Participant Page 25

  Sabrina hasn’t bothered to check the list yet, but Mindy and Molly have. They lean against the wall, wordless and tense. Despite thinking she failed, as usual Mindy cleaned up pretty well with a lot of callbacks, but Molly only got one. Once again, she’s runner up, and from the pinched look on her face, it appears to be one time too many.

  We all know there are other ways to get an agent. Melody and Earl explained the whole process, and there really isn’t much to it. Go to open calls at modeling agencies. Submit your headshot and resume online, and hope they’ll call you in. They either like you or they don’t. Maybe you know someone who knows someone. Maybe. But the odds are really against you, and the opportunity to skip to the head of the line and speak with agents who might otherwise send your photo to the trash bin and move onto the next face is not to be taken lightly.

  I’m apprehensive but excited as I touch up my lips and run a comb through my hair in the bathroom. I realize how hungry I am, but now that I’ve touched up my lips, I don’t want to bite into the apple I’ve forgotten to eat.

  Securing an agent is a big mountain to climb, and it’s not even the tallest one I’ll have to face. The entertainment industry is fickle and complicated. Sometimes I wonder if my skin is thick enough to handle it. I would never in a million years have ever predicted I’d be on this path, but there are times in your life where it’s not appropriate to question. Even if your better judgment tells you otherwise, sometimes there are forces beyond all reason that speak up and tell you which way to go and you have to listen.

  Chapter 35

  I step out of my car with my headshots and sides in hand and walk down the block. I look up and see the famed HOLLYWOOD sign nestled in the hills, asserting its presence even through the hazy clouds that have completely blotted out the sun on this gray day. With that sight looming over me, I’m immediately struck by where I am and what I’m doing at that very moment. I’m in Los Angeles, the city of dreams, on my way to my first big film audition. I always was a late bloomer.

  If this were a real, honest to goodness fairy tale, this would’ve been the part where I tell you that I packed up my entire life and flew to New York to attend the prestigious Film Institute. There, I was discovered by a director and landed the lead role in an epic trilogy. I would also tell you about my magazine feature as the next up and coming star, whirlwind promotional tour around the world, and my first walk down the red carpet. By this time, I would have also hooked up with the film director who discovered me because we all know relationships between actors never work out and that you’re much better off taking your chances on someone behind the scenes. If this were a fairy tale, that’s what I’d tell you, but when has my life ever been a fairy tale?

  All the air whooshed out of my lungs when Chloe Dillon announced sixteen-year-old Sarah Jane as winner of the acting conservatory scholarship in New York City. After I won the adult division, I actually believed I had a chance. Tears of disappointment pricked at the back of my eyes, but I blinked them back as that beautiful, talented child accepted her $31,000 award. I had already googled what it would cost to send myself there if I didn’t win.

  It may not be the fairy tale ending I had cautiously hoped for, but I didn’t make out so bad. I’m living the not as glamorous as everyone thinks yet entirely fulfilling life of a struggling actor. I got callbacks from two agencies in San Diego. The one I signed with introduced me to an agent in Los Angeles, who also signed me. For every yes I get, there are at least ten rejections. I may have gotten a late start, but according to my agents, I’m good or else they would have never signed me—and really, that’s all I ever wanted to be.

  I continue down Santa Monica Ave and pass a theatre with actor headshots posted in the window. In their eyes are the dreams and the hopes that they, like every other actor, carries inside of them and I see myself in their faces staring back at me. We slog our way through audition after audition, hoping to be one of the lucky ones who gets to make our job our passion, but we know how unlikely it is that it will actually happen.

  I found a job working thirty hours per week giving people auto insurance quotes over the phone. My illustrious title is Quote Specialist. I was terrified to work in insurance again and I had a minor anxiety attack when I pulled up to the office on my first day. It reminded me way too much of Silver, but it’s totally different. I just give quotes and send them on their way. If they sign up and get in accident later, it’s not my problem.

  My income is sewn together like a patchwork quilt from the call center, what I book between my agents, and modeling. I use that term loosely. Promotional modeling isn’t really modeling at all because I don’t care how you spin it, being paid to look pretty while you hand out key chains in a bar is not modeling—but the pay is decent, the work plentiful and I’m grateful to have it. When I show up for a job and fit into the outfit, I’m grateful for that too.

  The glass doors are covered haphazardly with signs announcing auditions for various film projects. I open the door and find myself in a dimly lit foyer with a steep staircase leading to a second floor. I make my way up the creaky stairs and walk down the long dark hall to look for the sign in sheet that will announce my arrival. I sit in one of the battered chairs and read over my sides. One actress is pacing in uneven circles down the hallway, doing the same, and another sits in a chair, waiting her turn. A door opens and a female who looks sort of like me comes out while the one waiting in the chair goes in. That feeling of taking up too much space is still there. I unconsciously suck in my belly and curiously glance at her without wanting her to know I’m looking. I get the feeling she’s doing the same to me. It’s hard not to—after all, she’s my competition.

