Someday, Someday, Maybe (29 page)

“Well, of course!” Joe says confidently. “They loved you!”

I
am playing the female lead opposite Michael Eastman, in a story of a girl who’s being tortured by zombies while in her underwear? But I have no credits. Why would they give me the lead in a movie? I’ve never even said one line in a movie. I don’t look good enough in underwear. I must stop eating immediately, and possibly forever.

On the other hand, I allow myself a tiny flush of pride. I’m good enough to be in a movie opposite Michael Eastman. I saw him the other night on
Entertainment! Entertainment!
wearing a tank top and walking on the beach with some actress he’s dating. I’m going to be in a movie with him? James will be impressed. Well, maybe not impressed exactly, but not horrified. Michael Eastman’s work is at least considered not horrifying.

I try to imagine myself as the actress he held hands with on the beach. I can almost picture myself with him, although it isn’t exactly me. It’s more like my head on the actress’s slight body, wearing her tiny pink bikini. Just me and Michael Eastman, walking on the beach together, admiring each other’s abs.

Joe covers the phone again and mumbles something, then comes back. “No, uh, sorry, not
the
girlfriend, not the lead. It isn’t the part you read for, apparently. It’s for the part of Sheila, the girlfriend he met in high school, the one we see in the flashbacks?”

Oh
. My walk on the beach comes to an abrupt end. Sheila. I wasn’t given the whole script, so I have no idea whether Sheila is a good part or not. Of course I’m not the lead. But my sudden demotion is a disappointment nonetheless. Joe doesn’t seem to really have all the details straight. Now I’m suspicious. What if I didn’t really get that part, either?

“But so, you’re sure? I really got it? I don’t have to read again, or meet the producers or anything?”

“No, the part of Sheila is all yours. Film is different from television that way. The director has much more control. Plus, the character, while important to the plot, doesn’t have a heavy amount of dialogue, so he saw what he needed to see on your audition tape for the other character.”

“Okay,” I say, still unsure.

Joe covers the receiver and there’s a shuffling of papers and the muffled sound of Joe barking orders to someone.

“Uh, let’s see, here it is, I’m reading from the breakdowns here—it says: Sheila is killed by zombies while they’re seniors in college. Sheila’s death inspires Sutton to seek revenge, his anger propelling him into studying science and creating a poisonous serum in the lab, which transforms the zombies from the undead to the actual dead, enabling them to be extinguished blah blah blah …” More whispering from Joe’s assistant, then, “Oh sorry, I didn’t realize they didn’t give you the whole script. They try to keep these big horror movies confidential. Anyway, we’re faxing the pages to you now. It’s only two scenes, but she’s a very memorable character, like I said. Congratulations. The director found you very wholesome, exactly the sort of all-American girl next door whose death would inspire a man to kill. His words. So give it a look and then we can proceed with the clause and make sure we keep you protected. All right?”

I understood everything up to the last part of what he said, something about “the clause” and being “protected.” That must be agent jargon, something to do with the union or the contract or something. I’ll find out eventually. For now, I just want to get off the phone and look at the material. I just want to see what this “memorable character” gets to do and say. From the sound of it, even if it’s small, it’s something more than “Can I take your order?”

I can hear the light but quick creaking of someone jogging up the stairs, which tells me it’s Jane coming home. Dan coming up the stairs sounds heavy and deliberate. Dan is rarely in a hurry.

This is thrilling. Jane can be with me while I read the script for my first-ever actual acting job. The fax starts to ring, but I know it will take forever to answer and print, so I whip down the metal circular staircase to tell Jane the news.

“Jane. I got a job!”

She turns away from the counter where she’s unloading groceries and claps her hands, her face all lit up.

“
Oh my God!
That’s fantastic! What is it?”

“It’s a scary movie. A sort of thriller. They wouldn’t let me read the whole thing. It’s with Michael Eastman, who I know isn’t the greatest, but …”

“Franny, don’t do that. Don’t put it down. I don’t care if the movie stars Bozo the clown. This is amazing.”

