The Voiceover Artist (21 page)

I recommend the Gibraltar concept and its manifold manifestations to Claire Weber with complete conviction. She listens, but doesn't comment. Her silence doesn't rattle me.

We finish in the largest bedroom. When I mention the Picasso, Claire says, “Mr. Shadid has only one Picasso canvas in his collection. It was recently installed in another unit.”

Her tone suggests that discussion of the Picasso is closed. I am not having this.

“Then I recommend that he have it uninstalled and put here,” I say. “Or that he buy another one.”

The corner of Claire Weber's closed mouth lifts just slightly as she regards me. It's as if she is seeing me for the first time.

She looks at her watch. Then she pulls her smartphone from a bag that certainly cost a few times my monthly rent and begins typing.

“Mr. Shadid will be expecting you for lunch in fifteen minutes,” she says. “There is a car waiting downstairs.”

This is the first mention of any meeting with Shadid.

“Is this part of the interview?” I say.

“He'll ask questions about your concept, if that's what you mean,” she says, still typing.

I begin to worry I am being played, that the opportunity to recommend a concept for this penthouse was Shadid's way of getting me to lunch under circumstances I would readily accept. When we met in the Navy Pier ballroom—I gave him my business card, I recall—I left almost no other avenue open to him. It takes some nerve to believe it possible that Daniel Shadid, with so many women at his disposal, would go to all this trouble to have lunch with me, but once I get the idea that there is even a small possibility I've wasted the best concept of my career on a playboy's ruse, I cannot shake it.

“How did I get this opportunity?”

“I called,” Claire says, walking out of the bedroom. “You answered.”

“That's not what I mean.” I follow her into the hallway. “You could have had any designer for this job. And we've never met. How did you get my name?”

We are on the stairs leading up to the main floor of the penthouse when Claire turns to me. “Mr. Shadid doesn't work with the latest hot designer. He makes
the next hot designer. I scout for him. I read blogs. I visit spaces. I ask colleagues about talent. And I talk to my former clients, two of whom are now your clients. They recommended you.”

“Oh.”

“Satisfied?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

But I have one itch left to scratch, and when we reach the narrow front entryway—the straits of the Gibraltar I have imagined—I ask one final question.

“Are you considering anyone else for this work?”

Claire does not turn around when she says, “Not anymore.”

By the time the elevator doors open, I can see how my lunch with Daniel Shadid will go. I'll outline the Gibraltar concept, answer any questions he has about it, and hear his suggestions. I'll do these things with the confidence of a designer who already has the job. But at the first reasonable opportunity, I'll steer the conversation to Shadid's work in Africa, giving him every chance to impress me with his stories of traveling with movie stars, meeting with tribal leaders, and making measurable improvements in the lives of people half a world away. Then, without mentioning St. Asella's by name, I'll tell him that I've spent the past year volunteering and now want to work on a larger scale, to contribute to structural and systemic changes that will change people's lives. I'll ask him how I can best support his humanitarian efforts. I'll work my way into Daniel Shadid's exclusive world of auctions and galas and celebrities, a world in which frozen lasagna is no currency.

But even if I never rub elbows with the world's richest do-gooders, this lunch will be the beginning of yet another new life. I'll leave St. Asella's behind and search for my father in my work instead of among his people. I'll find some way, through Shadid, to shore up small communities that can make use of my time, talent and treasure without depending on me to hold them together. Starting today, the only problems I carry home with me are my own.

And the moment my meeting with Daniel Shadid is over—the first minute I am alone—I will call my friend Nicola Hayes to tell her all about it.

She will be so happy for me.

8

 

Simon

 

IT HAD BEEN
 two days since I'd picked up Mrs. Landry's spilled groceries and ushered her back to her apartment. In that time, I'd started showering in the middle of the night. I didn't know what time, exactly, only that it was dark outside. When I showered and slept didn't seem to matter under the weight of my unshakeable anxiety that, spending all this time alone, with no voiceover scripts to rehearse and no Sunday readings to prepare, my vocal folds were beginning to atrophy again.

How could I know, I asked myself, more than eighteen years later, how many days or weeks into my silence it had ceased to be a matter of choice? So I started talking, just to talk, saying whatever was on my mind. And some of what I heard myself saying—one-sided conversations with my departed mother, for example—scared the hell out of me.

I decided I needed to speak face to face—and soon—with someone I know. And the only person in Chicago I really knew was Connor.

Even if there had been no Larry Sellers and no Skyline Talent, I'd have moved to Chicago because Connor was there. I needed to be around him because his success was the stick by which I measured my own. I was pulling for him to succeed in comedy. At the same time, I hated the thought that he'd realize his dream more fully than I would mine. Success could only be a good thing if each of us enjoyed his own version, and in equal measure.