  When it’s my turn, the director comes out and shakes my hand. In I go. I’m not nervous. I’ve practiced my lines, I know them by heart and I feel as prepared as I can be. Inside is a small room with theatre like seating and a small stage at the front. A video camera set up on a tri pod faces the stage, so I immediately know where my mark will be. I hand him my headshot and wait for instructions. I’m told to slate my name, age range, and role first, then they give me a bit of a background on the scene. They have provided an actor who will read with me. After my slate, I walk to one side of the room and wait for my cue. Action... and so I begin. I slip into another character and imagine what I think she would be at each moment. I want this character’s emotions to show on my face and project in my tone of voice. There are two scenes, and I’m glad the director has allowed me to do each one twice. After each scene, he gives some feedback and we repeat the scene with me hoping that I’ve made the requested adjustments. After we’re done, I thank the other actor, and the director thanks me for coming. He says, “I’ll be in touch,” and I wonder if he really means it.

  I retrace my steps down the dark hall. My mind is already replaying every moment of the audition in my head, second guessing every choice I made in the scene, every tone, every line and hoping that it was enough. I didn’t miss a single line and I know I did the best I could. Being right for the part is not my decision, but as long as I did my best, I can walk away and feel okay with that. As I exit the building, another hopeful walks in.

  I hurriedly make my way back to my car for the long drive back home, already dreading the grind of bumper-to-bumper traffic on highway five. I’ll have to stop for coffee to stay awake, but it gives me plenty of time to think about where I’m at, where I might be going and the people I met along the way.

  Callie is young, so she might get another chance, but her mother was furious with Chloe Dillon for selling lies and setting Callie up for disappointment. At her insistence, Callie has to let the dream go for now. For the time being, she’s hanging out with her friends at the mall and focusing on school.

  Molly’s one agency call back turned out to not even be a real agency. Chloe Dillon was very apologetic that they were invited after Molly informed them of the disastrous meeting where they tried to charge her one hundred dollars per month to be part
of their online talent database. She was devastated but oddly calm about the whole thing. She said she always figured that Mindy would make it and she wouldn’t, so she’d been mentally preparing herself for it all along. She thought for sure her dream was over, but by some twist of fate, there was a casting director at Agency Day who was interested in her for a play he was casting in New York. She didn’t get the part, but he referred her to agencies that were interested so she decided to take a huge leap of faith and move out there. Mindy wanted her in Los Angeles, but Molly was ready to step out of Mindy’s shadow and forge her own path.

  “Things really can’t get much worse. I have nothing to lose,” she told us. She really didn’t—and sometimes that’s when change really happens. Molly got a theatrical agent and was cast as the lead in an off, off Broadway play. She’s making peanuts, but it got her into the Actors Equity Association and she can say she’s an actress in The Big Apple. I should be so lucky.

  I turn up the volume on my radio to help fight the monotony of inching along on the freeway. I don’t get a free day between auditions and work. I’m exhausted, constantly on the go, and never know exactly when I’m getting my next paycheck, but despite the long drive, I love the challenge of auditions and I even love the little two bit jobs I get doing infomercials and industrial videos that nobody is ever going to see.

  The next day, I get a call back, and I’m equal parts excited and dismayed that I’ll have to make the long drive up to Los Angeles again so soon. I’m still in the running, which is good, but I know it’s a long shot. I’m not the only girl hoping for this role. I’ve already been on what feels like a million auditions and if I’m lucky, I’ll go on a million more because we’re all just one dream audition away from our big break that may never come.

  Chapter 36

  “Okay. Sounds good,” I say, hanging up the phone then smashing my face into a pillow to stifle a happy shriek. Michael, also known as ‘White Teeth.’ We laugh about that nickname and our awkward first encounter with my shoes outside Sarah’s guest bathroom. “You rushed off like I had the plague,” he told me on our third date. “After that, I was sure you would turn me down for a dance at Sarah’s wedding, but you looked so beautiful, I had to try.”

  Sarah—who has happily switched gears from full time employee and wedding planner to full time graduate student—denied having anything to do with hooking me up with Michael. Turns out, he learned my name at Sarah’s party, and it was Sabrina who ran after him to slip him my number as he was leaving the wedding with his date who was not his girlfriend. I had no idea she had even seen us dancing.

  “Sabrina,” I asked. “What in the world made you think he might want to call me anyway?”

  “He asked you to dance, didn’t he? I knew you liked him the minute you saw him at Sarah’s party and I also knew you were too scared and wounded to do anything about it. Somebody had to intervene.”

  Maybe she needs to add matchmaker to her list of career options. First Talya, then me? Sneaky, sneaky that one, but I’m so thankful. Talya signed a contract with an agency that represents girls who walk in Paris Fashion week. They plan on testing her in Los Angeles before venturing into New York and international markets. She and David will have to cross that long distance relationship bridge when they come to it, but for now they share an apartment in Orange County. I’d call that a matchmaking success, and I’d like to think Michael and I are too.

