Seeing Stars (11 page)

“I’m Quinn.”

“I know. Come on back.”

He’d been here at this casting office once or twice before, but not in a long time. The waiting room was junky, which they almost always were, because hundreds of people came through every day—stained carpet, crappy folding chairs, a couple of posters on the wall, a desk with a big phone console on it. The back area was nice, though. Quinn could see that she’d tried to make it feel a little homey—not like his home, but upscale, Pottery Barn homey. You could live in a room like this and never leave, that’s how nice it was.

The casting director walked behind a desk, grabbed a copy of the sides, and then came around the desk again. A little video camera was screwed onto a tripod in the corner, but she didn’t make any move toward it. “Okay. Let’s run it once before we put you on tape. Are you off-book?”

“Yeah.”

She nodded. “Then let’s go.”

He was not unnerved by her lack of small talk. They never talked. He sailed his headshot onto her desk and took a breath. He was playing Will.

WILL

Hey!

JUSTIN ABERNETHY

Will! Wow, are we ever glad you could come over! Listen, Cecilia’s sciatica’s bothering her again. I mean, when will these kids be born, right? So I’m going to take her out to lunch. Can you watch our guys?

WILL

Sure, no problem. I don’t have to pick up Stacy until five.

JUSTIN

You guys are still going strong, huh?

WILL

Yeah. It’ll be eighteen months next Tuesday. She keeps track.

JUSTIN

Well, good for you. But listen, here’s a word of advice from one who knows: don’t have kids until you’re thirty-five.

WILL

No kidding. I mean, I love your kids, don’t get me wrong—

JUSTIN

Yeah, we know you do. Hey, did we tell you Bruce is walking now? Yeah, last Wednesday was the big day. Cecilia started crying. Her hormones are totally screwed up.

WILL

Sweet.

JUSTIN

That Bruce.

WILL

Yeah. I bet his real mom was a beautiful woman, like Pocahontas.

JUSTIN

Now, we don’t talk about ‘real moms’ here, because that would make Cecilia a fake mom, right?

WILL

Oh, jeez! I’m sorry.

JUSTIN

That’s okay. We just need you to be sensitive to that.

WILL

Hey, sure, of course. Sure. Won’t happen again.

JUSTIN

Good man.

“Okay,” Evelyn said. “That was the straight read. Now take it over the top. Pretend it’s a sitcom.”

They ran it again.

“Okay,” said the casting director. “Now make it creepy.”

“Creepy?”

“Yeah, like you’re not sure whether you’re going to cuddle the kids or feel them up.”

Quinn flushed. He wondered if Mimi had told her anything about him. Still, he prepared himself and they ran it.

“Okay, now we’re ready,” she said. “I want to put you on tape playing it straight and then creepy. It’s not a sitcom, so forget that one. I just wanted to see what you did with it.”

“Okay.”

She went to the camera and fiddled with a button or two, sighted him through the lens, and turned it on.

He slated, delivered his lines both ways, and she thanked him and turned off the camera. He took his ratty copy of the sides off her desk and was just turning to leave when she said, “You’re good.”

“Yeah,” Quinn said. “I know.”

Chapter Seven

H
UGH
A
LAN
R
ABINOWITZ LOVED THE PRACTICE OF DENTISTRY
. The human tooth was one of Mother Nature’s engineering marvels, infinitely variable in its colors, surfaces, and alignments, not to mention the mysteries that lay hidden beneath the gum line. A tooth, like a gem, was a paradox, at once strong and fragile, utilitarian and ornamental, perfectly designed yet containing, from the moment of its eruption, the makings of its own demise, whether it be from careless hygiene, vitamin deprivation, a misaligned bite, structural flaw, weakened enamel, or that enemy of everything dental, CornNuts. All your life you’ve exerted 150 pounds per square inch on all manner of food items—never mind the odd ballpoint pen—and your teeth have worked like a charm. Then, seemingly out of the blue, comes the fatal moment when you bite into something you shouldn’t, and
bink!
The tooth falls away and the dentist becomes a demi-god. How many times had he been sent sentimental greeting cards thanking him for his technical prowess and delicate touch?

Many dentists are chatty, trying to keep their patients entertained or at least distracted until the Novocain takes hold. They prattle on about some achievement of a child’s or spouse’s, and the patient, out of good manners if not respect, is left struggling against cotton packing, dental instruments, and the suction device to form a decipherable comment. But Hugh had long since developed the habit of practicing dentistry quietly, even silently. Of the two of them, Ruth was the people person: warm, curious, and long-memoried when it came to children’s names and natures, in-law troubles, spousal disappointments, and temperamental peccadilloes. He worked away in happy silence, scraping and drilling and shaping and packing and tamping his way to what was, in either half-hour or full-hour blocks, a tooth skillfully, even lovingly, restored.

In fact, over the twenty-two years of his marriage he had developed the habit of saying less and less about more and more, letting Ruth talk for them both. But Ruth was in Los Angeles with Bethany, hell-bent on making Bethy a star. As though, even if it were possible—which Hugh very much doubted—that ever worked out very well. He wasn’t oblivious; he read the headlines about Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears and that insipid blond girl, the Hilton heiress. Stardom, schmardom—it wasn’t healthy.