“Bozo the clown actually read for it. Ultimately they thought he was
too
frightening, and they decided to stick with zombies. It’s called
Zombie Pond
.”

“You’re going to be in a movie with Michael Eastman,
and
a bunch of zombies? This can’t get any better! What’s the character like?”

“I play his girlfriend who gets murdered, inspiring him to go on a zombie killing spree! That’s all I know. I’m told it’s very memorable. It’s coming through the fax right now.”

There’s a key in the lock, and Dan appears with ruddy cheeks and a twisted paper bag that’s no doubt covering his single evening beer. I realize I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen him—he hasn’t been sitting at his usual place at the dining room table, hasn’t been in front of our television with a beer in ages, and we haven’t had a real conversation since our drinks at Sardi’s. It’s been long enough now that our kiss has faded into something I can almost convince myself never happened. Still, it’s good to see him.

“Dan! I got a job in a zombie movie!”

“A zombie movie?”

“Don’t get too excited, Dan. She’s playing one of the humans,” says Jane, giving him a wink.

“Very funny, Jane,” Dan says. Then he turns to me. “That’s great, Franny!” And he adds, in a strange sinister voice: “They’re coming to get you, Barbara.”

“What?”

“They’re coming to … Oh, never mind. That’s the famous line from
Night of the Living Dead
. Forget it. Zombie history lesson later. For now, I have forty ounces of malt liquor in my hand to toast you with. Who do you play?”

“It’s coming through upstairs. I’ll go get it and we can all read it.”

“
I
know,” says Jane. “Why don’t you and Dan read it out loud, together? He can play Michael Eastman’s part!”

“Uh, no thanks,” says Dan with a frown. “That’s a bad idea. I’m a terrible actor.”

“Aww, would you Dan, please?” I say, grinning. “I haven’t read it yet. I’d love to do it out loud for the first time. It will be like a cold reading.”

“A cold, dead, zombie reading!” Jane exclaims. “Come on, Dan, this is a big occasion. Do it for Franny. I promise to be a kind critic.”

“There’s no such thing,” Dan says, but then he shrugs in surrender. “Okay, Franny, I’ll read it with you.”

I take the metal stairs two at a time. I’m flying.

“Who is Michael Eastman?” I hear Dan ask Jane from down below.

There they are on the floor of the landing, the pages that contain my first real job, my first real character with an actual name. “Sheila,” I say out loud, trying on the suit of my first real character whose name doesn’t include a number or the word “the.”

I decide I won’t even skim the pages before reading them with Dan. This is like an exercise we do in class sometimes where Stavros gives us pages from something we’ve never seen, and we cold read them out loud, piecing the character and situation together as we go. It’s an exercise I love. I’m better the first read sometimes than I am after I’ve rehearsed, after I’ve had time to doubt my choices.

I pick up the pages, all five of them, and take care not to uncurl them yet. I glance at the page numbers in the upper right-hand corner to put them in order but resist the urge to look any farther, and head back downstairs. Dan has put his glasses on, as he does when he’s working intensely on something. He looks a little nervous, as if he’s about to give his campaign speech for class president. Jane is playing director and fussing with the dining room chairs, pushing the table out of the way.

“I need to know where this takes place. I need to properly dress the set,” she says, gravely regarding her furniture placement. “Here, let me see those. Two scenes, right?”

She separates the pages into the first and second scenes, picks up the first scene, and reads.

INT. LAB–DAY

SUTTON is hunched over his microscope. The lab is hot. Stifling. A trickle of sweat rolls off his forehead and onto the microscope slide. He sighs. He will have to start again. He removes his shirt, trying to cool off. Sutton’s girlfriend,

SHEILA

(20s, fresh-faced), enters.

Jane cracks up, lowering the pages. “Hahahahaha! Remove your shirt, Dan!” She collapses onto the sofa in laughter.