  This holiday season was three hundred percent better than last year. Instead of ending a relationship, I was happily exploring a new one. I took delight in hearing holiday tunes on the radio and having someone to kiss on New Year’s Eve. Having him in my space makes colors brighter and smells sweeter, but I know he can’t be my knight in shining armor. I’ve already learned the hard way that I have to save myself. Thinking about Will has only become a little less painful. Sometimes I break down when I think of all that could have been. My heart still hurts for his mom, and often, I’m overcome with guilt and conflicting emotions. On bad days, I’m betraying Will. I don’t deserve to be happy while he’s dead, and I’m not good enough for someone like Michael. On the good days, I believe myself to be worthy of good things, and that only a fool would push him away.

  A key rattles the front door, and two seconds later, Sabrina lunges through it, a frown on her face, arms overflowing with thick textbooks. The girl who couldn’t care less about any of it actually placed third in the model division at Agency Day. She even got a few call backs but, as expected, didn’t pursue it any further. Her dad told her that if she committed one year to law school and decided she didn’t like it, that she would never, ever hear another word from him about it. As much as she despised the idea of law school, the possibility of getting her dad off her back indefinitely was too good to pass up. She applied, got in and has been studying nonstop ever since. She complains about the classes and all the late night studying she has to do, but I think deep down somewhere she’s enjoying it and doesn’t want to admit it. Why else would she volunteer a few hours a week at the legal aid society? She insists that it’s just to show her dad effort so he won’t renege on their deal, but the old Sabrina would never work for free, or even for money, if she didn’t have to.

  “So how was your day?” I ask from my perch on the plush leather sectional that I previously admired as a guest.

  “Awful,” she growls. “I have never spent so much time in a library in my entire life. I practically live there. I swear, I’m quitting,” she says, tossing her books on the counter. I know she won’t. She might complain but she doesn’t quit, and even though she has the option of doing so after one year, I don’t see that happening either.

  “And how’s Ben?” I ask with a sly smile.

  “Shut up,” she says, shaking her head, disappearing into her bedroom for her daily bath.

  Apparently, she and Ben have been spending so much time together studying that the accidental kiss count is up to about six. She won’t talk about him anymore, which obviously means she’s fallen head over heels and isn’t ready to admit it.

  I glance out the window at the gorgeous view that is the San Diego skyline, still not believing I live here. What a difference a year makes. Right after Agency Day, my financial situation took a major nosedive to the point where I barely had enough money for groceries and I was behind on my car payment. I had applications out, but only two interviews and zero job offers. In a moment of weakness, I broke down in tears while talking to Sabrina on the phone. I cried even harder when she told me that since her roommate finally moved in with her boyfriend, I could move in while I was getting back on my feet. She is truly my guardian angel in so many ways. It took me a week to accept her offer, but when I had to use the last bit of my savings to put gas in my car and pay rent, I knew I had no choice. It was total defeat, but I had no other options, and now I’m living the downtown high-rise lifestyle I’d dreamed about, except in my dreams, I could actually afford it. I refused her rent free offer. I can’t even afford fifty-fifty and don’t really want to know how much it actually costs to live here, but I work hard to make sure I can contribute something for rent.

  I uncurl my legs, rising from the couch and wander down the hallway past the guest bath to my enormous bedroom, complete with an en suite bathroom and giant walk in closet I don’t have enough clothing to fill. Only about two percent of my wardrobe made it out of my old apartment, and I’m slowly replacing it with easy to mix and match stylish basics. If I think of being poor as a form of minimalism, I can almost convince myself I’m trendy.

  Now it’s Jamie’s turn to be jealous of me.

  “I cannot believe you live here! This place is killer!” she said during her first visit here.

  She still hasn’t met the rest of the Chloe Dillon girls, as I affectionately call them, but she and Sabrina get along really well when she comes over for wine nights on the rooftop.

  “That’s the one thing I regret,” Jamie said one night while sipping wine under the stars. “I was s
o busy jumping from guy to guy throughout my whole life that I never got the chance to experience myself on my own. You know—be single, live in my own apartment and do my own thing. This is great.”

  “I know, she’s my hero,” Sabrina chimed in.

  My head whipped around in her direction. “Whatever are you talking about? I answer phones and I’m a bar girl on the weekends. I can barely afford health insurance and I’m in debt up to my eyeballs, Ms. Attorney in the making.”

  “Shut up. I refuse to listen to you put yourself down anymore. You survived getting dumped by your fiancé and moved into your own apartment. You had enough balls to quit your job on the spot with nothing lined up, dragged yourself out of some crazy depression, got into the best shape of your life, won Agency Day and now you’re going after your dreams. And me? I’m a puppet because I’m too chicken to stand on my own two feet. If I were half as brave as you, I’d be going to fashion design school right now but instead,” she holds up her wrist, this tattoo is truly what I am. Poor little rich girl. I might as well just accept that I’ll never get to turn this thing into something I really want.”

  I expected better for myself at this stage in my life, so it’s hard for me to see myself as anybody’s hero, and the poor little rich girl lifestyle looks pretty good from where I’m sitting.

  “You don’t get it right now, but you’ll see one day,” she said with certainty. She’s right about everything, and she is my guardian angel, so I suppose I will.