Engaging Men (22 page)

“You should come up to the office,” she said, “How’s eleven tomorrow?”

“Eleven is perfect,” I said, reeling with excitement. I hung up the phone. I had an eleven o’clock! With an agent! And not just any agent, but Viveca Withers of the Actors’ Forum!

I immediately hit the speed-dial button for Kirk, figuring this was big enough news to warrant a phone call, no matter how much he hated to be interrupted while he was working.

“Hey, it’s me,” I said.

“Uh-huh,” he replied, clearly distracted. I heard the distinct tap of keys in the background.

“I have big news…” I continued.

Tap, tap, tap.

“I just got off the phone with Viveca Withers, head of the Actors’ Forum?”

“Who?” Tap, tap, tap.

“Viveca Withers. You know, she was Suzanne Somers’s agent, back when she was doing Three’s Company. And Robert Blake’s…” I said, realizing how dubious these references seemed now, especially since Suzanne Somers was now doing infomercials and Robert Blake had been all but convicted of murdering his ex-wife. “Um, I think she may have worked with Sarah Michelle Gellar, too,” I added, trying to remember some of the more recent actors Viveca had signed, according to Josh. I thought he mentioned the star of Buffy, but I wasn’t entirely sure now.

“Uh-huh,” Kirk said again, clearly unimpressed. Or uninterested. I couldn’t tell which.

Tap, tap, tap.

“So, anyway, I’m meeting her tomorrow. At eleven.”

Tap, tap… “That’s great, Noodles. You could probably use an agent. Now that you’ve got that contract on the horizon, you’re gonna need someone to negotiate it.”

“I guess…”

Tap, tap, tap. “Listen, sweetie, can I call you later? I’m just putting the finishing touches on this program I’m working on.”

“Uh, sure,” I said, “I’ll be here.” Where else would I be?

“Okay.” Click.

Yeah, love you, too, I thought, feeling a bit deflated. I headed into Justin’s room, where he was bent over his guitar, his gaze fixed on the wall opposite him. He was obviously working on new material, though he had yet to take it to the stage.

“Guess what?” I said.

Justin raised his head.

“I have an interview with an agent tomorrow. Viveca Withers. Of the Actors’ Forum?”

“Hey, that’s fantastic,” he said. “Wasn’t she Sarah Jessica Parker’s agent?”

I knew it was some significant Sarah! “I think so…”

“This could be the beginning of the end of your days at Rise and Shine.”

I nodded vigorously.

“I’d say this calls for a celebration.”

Though I felt a little guilty dragging Justin away from his guitar—after all, it had been quite some time since I’d seen him doing anything remotely creative—he didn’t seem to mind. “Ah, don’t worry about it. I wasn’t getting very far anyway,” he said, cheerfully throwing on his shoes and running his hands through his hair, tousling it even further. Not that it mattered. Tousled worked for Justin.

“So where do you want to go? Three of Cups?” he asked, naming our favorite neighborhood bar.

“No,” I said, shaking my head firmly, knowing suddenly exactly what would make me happiest.

“Then where?”

“To the movies.”

So that’s where we spent the night, sunk down low in a comfy two-seater at the Union Square multiplex, watching Woody Allen’s latest offering, a heaping bag of popcorn between us that we refilled before we sneaked into a second theater to catch an action-adventure flick that was fortuitously starting just moments after our first feature ended. Justin even suggested going for number three—he was as hopelessly addicted to movies as I was—until the voice of reason reared its ugly head when I glanced at my watch and realized it was closing in on ten-thirty.

“God, it’s so late,” I said, blinking as the lights went up and feeling a bit dazed. I had to prepare for tomorrow—dig out head shots, think about answers to whatever questions Viveca might have. And then there was the all-important sleep aspect. “I have to get home, get ready and get to bed soon if I hope to look my best tomorrow.” After all, the body at thirty-one didn’t bounce back as well as it did four years ago, when I first started subjecting myself to the scrutiny of agents and casting directors. A vision of myself, puffy-eyed and bloated (I knew I shouldn’t have eaten so much popcorn, but it was soooo

good… ) rose before my mind’s eye. “I haven’t even thought

about what I’m going to wear!“

“Relax, everything will be fine,” Justin said, leading me out of the air-conditioned theater and into the humid night air.

