lungs would fly out of her mouth and hit me in the face. When she finally finished her minor hacking attack, her 1960s retro-styled glasses sat crooked on her face. She adjusted them with the tips of her fingers. “Come on back to my office. Sometimes when girls like you come here, they’re desperate, and you’ve got that look on your face. Maybe I can help. Name’s Ruthie. Ruthie Colburn.”
I didn’t know it then, but it was that very moment that Ruthie Colburn changed my life forever.
I left Exit Stage Left two hours later with a renewed sense of pride, still humbled of course, but with a better understanding of loss and what it meant to the people who’d experienced it. I’d never lost anyone of significance in my life. Sure, my grandparents had all passed, but I was young and immature, and never really knew them.
I planned to apologize to my parents for my selfishness during that time, soon.
I was scheduled to start my new job the next morning. I needed to read up on my boyfriend Buford Les
ter, but I also had my other new job in the mailroom that night. Conflicted and frustrated, I did what I always did when I didn’t know what to do. I called Daddy.
When I told him I’d found a job more to my liking, he cheered. “Oh, Princess, that’s just fantastic. I knew you’d be back doin’ what you loved in no time. Did you get a starring role with one of the theaters in town?”
“Not exactly, but it might lead to one. Who knows, I could be back in the city in no time, Daddy.” He always made me feel like I could do anything just by the sound of his voice.
“You can do anything, you’re a Buckley.”
“I know Daddy, but it hasn’t felt that way lately. So, what should I do about the health insurance company? If I stay there, I’ll be exhausted. I’m not sure I can work both jobs. An actress needs her beauty sleep, or she can’t perform at her best.”
He grunted, and the rattle of some kind of tool beating a metal pipe echoed through the phone. “Meme, if you think this job is going to get you back to the city and back in the good graces of the people that can get you the kind of parts you want, then I don’t think there’s a reason you ought to stay with that health insurance job. You just do right by them and let them know, you hear?”
“What about Momma?”
“Your momma’ll be fine. She just wants you to be happy.”
“As long as it’s not acting.”
“Well, we both know she’s not all that thrilled with your career choice, but it ain’t up to her now, is it?”
He was right, but Daddy was the one person that never really had to suffer Momma’s wrath. She had a love for him that stretched from the earth to the sun and back again, and nothing or nobody could shake it, not even their daughter.
“Okay, Daddy. I’ll call them now.”
We hung up, and I made the call to the temp agency. I spoke with my contact, explained my situation, and she understood. She agreed to refill the position and keep my file pending, and I promised to call back once my gig with the agency was done, if I didn’t take on another one, of course. Afterward, I headed over to the French Broad River Park to read the dossier and practice for what I hoped would be my starting ticket back to Off-Broadway. Since I needed to be at the funeral home the next day to meet with the family and start my week-long job, I needed to prep quickly.
I found the perfect place to pop a squat along the river. I threw down the quilt Daddy put in my car for my drive to New York years ago. Instead of using it for emergencies, I’d used it for relaxing and imagined it could be used for dates at Central Park in the city, but those never happened. Not because I hadn’t dated. I had. I just never drove to the city. I rarely drove anywhere in New York because trying to find a parking space usually gave me a migraine. On the rare occasion when I did drive into Manhattan, I’d either pay my month’s rent in quarters to a meter or my car would end up towed to the other side of town, and I’d have to pay an arm and a leg to the impound to get it out. It just wasn’t worth it.
Papers spread out in front of me on the red, blue and yellow quilt, I started with the first section, the general information on my character, Buford Lester’s significant other and recent fiancée, Ivy Sawyer.
No one in Buford’s family knew who Ivy Sawyer was or that she even existed. Apparently, Buford kept Ivy a secret because, as the dossier said, he felt the family didn’t deserve to know the details about a woman of such stature. When Ruthie explained the gig to me, she’d had to do so twice for it to settle in my brain. Buford thought Ivy hung the moon.
“Normally, I can’t tell you who hired us, but in this case, you’ll probably figure it out when you get to the funeral home.” Ruthie didn’t have a traditional southern accent, so, I wasn’t sure if she’d come to Asheville from somewhere else, or was born here but had Yankee parents. Sometimes that was the case, and it made all the difference. Either way, she was old enough that any chance of acquiring an accent had long passed.
“There’s an envelope in the dossier that states the deceased’s wishes for his funeral. It’s all paid for by his mother. You’ll give that to the funeral director. A Clementine…” She flipped through the dossier. “James. Yes, Clementine James. Have her open it. In there will be another envelope for you to read to the family. I’m told it might be distressful for them, so be prepared. You’ll need to handle this with reserve, but also with strength. You understand?”