But Ruthie didn’t agree with him there. “It’s up to the family to keep them grounded,” she’d said. “Blame the family, not celebrity. Look at Natalie Portman, Jodie Foster, Meryl Streep. Regular people with solid families.” For all he knew, she could have a point. Hugh didn’t make a practice of studying movie stars the way Ruth did, though he subscribed to
People
magazine for the waiting room (after Ruth had finished reading them). All he knew was that Seattle Children’s Theatre programs had been just fine for Bethany for years, and he saw no reason to change the scale or direction of her relationship with the dramatic arts just because some bottom-feeding talent manager wanted to sell them a bill of goods. And at least theater had its rich heritage. Hollywood successes came to a handful of greedy, manipulative, driven people whose main talent was knowing how to stand on the shoulders of sweet, ethical people like his Ruth to get themselves noticed. It was not a business to encourage a child to pursue. Already, from Ruth’s stories, his belief that the industry was filled with unscrupulous sharks was proving true. Mimi was at the top of his list, though not Ruth’s. Ruth thought Mimi walked on water. Hugh thought she was a toad-faced charlatan, gourd-shaped and squashy as aging fruit. How much money had they paid her—or someone else because of her—in the last six weeks for classes, coaching, headshots, wardrobe, and personal grooming? Never mind the travesty of Bethany’s teeth—dear God, Invisaligns! You couldn’t correct a bite with plastic, and Bethany happened to have a pronounced cross-bite that was guaranteed to give her TMJ problems later in life if it was incorrectly treated.

All of this was dangerous, possibly even ruinous, and not only financially. What did it do to a child to have the constant noise of rejection ringing in her ears? What did it do to her self-image to be hired or turned away based almost exclusively on her appearance? “We don’t have anyone who looks like her on our roster,” her agent had apparently told Ruth when she agreed to take Bethany on.

“Shouldn’t it be about talent?” Hugh had said to Ruth over the phone, but Ruth wouldn’t hear a word he had to say. She wanted what she wanted; and because there was very little that she wanted, she pursued whatever it might be with a single-mindedness that bordered on obsession. She’d wanted their little house in Queen Anne even though they couldn’t afford it, and in support of their low-priced offer she’d harried the Realtor and the owner’s Realtor with written pleas, statistics, even photographs of baby Bethany, then two, who had never had a yard to play in before. They’d gotten the house. When Ruth had her blood up about something, all you could do was step aside until the train had rocketed past, and then find a way to meet it at the end of the line.

So he ate the food he knew how to prepare and talked with Ruth at least once a day, even if he had to leave a patient in the chair. Often, these conversations followed the lines of what he’d come to think of as Mimi Says. “Mimi says we need to get Bethy into a voice-over class.” “Mimi says we need to buy Bethy audition clothes in corporate colors like red and blue for when she goes out for commercials for Safeway or Toyota.” “Mimi says we need to smile, bend over, and take it in the financial ass.” Not that Ruth had said that last one, of course—at least, not in so many words—but from where Hugh was standing it amounted to the same thing. He was up to
here
with Mimi Says. In the last six weeks Ruth and Bethany had spent more than six thousand dollars, though some of that, of course, was the refundable security deposit on the apartment that was, according to Ruth, an unredeemable piece of shit.

So Hugh worried. He worried all the time, though he’d probably never get credit for it. He worried about Ruth’s nerves, Bethany’s self-image, their overall health and well-being, the Toyota’s solenoid going bad again. But what he worried about the most—and he’d only mentioned this once to Ruth—was the Big One. Every day he seemed to hear or see something in the news about California being way overdue for a major earthquake, and it scared the dickens out of him. The one in the Indian Ocean in 2004 had been a 9.3 and look what it had done to Indonesia. That
exact same thing
could happen in LA any day and anywhere, including under Ruthie’s feet, and then what? But she hadn’t wanted to listen to that, either, saying, “You drive a car every day, and that’s more likely to kill you than any earthquake.”

He’d said, “People in Pompeii scoffed, too, and look how
that
worked out,” but he might just as well have been talking to air.

Last night she had called and told him, with great excitement, “Bethy got a new monologue to perform at the next showcase. And it’s harder than the last one. That means Mimi thinks she’s ready for more advanced material. Isn’t that exciting?”

“How much did it cost?”

There’d been a beat of stony silence and then Ruth had said in an injured tone, “Eleven ninety-nine at French’s bookstore, but that was for a whole
book
of monologues, which she could be using for years.”

“She’s probably a shareholder.”

“Who?”

“Mimi Roberts. She’s probably a silent partner in that bookstore. Is there anything she tells you to do that
doesn’t
involve money?”

Another beat.

“Honey?” said Hugh. There’d been more silence, and then Hugh had sighed and said, “Josh invited me to have dinner with him and Barbara Thursday night.” Josh was an old friend from dental school. “He says I look like crap.”

“I’m sure you look just fine, Hugh,” Ruth said, and in her voice there was an edge of coolness he hadn’t heard in years, not since they’d agreed it was best to talk about his mother as little as possible.