I did start to feel calmer as we walked side by side, passing the rows of tenements that lined 10th Street once we hit the East Side. It was probably Justin’s demeanor that soothed me. He always walked around like he had nowhere to go, no place to be, pointing out some unusual street sign or intriguing storefront I often missed as I scurried by, always in a hurry to be somewhere, whether it was the studio or work or Kirk’s. Tonight Justin was especially animated, remarking on the unusual facades of the buildings we passed and giving what architectural history he knew. I could tell he was inspired by the movie we’d just seen. Not that he was as big a fan of Woody Allen as I was, but Justin respected anyone who lovingly recorded the buildings and streets of this fine city the way Woody Allen did. Though I always loved listening to Justin as he waxed poetic over whatever pretty brickwork or intricate doorway caught his eye, tonight his meandering discourse made me feel a little sad.

“God, Justin, you should be making a movie about New York!” I said, remembering that film he’d abandoned. That film, too, had demonstrated his great affection for New York City, as it was about street gangs of the Lower East Side. He had modeled it a bit on Mean Streets by Scorsese (one of Justin’s favorite directors), except with more of a romance.

“Yeah, maybe,” he said pensively, that dreamy expression coming over his face.

I had seen that expression before at least a thousand times. The hopefulness, the belief that one day some of this magnificence he was surrounded by would show up somewhere in whatever creative work he chose. But outside of that one critically acclaimed-—and now shelved—film and the various production projects he had worked on as a grip, the only creative work I’d seen from Justin was three television commercials and a handful of pretty little songs he’d played for me at our apartment. I wondered what kept him from fulfilling his dreams. Especially tonight, when I felt like I was on the brink of finally seeking my own.

Whatever joyful feelings I had were quickly dispelled when I came home to discover a big fat zero on my answering machine. Kirk hadn’t even called to say good-night, much less wish me luck on my interview tomorrow. I sighed, knowing that Kirk had likely sat in front of his computer until his hands were practically cramped and his eyes bleary. Whenever he had a hot new client to woo, he was like a madman, working until the wee hours of the morning before crawling into bed in subhuman condition. I glanced at the clock and saw that it was eleven. Considering the fact that he wanted to get his proposal into Norwood by month’s end, I knew he was probably still seated at his computer, working his fingers to the bone. I supposed I could call him to say good-night, but I was tired of being the pursuer in this relationship. Besides, I had other things to pursue at the moment.

With that in mind, I headed for the file cabinet I kept in my bedroom to dig out the head shots I kept there, and had had no reason to seek for quite some time. When I came across the folder where I’d stored them, I felt a moment’s hesitation before I opened it. I had taken these pictures three years ago, when I was closing in on a year of training at HB Studios and realized I had to start putting myself out there if I hoped to make it someday. And though I still had the same shoulder-length hair, I was worried that the thirty-one-year-old me looked vastly different from the twenty-nine-year-old version.

Then I opened the folder and wondered if I had ever really been the woman who stared back at me from the photo.

This woman gazed out at the camera with a confidence I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt, her smile knowing, and even somewhat…sexy. And her hair…

I sighed. There was no way I could maintain the studio coif depicted in this photo. I had hired a stylist to blow my hair straight, a makeup artist to even out my skin and make my eyes glow and a photographer who snapped the shot just moments after the finishing touches were applied. Now, if I never had to face a humid New York City day again, I might just have a shot at looking like this…

I didn’t have time to worry about it, I realized, sliding a few of the copies into one of the envelopes I had handily placed next to the folder in the file cabinet, along with my resume. I had already added my Rise and Shine experience one idle morning a few months back when I’d come home from an especially grueling taping and resolved to change my life, then only got as far as updating my resume. After settling on a simple red tank (to show off my toned arms—there were some side benefits to all those arm lifts I did five days a week) and a pair of black capris, I headed to the bathroom to wash off whatever popcorn grease was endangering my pores, then climbed into bed.

