Seeing Stars (23 page)

“What’s that?”

Allison dipped her finger in her coffee and idly colored in one of the countertop tiles. “It means you divorce your family. It means you have money and stuff so you can be on your own even if you’re not eighteen yet. I think Quinn should get emancipated. I mean, he never even goes home anymore except for Christmas and Easter. When he goes back they totally ignore him and stuff. Jasper thinks Quinn should just tell his family to take a flying—”

“Who’s Jasper?”

“—fuck. What? He used to work at the studio sometimes. I haven’t seen him in a while, though, so maybe Mimi fired him. He wasn’t booking anyway. I heard he wasn’t even getting callbacks anymore. Plus he’s like twenty-five and he isn’t even SAG yet.”

“I haven’t booked anything in a while,” Bethany said apprehensively.

“Mimi would never fire me,” Allison said.

“Do you think she’d fire me?”

“Nah. Not yet. I don’t think she likes your mom very much, though.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. But when they talk on the phone Mimi rolls her eyes sometimes and stuff.”

“I don’t think that’s very nice.”

“Whatever. So do you think Quinn is cute?”

“He’s
sixteen
,” Bethany said.

“He’s almost seventeen,” Allison acknowledged, dipping her finger in her coffee again and licking it. “That’s what I mean.”

“That’s old.”

Allison smiled.

“I mean, I think he’s pretty cute for an
old
person,” Bethany ventured.

“Everyone says he’s gay. He pinched this kid’s nipples once, but what does that prove?”

“He did?”

Allison just shrugged, slapping her dangling flip-flops against the soles of her feet with her toes. “Anyway, Quinn doesn’t come around here anymore. I miss him. He’d be really good as this character, though. As Buddy.”

“Yeah,” said Bethany.

Then it was Allison’s turn to read, and she did, and they both agreed that hers was the best.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, M
IMI DROVE THE GIRLS TO THE
Universal Studios back lot, pulling up to a ghetto of modular trailers that were used as overflow casting studios. Mimi stayed in the car, talking on her cell phone, while Allison led the way to the right trailer and then inside. A tough-faced redhead with a chain of skulls tattoo running all the way up her arm had them sign in, deposit their headshots and résumés on a sloppy pile, and take two of the plastic folding chairs ringing the small room. The floors were so flimsy the girls bounced when they walked. Bethy had a sudden vision of them trampolining right out the window, as though they were wearing those shoes with springs on the bottoms that she’d been asking for since she was six years old. She smiled. Sometimes she just cracked herself up. She thought about telling Allison, but decided not to. Allison would probably just think she was being juvenile. She was always saying that about Hillary and Reba. “You’re just so young,” she’d tell them—or, worse, “I remember when I was your age,” like it had been a thousand years ago instead of just two.

Bethy waited for Allison to pick a chair and then took the one beside her. She’d found that if she fell back until she was six or eight inches from Allison’s right shoulder, she could follow her without
seeming
to follow her.

There were already four other girls waiting, and then two more arrived. The mean-looking casting assistant told the women who were with them that they’d have to wait outside because there was room for only the girls auditioning. When one of the mothers started to protest, the assistant snapped, “
Out!
” and the woman pressed her daughter’s shoulder, whispered, “You’ll do fine, just remember—” and lifted the corners of her mouth to make a smile, then turned around and left. Allison rolled her eyes at Bethany.

Through the thin, hollow door between them and the audition room they could hear a girl saying, “
That’s only in
Harry Potter. Harry Potter
is a book.
”

Allison leaned into Bethany and whispered loudly, “So she sucks.”

Bethy nodded vigorously, because she did. On the other hand, Bethy wondered how
she
would sound when it was her turn. What if she wasn’t any better?

“
So, okay. Do you remember before, when Nana left her dentures in a glass and the next morning they were blue?
”

“Are you nervous?” Allison whispered.

“No,” said Bethany, because she hadn’t been until Allison asked. “Why—are you?”

“I never get nervous.”