For the first time since the conversation had started he said something he actually meant. “I wish you’d come home.”

“Well, but we’re here now.”

“I know you’re there.”

“Okay,” Ruth said.

“I love you.”

“I know you do, honey,” Ruth had said contritely. “I’ll call you tomorrow. I’m going to put Bethy on the line now.”

He heard a minute or two of muffled conversation that, if he interpreted it right, was about Bethany’s having to pick up the phone even if she
wasn’t
in the mood to talk anymore, and then there she was on the other end of the line, using her false, sweet voice.

“Hi, Daddy.”

“How are you, honey?” he said. “Mom says you’re going gangbusters down there.”

“I guess,” she said in the distracted way that meant she had her Game Boy in play.

“Tell me about today. You feeling like a movie star yet? Your mom says you’re kicking butt.”

“I wish you’d come down here,” she said, and just like that she was eight years old again and homesick at sleep-away camp. Now, as then, it probably meant she was overtired.

“Me, too, honey.”

“So, when
are
you coming?”

“I don’t know yet. Maybe next weekend. How would that be?”

“That’d be awesome, Daddy. I wish you could bring Rianne, too,” she said, suddenly wistful. Ruth had told him she hadn’t made friends at Mimi Roberts’s Studio for the Swindled yet, though apparently there were lots of kids.

“Well, maybe we can work something out if you guys are still there for winter break,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

Her voice was rising, never a good sign in his little girl. “What do you mean, what do I mean?”

“You said
if
we’re still here. You’re not going to make us come home? Because we
can’t
—”

“No, honey,” he soothed. “Of course I’m not going to make you come home.” As though he could, even if he’d wanted to.

“Okay,” she said, “because we really really can’t come home, Daddy.”

“No?”

“No,” she said emphatically, and then she told him she loved him and he told her he loved her back, and she got off the phone and he got off the phone and was left to the deep, deep silence that happens when, by virtue of who’s missing, a house is no longer a home.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, R
UTH MOVED AROUND THE TINY
kitchen at the Alameda Extended Stay Apartments, with its gummy shelves and scorched plastic cookware, making an omelet. She’d resolved that there would be no more calorie and cholesterol fests at Denny’s. They were going to eat healthfully now, because if Ruth gained any more weight she’d have no choice, she’d have to move up another pants size, and the last thing they could afford to buy was new clothes. No, the money they spent down here went exclusively toward Bethany’s career.

Bethany sipped at her glass of orange juice while Ruth plated the eggs, which they gamely choked down as the foundation for what looked like another busy day in Hollywood. Bethany had two auditions—a commercial audition over in Hollywood, and a theatrical one in West Hollywood—with a coaching session in between. Mimi had told Ruth emphatically to have Bethy looking bright and chipper. Neither of them was actually sure what this translated into, but they put Bethy in a cute little skirt and perky top and left the apartment without washing the dishes. With luck, this was the day housekeeping was scheduled to come by.

Their first stop was Kinko’s on Pass Street, where they printed out MapQuest directions and Ruth ruminated over whether it would save money in the long run to look for a cheap printer at Costco, because this Kinko’s business was not only getting expensive, it was also one more logistical complication in a day already chock-f of complexity. Back in the car they did their usual pilot-to-copilot routine, checking off their ready-list of headshot, résumé, sides, audition addresses and phone numbers, water bottles, PowerBars, lip balm, and maps. Troops went into battle less well-equipped.

In an act of God, the traffic was relatively light, and they found the casting studio at 200 La Brea without incident and ten minutes early. Parking, on the other hand, was a nightmare, with nothing available for three blocks in any direction. Ruth finally pulled into the Ralphs parking lot around the corner and Bethy told her they’d get towed—they were parked just two cars away from a sign claiming the lot exclusively for Ralphs grocery customers—and Ruth told Bethy they’d just buy a muffin or something after the audition, which made it all right.

The studio was one floor above a seedy old Petco and consisted of a huge central waiting room that smelled like feet, and onto which eight doors opened. These eight studios were assigned to eight different clients casting eight unrelated commercials. When Ruth and Bethany got upstairs they worked their way into a crowd of people wearing, variously, evening wear, beach attire, golf ensembles, Christmas-themed formal wear, and, most memorably, Halloween costumes. Ruth hugged her purse a little closer in her arms. On a large whiteboard they saw that their commercial audition was being conducted in Studio Six. Bethany filled out a size card, which listed her pants inseam, bust and waist measurements, and hat size. When she was done, a tall young man with spiky black hair and a number of lip rings approached them and took Bethany’s headshot and résumé.

“Up against the wall,” he told Bethany.

“What?”

He held up a Polaroid camera.

“Oh!” Bethany said, and put her back against the wall and smiled. The guy snapped a picture and stapled it to her size card.

“Who’s your mother?” he said.

Bethany gestured toward Ruth.

The guy smiled. “No, girlfriend, your
audition
mother. Have we given you a mother yet?”

“Oh! No.”

The casting assistant gestured to a woman easily five years younger and fifty pounds lighter than Ruth and stood her beside Bethany. “There. She’s your mom. We’ll take you two together. Okay?”