I nodded.
“Good.” She read another note in the dossier. “Ms. James was contacted by the attorney already. Has the information about you and the information, but you’re to read the deceased’s requests for his services at the meeting tomorrow. Got that?”
“Yes, ma’am. And in the future, who do I go to if I have a question?”
She leaned back in her chair. “You’re looking at her.”
“Okay. May I ask how the man died?”
“He was allergic to bees and got stung in the neck by a wasp. Says so in the dossier.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Not all that uncommon I guess. Most people don’t know they’re allergic until it’s too late.” She handed me the dossier. At least three inches thick, I knew I’d be one busy gal. “You don’t need to memorize this. You need to become this. You’re not acting here as much as you are living the part. You understand?”
I dipped my head up and down with intent and maybe even a little fear.
“Buford Lester wasn’t Asheville turned New York. He was true mountain country.” She waved the tip of her finger at me. She might have even judged me with her eyes, but it was hard to tell with her old grandma-like framed glasses in the way. “So you’ll need to lose the look.”
I glanced down at my outfit. “Okay. What would you suggest?”
“Well, you’re full-figured, which is perfect for the part, and you’ve got the big southern hair thing, so, you’re halfway there. Oh, and you definitely have the accent, so you need to let that back out, but not too much. Our client wanted someone above what she believed the rest of the family felt Buford deserved. High class, but not snooty, still country, but not what someone might stereotype inappropriately as redneck.”
I cringed and furrowed my brow at the same time. I’d worked hard to bury my accent. No one in the city wanted to hire a Southern girl. The stereotype was real there. “I hate that word.”
“Most Southerners do.”
“And that? Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
That brow thing you just did. I saw that. Apparently, I said something you didn’t like. If I can see it, everyone else will, too.”
Everyone’s a critic. “Yes, ma’am.”
She smiled. “Tomorrow morning. Nine o’clock sharp at the address on the sticky note in the file. Be there. Report back after your first meeting if you have any questions or concerns. You’re committed for the week, maybe longer.” She stood. “I’m counting on you, Mayme.”
I stood also. “Yes, Ruthie. I won’t let you down.”
Staring at the files spread across the quilt, I worried I’d bitten off more than I could chew.
A brown and gold leaf floated down and landed on top of a pile of papers. I picked it up and smiled. Sure, leaves skirted around Brooklyn during the fall too, but none had the vibrant hues of the North Carolina ones. I glanced up and the treetops and watched as the gentle breeze took hold of them, sending them sailing to the left in one big swoop. Several leaves, desperate to escape their trapped existence on the trees, detached themselves and took flight, sailing away to land God only knew where, left to settle into a crispy dry death, becoming one with their finality into cement or grass or wherever it was they fell.
The gentle breeze wasn’t as soft as it appeared and captured one of the papers from Exit Stage Left. I raised my hand to catch it and snatched it before it flew away.
“Nice,” a male voice behind me said.
I turned around, surprised by the familiar baritone voice. Christopher jogged in place behind me. My eyes involunta
rily scanned his muscular physique, and when I realized he’d caught me checking him out, I blushed. “What’re you doing here?” I hadn’t intended for my tone to be so snooty.
He dipped his head toward his toes. “Uh, jogging. Isn’t that one of the things the greenway is for?”
My face reddened even more. “I mean, in the early afternoon. Shouldn’t you be working or something?”
“I’m actually off today. Detectives don’t work normal nine to five jobs. That’s not how crimes work.”
“Got it.”
He had a bottle of water in his left hand and chugged it. Afterward, he smiled as he pointed to my papers. “Looks like you’ve got a lot of work right there.”
I pulled the quilt over the papers, in part to keep them from blowing away but also to cover their information. I wasn’t sure if I was embarrassed or just keeping the information private as Ruthie required. “Just working on a part, I’m auditioning for.”
“Well, good luck.”
“Thank you.”
He stopped jogging in place. “So, there’s this thing this weekend. It’s nothing big, just a local band playing at a bar. If you’re not busy, maybe you’d like to come?”
The job lasted at least a week, and required nearly twenty-four-seven availability, depending on how the family took to me. I didn’t want to commit to anything. Besides, what if I went out with Christopher and someone associated with Buford saw me? My cover would be blown. I couldn’t do that. But Christopher had just asked me out.
Christopher Lacy.
My timing stunk. His timing stunk.
“I’d love to, but I have plans. I’ve got this acting gig, and I…well, I have to work. Rain check?”
“Definitely.” He smiled. “Let’s catch up soon then. Off to finish my run.”
“Take care.” I waved at his back as he ran off. I had to admit, it was a beautiful view.
Mourning Crisis Page 4