“Shhhh,” hissed one of the girls, the one whose mother had told her to smile. Allison made an ugly face at her, at the same time elbowing Bethy conspiratorially in the ribs. Normally Bethy was very respectful of other people, but she didn’t want to seem like a Goody Two-shoes, so she smirked at the girl, too, and then felt bad about it when the girl turned bright pink and hunched down in her seat. She’d probably only been trying to concentrate, to stay in character. Bethy would hate for someone to do to her what they had just done to the girl, but she couldn’t think of any way to take it back except maybe to wink if she could catch the girl’s eye—
we didn’t mean it; you’re one of us
—which she couldn’t because all of a sudden the girl seemed to be crying. Surely they hadn’t done anything bad enough to make her cry? Bethy snuck a look at Allison to see if she was watching the girl, too, but Allison was diving deep into her Coach tote, rummaging around for a nail file. Bethy had noticed that she put a lot of time into her nails. She had pretty hands with long, tapering fingers, so that was probably why. Bethy’s hands were blocky and utilitarian, and she hated them. “These are good, honest hands,” her grandmother had been telling her from the time she was little, taking them in her own hands and turning them over and back, over and back, as though there were some secret message printed there. “These are hands that God loves.”

The girl on the other side of the room seemed to be trying to pull herself together. She sat up straight, cleared her throat, and surreptitiously wiped her nose on her sleeve. Bethy willed her to look up, but the girl didn’t. Allison brushed the fingernail dust off her hands, then buffed her nails on her pants.

The three girls ahead of them on the sign-in sheet each went in and read and came out without redirects or anything besides a perfunctory thank-you. They came out with emptied faces, grabbed their things off the chairs, and slammed the trailer door closed behind them. Every time they did, the windows rattled and the mean casting assistant flinched. Bethy thought she might get mean, too, if she had a door slamming right in front of her twenty or thirty times a day. She’d try to remember to close it gently when they left.

Since Bethany had signed in first, she was called into the audition room ahead of Allison. She hadn’t been able to see inside before, but when she went in she saw that the casting director was Joel E. Sherman. She broke into a smile. “Hi, Mr. Sherman! I didn’t know we were going to be auditioning for you.”

He motioned for her to shut the door. “Yeah, well, I’m just filling in.” He walked behind a video camera the size of a deck of playing cards, found her in the viewfinder, picked up a mangled copy of the sides, and said, “Okay, go.”

He was all business, which was confusing. Didn’t he recognize her? She thought about saying, “It’s me, Lucy!” but that would probably just make things more confusing, so she took a deep breath and slated, using Rabinowitz for her last name. She was always Rabinowitz now. Mimi had even had them print a whole new stack of headshots with Rabinowitz on them instead of Roosevelt. Bethy thought he’d appreciate that, since he was the reason, but he didn’t react except to look up at her and say, “Go.”

“
What do you mean, you’re not buying it?
”

Just outside the door, Bethy knew, Allison was sitting there listening.

“All right, stop,” Joel said before they’d even gotten to the second page of the sides, turning off the camera. “Stop, stop. You just dropped two lines.”

“What?”

“Have you even read the sides?”

“Yes.”

“Then show me.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Sherman.”

The casting director just shook his head. “C’mon, kid. Start over.”

“Oh, thank you.”

He fussed with the camera. “I don’t usually allow do-overs,” he said, “so get it right.”

But she was too rattled.

He switched off the camera, walked around her, and opened the door. “Next time you audition for a lead, honey, at least be off-book.”

Bethy flushed a deep crimson. She could feel the tips of her ears getting hot, and there was a telltale roaring in her ears that meant she was this close to crying.

“Go on,” he said, making a shooing motion toward the door with his hands. “Go.
Go!
”

She went. Allison was on her feet, fluffing her hair. Her lip gloss was fresh, her hair shiny, her clothes in perfect order. She sailed right past Bethany and into the audition room as though she didn’t even see her.

Stunned, Bethy just sat there listening to Allison’s audition. From what she could hear, which was everything, Allison did a beautiful job. The casting director gave her several redirects and then thanked her. When she came out she hitched her Coach bag over her shoulder, gave her hips a little twitch, and danced out the trailer door pushing Bethany ahead of her and singing, “I’m-get-ting-a-call-back.”

“How do you know?”

“I always know.”

And then she slammed the door.

M
IMI HAD KEPT THE CAR IDLING AND THE AIR-CONDITIONING
turned on. To hell with global warming: she was old, fat, and hot, and as far as she was concerned, that trumped every polar bear on the planet.