When we were kids, I'd fight Connor to a stalemate of my own making. Without warning, I'd tackle him to the ground, straddle him, and punch his upper arms while he bucked and scratched and clawed at me. I was two years older than him and bigger than he was. I could have stayed astride him for as long as I liked. But at some point in every fight, I allowed him to flip me onto my back, sit on my chest, and punch my shoulders. I resisted a little, to make him believe he was in a real fight. And when I'd taken the same pounding I had doled out—when we were even—I'd throw him off of me, get to my feet, and walk away.
Fair and square,
I'd think.

When I was fifteen and he was thirteen, Connor flipped me without my help, and when I tried to heave him off and end the fight, I couldn't. He did what I'd taught him to do: punched me until we were even. Then he stood up and walked away, without apology, just as I'd always done. Even as I lay there, on my back, stung by the sudden loss of my dominance, I was proud of him.

After that, I stopped tackling Connor and, to his credit, he never started one of those fights. But my wish to be even with him didn't stop with the fights. It kept up throughout our teenage years, throughout my silence. Knowingly or not, our mother perpetuated it. If she kissed one of us on the head, she tracked down the other in his bedroom or the side yard and kissed him, too. She would spend the same amount of time, to the minute, helping Connor with his homework that she'd spent talking me through mine. Until the year she left my father, she made the same dinner—hot dogs and homemade macaroni and cheese—on Connor's birthday and mine, and once, she even showed us receipts to prove she'd spent the same amount of money on our gifts. I don't know whether my mother created these rules or just played by them. But even after she died, I still wanted nothing more than for Connor to have the same share of what he wanted that I had of what I wanted—not one bit more, or less.

It was July
15
th. I'd been living in Chicago for six weeks, and Connor still had not returned my call. In the midst of my long wait for voiceover work, I wasn't looking forward to measuring my success against my brother's because I knew I'd come up short again. And it was hard for me to admit that I was totally dependent on Connor for the company I sorely needed, while he didn't seem to need me for anything. But I knew I'd get no greater share of what I wanted in the world if I kept spending every day in my apartment, talking to myself.

So I typed out a text message:
I'd like
2
c u soon. Let me know when u r free.

I sent the message and watched the pixilated animation of an envelope fly over the horizon line on my phone's tiny screen, mindful that I'd fixed nothing of what ailed me. I'd only given myself something else to wait for.

 

•••

 

I WAS LYING
 awake in bed that same Thursday, a couple of hours later, when I heard what I thought was the motor of my window-unit air conditioner rattling at a different speed. Only when the sound stopped and started again did I look to my bedside table and notice my phone vibrating slowly toward my radio. I picked it up, expecting to see Connor's name on the display. I saw Elaine's name instead.

The adrenaline hit was my first in days. My heart pounded and my windpipe tightened up—I took five waggles to loosen it as I hurried into the living room. I assumed she was calling to recommend changes to my demo or confirm some contractual detail. That she was calling me at all contradicted my suspicion, which had been growing over the past few days, that I'd never hear from Elaine Vasner again.

Standing in front of my desk in a t-shirt and boxer shorts, I flipped open my phone and said, “This is Simon.”

“How are you, Simon?”

“I'm good, Elaine.” I took another waggle. “How are you?”

“I'm fine,” she said. “Did I wake you up?”

It sounded less like a question than an accusation.

“No,” I said.

“You have morning voice, Simon,” Elaine said. “I can hear it. But you answered when I called. That's all that matters to me, assuming you weren't screaming yourself hoarse at some bar last night.”

I waggled again. “I wasn't.”

“Good. You've been booked for a job.”

“What?”

Elaine pushed past my shock, which she must have been expecting.

“A creative director I've worked with for years called me looking for a new voice, a young man who doesn't sound like a kid. I think the words she used were ‘credible' and ‘precise.' Anyway, I sent her a copy of your demo, and she called back the next day to say that now, when she reads the part, she can only hear it in your voice.”

I needed two waggles to say, “Wow.”

“Wow is right,” Elaine said. “It's a radio spot for Red Bull and it'll run in seven markets—New York, L.A., Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, San Francisco, and Las Vegas.”

My gut tightened with pleasure. I had assumed my first job, if I ever got one, would be a local commercial. This was a national spot.

“The agency is Burnett. They're recording on Monday at
1
p.m. I'm assuming you can do it.”

“I can do it.”

“Good,” Elaine said. “You're booked for an hour and a half, but they think it'll only take an hour. Have you ever been in a recording studio before?”

I hesitated, trying to decide whether or not the truth was the wrong answer. Then I told the truth. “No.”

“I didn't think so,” Elaine said. “Let's go over a few things. The moment you walk into that sound booth, put your headphones on. Without them, you can't hear the director, and you can't hear yourself the way you need to.”

“Okay.”

