Starry-Eyed (24 page)

Wait? You mean, we all got the job?

I think the roof of the theater actually lifted off! We screamed and cheered as all of our nerves were released. It was the loudest, most joyous sound I'd ever heard.

Then the producer said, “We are now going to announce the forty-eight of you that we would like to be the very first opening cast.” Suddenly the silence, tension, and nerves were back in the auditorium. Of course we
all
wanted this icing on the cake.

I was a lucky, lucky lad that day. Just four weeks later, my mum and dad were dropping me off at the Holiday Inn at Marble Arch, where I met my fellow, opening castmates for the first time. This was where we would stay during rehearsals. I shared a room with three other kids, and it became our home away from home.

The next four months were full of brilliant new experiences from fittings for tailor-made costumes, fancy new haircuts, tech runs on dangerous giant, moving sets, opening night parties, television specials, and standing ovations.

For most of us this was our first and only experience as professional performers. Every single moment from that first nervous dance call to the bows after our final show (picture a stage full of kids blubbering hysterically) made me realize
this is it
. This was what I had to do when I grew up! And I'm so, so lucky to have been able to make a living following my ambitious dream.

G
AVIN
L
EE
originated the role of Bert in the London production of
Mary Poppins
, for which he was Olivier Award—nominated. He went on to play the role on Broadway, for which he received Drama Desk and Theatre World Awards as well as a Tony Award nomination. While in New York City, Gavin has appeared at Carnegie Hall in
Show Boat
and, on TV, guest starred in
Law & Order: SVU
and
The Good Wife
. His other London credits include
Crazy for You, Peggy Sue Got Married, Me and My Girl, Over My Shoulder, Oklahoma!, Contact
, and
Top Hat
. His regional theater credits include
Singin' in the Rain, Snoopy
, Noël Coward's
Masterpieces, Of Thee I Sing, Saturday Night
, Alan Ayckbourn's
Whenever
, and
Chicago
.

OTHER LIFE

Garret Freymann-Weyr

When Megan Walker was trying to survive being young, she spent almost three years as a moderately successful model and actress.

Megan had landed her first job at twelve, when a woman named Erika Bauer, who was from her mother's other life, visited New York. She lived in Berlin (almost everyone from the other life lived in Europe) and had come to the States to shoot an ad campaign for a couture label, which had been taken over by a luxury conglomerate. Erika had been hired to reintroduce the label by using one of the models from its old advertisements and Megan's mother was the one chosen. Back when her name was Lena Legarde instead of Lena Walker, her mother had been a very successful model referred to in the trades as
High Fashion's Movie Star
. Megan often thought of Lena's other life as an old and valuable fur coat, wrapped in tissue paper and put away.

It was always exciting and confusing when anyone from the other life appeared, making Lena's daughters and husband remember this precious, unworn garment. This time, however, the talk turned to actually using it. There were new technologies, Erika Bauer told them when she came to the apartment for drinks. She could manipulate old photos and blend them in a way that had once been a dark room trick, but was now quite simple.

Megan's father was uncharacteristically quiet, just listening to Erika talk. Lena sipped at her wine, her usual half smile in place; it was always
impossible to tell what she was thinking. Megan's sister sat without moving, a sign that Liv was bored.

Trying not to stare at Erika, Megan instead studied her family and made herself useful by passing the cheese plate. Erika was the first woman Megan had ever seen whose face suggested that beauty could look more like strength than adornment. Erika's body was long and spare, and her big hands moved in rhythm with her talking so that it looked as if two large birds were fluttering all around her.

“I take it that this is not exactly a social call,” Jesse Walker finally said, surprising his daughters by the hardness in his voice and eyes.

Normally Jesse loved having guests, lavishing them with welcome.

“No, not entirely,” Erika said.

“Lena said that would be the case,” their father said, as if their mother weren't sitting right next to him and perfectly capable of speaking for herself.

“Did she?” Erika asked.

“Either way, I am delighted for the chance to see you,” Lena said finally. “Of course.”

“As am I,” Erika said, the back of her hand briefly brushing against Megan's as she accepted another piece of Port Salut. “Of course.”

If she hadn't been holding the tray, Megan would have snatched her hand away. Touching Erika was as surprising as winter's static electricity, which flew off of door handles and people's cold fingers. Except that Erika's skin was warm and made Megan super aware of her own. It wasn't unpleasant but it was still a shock.

“Tell me, how is Stéphanie?” Lena asked.

Stéphanie, it turned out, was Erika's friend (or roommate, it wasn't clear) and a former model who was now a fabric designer. Megan always loved to hear about women who had once worked with her mother. She wondered if this Stéphanie also had a box like the big leather hat box which Lena kept under the bed. In it were eleven magazine covers, sixty-seven print ads, and endless pictures of her modeling all manner of clothes, walking down runways.

Megan and Liv understood that their mother, though no longer famous for it, was still seriously beautiful. They could see it in the way people—not only men—were almost stunned into a silent appreciation. The odd part, for Megan at least, was how Lena didn't even notice. Whenever mention of her fame arose, Lena would always say, “Briefly famous. And for such a silly thing.”

While Erika and Lena spoke about what had convinced Stéphanie to move from Paris to Berlin (“Lord knows, it wasn't me,” Erika said, citing a job offer with more creative control), Megan remembered the time she'd asked her mother what it felt like to be beautiful.

“It's like having a Siamese twin,” Lena had said. “You don't love walking through life joined to this other being, but . . . it's part of how you live.”