But I didn’t sleep. Not right away. Though I knew I had to, or risk bags under my eyes. No matter how I tried to still my mind, however, anxious thoughts crept in. Like how I was going to convince Viveca Withers I was the next big thing when my six months on Rise and Shine had only served to show me how insignificant my life really was. I mean, who but a handful of anxious parents and maybe a few pedophiles actually got up at the ungodly hour to watch? Then I remembered that it really hadn’t been so long ago that I had played Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Washington Square Park. And I had been good—people laughed—not that I usually did humorous roles. I had always sought out the serious parts. I was magnificent as Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and radiant as Nora in A Doll’s House (okay, the only company that would cast me as this soulful Norwegian housewife was the one doing the Hispanic version, but still, I was damn good for an Italian girl who had lied about her heritage). I even knocked some socks off playing Mrs. Claus in A Christmas Story one year (some even said I added a bit of weightiness to the plight of Santa’s wife, but I’m not sure that was meant as a compliment).

I sighed as anxiety rolled through me once more. Sleep, sleep, I had to sleep. I shut my eyes again, trying to quiet my mind by using a meditation technique I had picked up during my training at HB. And as my mind cleared, an image of my father rose forth, as it often did whenever I stayed up too long and loneliness crept in along with the late hour. I guess it was natural for him to show up tonight, after the way I had gorged myself on movies. After all, a love of movies was the only common ground my father and I ever really had. I couldn’t talk to him

about baseball or auto parts or the myriad of things he had in common with my brothers. But when it came to movies, we could while a night away in front of the TV or on the stoop, arguing over whether DeNiro or Pacino was a better actor or who would be the next Brando. I knew he enjoyed those times, could see the way his eyes lit up whenever he got on a roll. It was the only time, I suppose, that he wasn’t the guy with a mortgage and a family and a business that had its ups and downs. I wondered sometimes if he ever wanted to be more than he was, but being a man, he never talked about what he was feeling. The only clue I got came too late, when during those last days he propped his skeletal form up on a lawn chair in our small backyard, gazing on his fruitless tomato plants and talking about his past as if he realized he had so little time left to remember it. In fact, I learned more about my father in the few brief weeks before his death than I ever knew about him prior to that. He told me about how his own father had built the business from the ground up. How as a boy he hated working Saturdays while all his friends were at the matinee. How he had vowed never, ever to work so hard for so little, like his father had. And he hadn’t really. Auto Man of Marine Park became the biggest supplier in Brooklyn under his steam.

But it hadn’t been enough, I realized one day when he was so weak he couldn’t even drag himself out of bed and just lay there, his eyes alight in his pale face. “I coulda been a contender,” he joked, holding up one painfully thin arm and attempting to curl it into a fist, before he closed his eyes to sleep.

He was long gone before I woke up to myself. Realized he had been trying to tell me that life was short, and that if I had a dream, I’d better get on it.

I didn’t know if he’d be proud of me now, living like I did with less money and only a little thread of hope left. I only knew I had to try. And I sensed, though I would never know for sure, that he would understand why.

When the piercing sound of my alarm clock shot through my brain at five the next morning, I wondered if I even understood why I did any of this. My limbs felt like lead, and my head was fuzzier than usual, since I had drifted off to a fitful

sleep no earlier than one o’clock. When I finally managed to pull my sorry self from the bed, dreading the thought of the day ahead, the smile I would be forced to wield in the face of all those starry-eyed kids, the lull of the middle of the day, which I could never seem to fill with anything useful while I waited for my next sentence—the seven-hour shift at Lee and Laurie. Until my eye fell upon the outfit I had carefully laid out the night before, and I suddenly remembered that this was no ordinary day. I was meeting with an agent today!

I scrubbed my hands over my face, stepping before the mirror, and was filled with another realization, this one a bit more harrowing.

I looked like shit.

My eyes were puffy, the rings beneath them deeper due to lack of sleep, and the worry lines that sometimes showed in my forehead suddenly seemed semipermanent.

It was nothing a good, hot shower couldn’t cure, I rationalized. At least I hoped so anyway as I stepped out of my bedroom, creeping past Justin’s open door, where I saw, from a quick peek in, he was sleeping, his mouth curved into what looked like a smile. God, he even looked good when he slept. It was probably a guy thing, I thought, remembering how adorable Kirk always looked in the morning, his face flushed with sleep. It was so easy to be a guy…