Allison skipped out to the car and hopped into the front seat beside Mimi. Bethany Rabinowitz trudged after her, looking like she was about to cry. As the girls described it once they’d buckled in and Mimi had driven into the blessed, blessed shade of Riverside, she’d choked during the audition, which was a shame, because Joel E. Sherman was a rainmaker. Allison had had her shot three years ago and had gotten a couple of costar roles out of it. Not that Bethany Rabinowitz had a snowball’s chance in hell of landing a lead role, but still, she’d be lucky now to land even a two-line part.

Allison put her earbuds in and began rapping along to some song on her iPod. Mimi pondered for about the millionth time enrolling the girl in a hip-hop class at Millennium. Look what
High School Musical
had done for Ashley Tisdale. Allison’s voice was just as good, possibly better. But getting the mother to pay was the trick. The woman had gotten stingy in the last six months, which was ironic given that she was now a rich oilman’s wife. She’d shelled out money left and right when she’d been poorer, so the new husband must have put on the brakes. Allison had said he was a cheapskate. Maybe Mimi would have to just bite the bullet and pay for the lessons herself. She’d be paid back and more when—
when
, not if—Allison hit. Of that Mimi was sure.

“Can we stop and get something to eat?” Allison said, plucking out her earbuds. “I’m starving. Hey, Carlyle. Aren’t you starving?”

In the rearview mirror Mimi saw Bethany shrug miserably.

“I’ll do the McDonald’s drive-through, but that’s all,” Mimi pronounced. “We’ve already been gone for two hours.” Mimi hated to be away from the studio, especially to cart kids back and forth to auditions, but all the pliable parents were out of town. She’d have e-mails up the wazoo by now.

“Not Mickey D’s, we’ve done that tons of times this week,” Allison moaned. “Come on, Mimi, take us someplace decent.
Please?
”

Mimi checked on Bethany again in the backseat and thought it looked like the girl was rallying at the prospect of food. “All right. We’ll do Thai.” Thai food was quick and cheap, and there was a little place in a strip mall just four or five blocks from the studio.

“Yay,” Allison crowed. “Hey, Carlyle, aren’t you glad?”

Bethany shrugged.

“Come on, cheer up!” Allison said. “Stop being a whiny baby or we’re going to have to slap you around.”

“I’m not a whiny baby,” Bethany said, trying to hang on to her petulance but starting to smile in spite of herself. The girl had an excellent nature, Mimi had to give her that.

T
HE MINUTE THEY GOT BACK TO THE STUDIO
B
ETHY CALLED
Ruth and told her about the disastrous audition. Then she directed her to an Internet link so she could read the sides.

“Now?” Ruth said.

“Yes, please.”

Ruth was quiet for a few minutes and then she said, “What is this for again?”

“A feature film. It’s called
After
.”

“I take it it’s not a comedy,” Ruth said dryly.

“Mom.”

Ruth sighed. “Honey, Carlyle is one of the leads.”

“I know,” Bethy wailed, and started crying.

“Why are you crying?”

“Because I screwed up and now Allison’s going to get a call-back and I’m not.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, that’s going to happen sometimes.”

“But I don’t want her to get it! If I can’t get it, I don’t want her to get it, either. But shouldn’t I want her to? She’s my best friend.”

“Honey, Allison is
not
your best friend,” Ruth said.

Bethy bristled. “She
is
, Mom. She’s the only one who understands about acting and stuff. I mean besides you. So shouldn’t I want her to get it?”

Ruth hesitated for a minute and then said, “Honey, is it possible that she might have made you screw up the audition? Deliberately, I mean? Did she try to make you nervous or distracted or anything?”

Bethy frowned. “I don’t know. No. She’s my friend. She wouldn’t do that.”

“No?”

“No,” Bethy said firmly, but it made her think, and she didn’t want to think. What she wanted was to take it all back—making the girl in the waiting room cry, the flubbed lines, and the cold look on the casting director’s face—and start again, except that she’d have Ruth drive her instead of Mimi, and Allison wouldn’t be in the car and then sitting right beside her in the waiting room, criticizing the other girls. It would be just her and Ruth and she’d be in character, in that special place in her head where she didn’t
pretend
to be the character, she
was
the character. She’d be Carlyle talking to her brother and trying to make him feel better about something awful that she didn’t even really understand except that she loved him and he was in pain. That’s what she wanted to show Joel Sherman; that’s what she had to offer him, if only he’d give her one more chance.