“Jane, please,” I say. “Get a grip. Don’t crumple those. Can we take this seriously? Dan, you may remain clothed for the purposes of this rehearsal. Now, Jane. Who has the first line?”

“You do. Excuse me, Sheila does. Here.” Jane hands the script to me, then dutifully sits upright on the sofa.

“Ready?” I say to Dan.

“Okay,” he says, even though he looks unsure.

“We’ll just pass the pages back and forth okay? No looking ahead?”

“Okay,” he agrees.

“And … action!” says Jane.

SHEILA

(enters quietly, watches Sutton unseen for a moment, then)

Knock, knock. Hello, Professor. Am I interrupting you?

SUTTON

I’m not a professor yet. And no, not at all. I was actually just thinking about you.

SHEILA

Well, I hope so, dressed like that.

SUTTON

(laughs)

Well, it
is
about a hundred degrees out. And I figured, no one around but me and some lab rats.

SHEILA

(laughs)

Well, I’ll let you get back to work. I just wanted you to have this, for tonight.

Sheila opens her bag and hands Sutton a thin wrapped package the size of a manila envelope
.

SUTTON

(taking the envelope)

Thanks. What is it?

SHEILA

(smiling, eyes shining)

It’s a secret. It’s for tonight. No peeking until then. Promise?

SUTTON

I promise.

SHEILA

Well, tonight, then?

SUTTON

Tonight, then.

HOLD on Sutton as Sheila exits. He looks down at the package, then back to where she has just exited. His eyes fill with love; he is overwhelmed by her. A single tear falls, and he smiles
.

SUTTON (CONT’D)

Tonight.

There is silence in the apartment. Jane looks at each of us in turn, then leaps to her feet, applauding loudly.

“Yayyyyy! I loved it! I felt it! The heat! Also the temperature! The lab experiments! The nearby rats! I felt it all! I laughed! I cried! It was better than
Cats
!”

“Jane, shush, the neighbors,” I say, but I’m laughing, too.

“But seriously,” Jane says, with a grin. “That’s a pretty long scene!”

“I can do something with it, don’t you think?” I say proudly.

“Definitely,” says Jane. “You’re like, the ingénue. You’re Michael Eastman’s babe!”

Dan is still holding the sides up close to his face, the pages practically touching his glasses, so I can’t exactly see his reaction.

“Dan?” I say. “What do you think? I mean the script isn’t too terrible, right?”

“I was distracted by having to read it out loud,” Dan says, a bit grumpy.

“But you’re not the actor we’re paying attention to in this scene, Dan,” Jane tells him. Then, trying to help, she says, “Come on, be a pal. Say something nice to Franny about her new job.”

Dan thinks for a second, then says, “The dialogue isn’t bad, although too many sentences start with ‘Well.’ ” He pauses, then as if he can’t help himself, he adds, “And the single tear at the end is unrealistic.”

Jane and I just stare at him. Then we look at each other. That’s his reaction to my first-ever reading of my first real acting job?

“The movie is called
Zombie Pond
, Dan,” I tell him. “I’m not sure realism was at the top of their list.”

“
Well,”
Jane says, sarcastically. “
Well
then, let’s read the second scene, shall we?
Well?
”

“Sorry, you guys,” says Dan. “I suck. I don’t know how actors do it. I want to help. Can I just read this next scene to myself first before we do it out loud?”

“Of course,” I say to him generously, then I turn to Jane and roll my eyes. “These method actors!”

“Here you go, Mr. James Dean, sir,” says Jane, handing him a single sheet of paper. “It’s just the one page. What a drama queen he is! Don’t quit your day job, Danny.”

Dan pores over the single sheet, holding it tightly on either side. He’s taking forever, reading so slowly, and I’m feeling a little impatient. I want to know what happens, and what I say.

“How many ‘wells’ in this scene, Dan?” I joke, trying to hurry him along. But he doesn’t answer.

“Dan, you look like you’re reading your own obituary,” says Jane. “Chop-chop.”

Finally he looks up, regarding each of us with a serious expression. “This is wrong,” he says.