“I have the old negatives of you from that campaign,” Erika was saying. “The agency wants to use the ones from Rome.”

“The spring collection,” Lena said. “Yes, that makes sense.”

Liv arched her neck while flexing and pointing her feet, indicating that she was well past bored and was now irritated. Liv, who spent most of her waking hours at ballet class, knew a lot about how to plié, but wasn't interested in much else. Megan had seen her sister dance professionally many times, in awe of how the years of hard work turned to magic on the stage, but being bored as much as Liv was seemed too high a price to pay for art.

Or magic.

“I have an idea that the company loves,” Erika said, slowly dragging out her words. “I would like to shoot you with your daughters.”

Megan thought that Erika was studying Liv. Everyone always looked at Liv, whose body practically shrieked,
Soon, I will be a prima ballerina
. Megan felt that she had, over the years, learned a lot by watching people look at both her mother and her sister.

“Would you,” Lena said. It was not a question.

“Absolutely not,” Jesse said, in his I-am-the-Dean-of-Faculty-and-I-know-best voice.

“Darling, it's up to the girls,” Lena said, looking at her daughters as if
seeing them for the first time.

It often seemed to Megan that her mother was surprised by who she and Liv were. It was as if Lena were forever meeting them for the first time. Sometimes she was clearly pleased to know them—but not always.

“I'm a dancer, not a model,” Liv said, her voice dripping with disdain.

Liv was fifteen and viewed everything about her mother as being beneath contempt. Megan could never understand how her graceful and talented sister didn't see how she too was walking through life with almost the same Siamese twin as their mother's.

Most of the time, Megan was content not to have a similar burden. It was true that people often remarked that Megan was beautiful, but she thought they were probably being polite. Her face and body each had nice bits, but there was nothing about either that would make her famous.

“Thank God you have some sense,” Jesse said to Liv.

“You always say I have no sense,” Liv reminded her father.

Jesse did not think much of his eldest daughter, who tested through the roof, wanting to become a dancer. Even though the director of Liv's school said fame was waiting in the wings for her and it was clear that she loved it, their father stayed focused on how a dancer's fame was fleeting.

“Today you do,” Jesse said, and then to Lena, “This is a bad idea.”

Lena, her half smile firmly in place, shrugged lightly. It was the great and infuriating thing about Lena; she rarely got upset or overly involved in family decisions (from what to eat to where they spent vacations). Megan could never tell if her mother didn't care what any of them did or if she simply found their deliberations pointless.

“It might be, but it's not my idea or my decision,” Lena told Jesse. “Neither is it yours.”

Watching Erika listen to her parents, Megan wondered what it would be like to watch people who were looking, for once, at her. She thought she might see herself in a new way. She had not yet had her growth spurt and was, as far as she could tell, hopelessly ordinary while also being unlike anybody else at her small, private school.

“I think we should say no,” her father said calmly, as if perhaps Lena had mistaken his displeasure with the idea for agreement.

In a month, Megan would enter seventh grade, and was more interested in horses than boys. Her uncle owned a farm in North Carolina, and Megan loved taking care of his horses, mucking out the stalls, and cleaning their hooves with the sort of enthusiasm with which smart kids played chess and superpopular ones listened to music. She had friends (she belonged to a mildly popular group that held bake sales, got involved in Yearbook, and handed in homework on time), but Megan knew she had no real desire to spend time with any of them.

“Yes, you have been clear on that,” Lena said. “Nevertheless, it's up to the girls.”

Of course, none of the facts she could point to (loving horses or being neither an overly smart kid or a superpopular one) explained how deeply odd she knew herself to be.

“I'll do it,” Megan said, unable to stay in her thoughts any longer.

Surely a camera held by the unusually beautiful Erika Bauer would produce a photo that would show how she belonged, not just to her family, but in the world.

“No,” her father said, as if her wishes didn't matter. “You will not.”

“But I want to,” she told him, scrambling for a reason that wouldn't reveal anything too embarrassing. “I've always liked hearing about Mum's other life and this way I could see it for myself.”

This, at least, was true. She was curious about what a photo shoot was like.

“Models are stupid,” Liv said, rather pointedly looking at their mother.

“Beauty is a form of genius,” Megan shot back, not sure where she had heard that, but fairly certain someone important had said it.

“I doubt Oscar Wilde had clothes and silly pictures in mind when he wrote that,” Jesse Walker said.

Erika Bauer laughed, a rich sound that traveled right into Megan's bones. She looked at Megan as if she were seeing through her. As if Jesse had
not spoken and as if neither Lena nor Liv were of any importance to her.

“If your father will let me,” Erika said, “I will turn you into a genius.”

. . . . .

Megan did not turn into a genius, but a photo of her and Lena made to look as if they were sitting at a café table in Rome sharing a coffee with the Lena of twenty years ago ran as a two-page spread in a lot of magazines. The campaign was written up in one of the city's daily papers, and that was how Megan got a manager.

Her uncle told her that the horses would wait for her until
all this silly business blew over
. Jesse, still dead set against it all, insisted that Megan promise to quit the minute her grades fell.

“And you need to take typing,” he said. “Every actress has a second job”

“Okay, I'll take typing,” she said, trying not to laugh.

A second job? She barely had a first.

“And we're going to the theater more often,” he said. “There's no point in having you grow up thinking actors only work in front of a camera.”

Megan nodded. Sure. She had always loved everything about going to the theater. The seats that looked comfortable but weren't, the silent darkness that held stories, costumes, people, sets, and light that pooled on the stage and bounced off the actors, making them pale but also very alive.