“If the script is multiple pages, spread the first few across your stand. Don't spoil any takes moving paper.”

“Okay.”

“There'll be a circular screen in front of the mic. It's there to keep your
P
s from popping. Start with your mouth about four inches away from the screen. If they want you closer to it, or further away, they'll tell you. And make sure you're not leaning forward. Stand up straight and get comfortable. You'll be on your feet for at least an hour.”

I waggled. “Right.” I thought about reaching for a pen and paper on the desk a few feet away, but I didn't move. I was afraid I would miss something.

“Some newbies see a microphone and start babbling,” Elaine said. “Don't speak until somebody tells you to. They'll ask you to do a run-through so they can adjust the levels. And when you do the run-through, do it the way you'd do a take that counts. That's the only way to get the levels right for the keepers. Are you following?”

“Yes.”

“When they have their levels,” Elaine said, “the director will ask you how your foldback is. You don't know what foldback is.”

“No.” By then, I was admitting my ignorance greedily. I'd never been so certain I was getting good advice.

“Foldback is the sound of your own voice in your headphones,” Elaine said. “It might be too loud. It might not be loud enough. They'll work with you to find a level comfortable for you. You need to hear yourself, but too loud is no good. You need to protect your hearing. Your ears are more important in this business than you might think.”

“Okay.”

“When your foldback is set, it'll be time for the first take,” she said. “From there, you do what you do. And give the director what she wants, even if you think it sounds wrong, even if you think it's a bad idea. When you're in studio on somebody else's dime, it isn't your opinion that matters. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“All right,” Elaine said. “The session is at Kinzie Street Studios. That's on Kinzie Street.”

“Okay.”

“That was a joke, Simon.”

I hadn't realized. “I know.”

Elaine made a noise, something between a snort and a sigh. “The agency sent me the script,” she said. “I'll e-mail it over to you. I'll send the address of the studio, too.”

“Thank you.”

“This is a good job, Simon,” Elaine said.

I waggled. “Yes.”

“It's the kind of job that can pay some bills and get you another job. Make sure you nail it.”

Something cold in Elaine's voice made me blink. “I will.”

“Good. Look for my e-mail.”

“I will.”

“Have a nice day,” Elaine said, taking—as another joke, maybe—the falsely polite tone of a customer-service representative.

“Thanks again, Elaine.”

I flipped my phone shut and leapt into the air, pulling my knees up as high as I could, and pogoed up again as soon as I landed.

My wait for work was over.

I fell onto the couch, breathing out low moans of happiness through the broad smile on my face, exhausted by the adrenaline and by my private show of exuberance. I may have let myself enjoy the moment for a couple of minutes before my compulsion to prepare got the better of me. I walked to my desk, opened my laptop, and pressed the Send and Receive button above my e-mail inbox. There were no new messages.

Then my phone, still in my hand, pulsed twice, and the display indicated the delivery of a text message. I opened the phone. The message was from Connor.

“Free tuesday,”
it read.
“Meet u at the lakefront if u want.”

In the time it had taken him to respond to my desperate request, my ambivalence about seeing Connor had evaporated. I
wanted
to see him. I wanted to measure myself against him. I wanted Connor to know that, in a race in which a tie was a victory for me and a devastating loss for him, I was gaining ground.

 

•••

 

I STILL REMEMBER
 the incident that convinced me—for what seemed, at the time, to be once and for all—that I would never wring from my life even a fraction of what Connor would achieve in his.

I was sitting on a tree stump outside Leyton High on a warm, windy September afternoon, waiting for the short, pencil-yellow bus that would pick up Connor and me. Maybe ten feet away, Ken Hyde and Miro Kowalski—freshmen, like Connor—were sitting on the grass in front of my brother, giving him the audience he needed to burn off the energy and ideas he'd pent up during the school day.

“You guys have Mr. Remacher?” Connor asked them.

“For science,” Ken said.

“Me, too,” Miro added.

Connor hiked up the waist of his jeans to his bottom ribs, curved into a slouch, and took long, loping steps across the grass, recreating with high fidelity Mr. Remacher's strange carriage.

Ken and Miro laughed hard.

“That's perfect,” Ken said.

“What about Ms. Gorski?” Connor asked.

“The gym teacher?” Miro asked Ken.

Ken nodded without taking his eyes off of Connor.

Connor pressed his palms flat against his lower back, over his kidneys, with his fingers spread wide and their tips pointing straight down his legs. Then he hung his head forward and flattened his lips. “Ladies,” Connor said, voicing the “l” from the back of his mouth, “if you
do
not get moving, you will have no time to shower and the boys will smell your
stinky
feets
.” He clapped twice. “Let's
go
!”

As Ken and Miro laughed, I smiled to myself. Just a couple of weeks into the school year, Connor had Ms. Gorski's Polish accent, in all its thickness, down pat.