10
Joe Melville, senior agent at Absolute Artists, has only one opening, at three thirty on Friday. Then he goes to London to visit a client on location, and his next appointment isn’t for at least another two weeks. At least that’s what the girl with the British accent and clipped tone told me over the phone. I don’t want to wait. Everything could change by then. Joe Melville might forget all about me by then.
But I’m supposed to be at the club at four thirty on Friday. I need my Friday shift—I need the money—but if you’re even one minute late for a shift, Herb sends you home and calls one of the servers he keeps on call for the night. It’s a brutal setup, but it ensures that we’re always on time and Herb is never understaffed.
Still, I figure I have a shot with Herb if I tell him the situation up front.
“Herb, there’s a slight—and I mean very slight—chance that I will be a few, a very few, minutes late on Friday, because I have a big meeting with a really big agency.” I don’t usually brag like that, but sometimes Herb is impressed by that sort of stuff. He likes taking credit for all the people who’ve come through the club, people he treated like shit but then gets sentimental about after they’ve become successful.
“If you already know you’re going to be late, I have to take your shift, Franny,” he says sternly.
“No, no, I don’t know for sure that I’m going to be late. That’s what I’m saying. I probably won’t be, Herb—it’s only a chance.”
“That’s a chance I can’t take.”
Herb watches a lot of cop shows.
“Forget it,” I sigh. “I shouldn’t have even said anything. I’ll be on time.”
“Ricky!” Herb yells to my waiter buddy Ricky, who’s busy filling up salt and pepper shakers, “Take Franny’s shift on Friday.”
“Herb!” I’m panicking now. I really need the shift. “No. Forget it, I said. Never mind. I’ll be here, I swear. I’ll leave in plenty of time.”
The comics at the bar—the ones who still drink—overheard the whole thing and they chime in, calling Herb an a*shole to his face and buying me a shot of tequila, which they insist I do in front of him. The only people Herb lets boss him around are the comics who still drink, because they’re the funniest and he doesn’t want them to turn sober. Herb tries to scare them, puffing up his chest and announcing, “I’m the boss around here,” but his voice comes out high and squeaky and that only makes them laugh, so finally he gives up, retreating to his office in the basement.
The offices of Absolute Artists are on the thirty-second floor of a sleek glass high-rise building on 56th Street near Fifth Avenue, in the middle of countless stores and apartments I could never afford. I come to this part of town only once in a while to go to Central Park, although I like our park in Brooklyn just as much. The streets are wider here and the buildings are much taller than downtown, and lots of people are wearing suits and carrying briefcases and crossing the street dangerously in the middle of the block. It takes me a minute to figure out west from east, but I finally manage to find the building, where I have to sign in with a guard and write down the time and the name of the agency in a huge book in the lobby.
The guard calls up and says my name to someone on the other end. I’m nervous while I wait to be approved, as if I’m sneaking in instead of going to an appointment. It reminds me of when I was sixteen and trying to get into a bar in East Norwalk with a fake ID. I’d spent the whole ride in the car memorizing Joyce Antonio’s older sister’s birthday, but when instead of asking my birthday, the bouncer asked me, “What’s your sign?” I was caught.
But this guard doesn’t throw me out. He hands me a paper badge with my name printed on it and says yes, it’s okay for me to go up.
The elevator empties out around the twentieth floor, so I quickly try to use the smoked mirror walls to check my face and hair and outfit. I’m wearing my black stretchy turtleneck with my black wool miniskirt, black tights, and Doc Martens lace-up boots, and now I can see in the reflection in the elevator mirror that the skirt is too short. I try to pull it down, but then my sweater isn’t long enough, and if I pull the skirt down to where it looks better, an inch of my stomach shows.
We need a better mirror in Brooklyn, I realize, a proper full-length one that doesn’t require me to stand on the toilet to see my lower half.
Maybe this explains why I haven’t gotten more jobs. I’ve only seen either my upper or my lower self; I haven’t seen the whole thing all at once in a long time. Maybe my upper-lower unity is not what I thought it was. Regardless, I should have bought a new outfit for this meeting. In a store with a full-length mirror.
I need a full-length mirror. I need new clothes. I need a longer skirt. I should go back to Brooklyn and change.
The elevator doors open.
The reception area is a soothing soft gray. Everything is plush and velvet. The carpet looks like shiny gray silk, and the sofa is a silvery suede that appears freshly brushed, as though no one has ever sat on it. There is a long reception desk, behind which sit two of the most beautiful people I have ever seen, also swathed in gray. The perfect-specimen male is reading a script, and the perfect-specimen female is on a headset talking to someone in a British accent—maybe she’s the one I spoke to. Since they both seem busy, I don’t know which one to address, and for a minute I stare dumbly back and forth at both of them. I worry that maybe the guy should be taking a call because the phones keep ringing, although phones here in Gray Land don’t really ring, rather they ding politely and at a very low volume.
“Hi, uh, hiya, I’m uh, I have a …”
“Hello, Ms. Banks, welcome to Absolute Artists.” The guy smiles and stands up, emerging from behind the desk to shake my hand. To my relief, his smile seems genuine and he actually seems friendly. “My name is Richard; I’m Joe’s number two. I was just sitting on the front while Pamela ran down for lunch. I’ll let Joe know you’re here, but in the meantime would you like a glass of water, or a coffee, or an herbal tea perhaps?”
I’m so momentarily confused by what a number two is, how someone can be sitting on the front of anything, and why it’s three thirty and Pamela’s just getting lunch, that suddenly I can’t remember what I like to drink or if I like to drink, or even if I’m thirsty. So rather than answer Richard, I find myself pondering—do I like herbal tea? It always seems like something that I should like more than I do, though some flavors taste like dirty bathwater. Or maybe I don’t like it on principle, because I know it’s supposed to be healthy. If it was filled with calories and fat, would I like it more, and why oh why am I thinking about this right now? This is hardly the time to make a ruling on such a difficult subject.
“What, no scotch?” I say, and I can immediately feel my face flush red. I put my hand on my hip in what I hope is a jaunty manner in an attempt to cover for the fact that I’m trying too hard.
Thankfully, Richard smiles. “I wish.” Then he gestures for me to follow him down the hall, leading me back to a conference room with a large oval table and about ten chairs positioned around it.
“Joe will be right with you,” he says. “You’re going to do great. I’m actually the one he sent to the Showcase, and I told him you were fabulous.” He smiles as he closes the heavy door behind him with a click.
The mention of the Showcase still makes my face burn. I’m hoping he didn’t tell Joe Melville about that part of it. I wonder if people will be tapping me on the shoulder in the subway for years to come. “Excuse me, can you tell me what day of the week it is?” they’ll say, and laugh.
I’m leaning awkwardly against the wall near the door, not sure what to do while I wait. Maybe I should sit. Plenty of people use sitting as a way to pass the time. I look at the giant table and multitude of chairs. Unless a bunch of people are going to join us, this seems a strange room to choose for a meeting of two.
Yes, I think, I’ll sit. But I’m not sure which spot to choose. I’m not totally sure I even want to sit yet, but if I do, it’s hard to tell what the right chair to sit in would be. There are so many to choose from.
I wonder if this is part of the audition, and the chairs are a test. I wonder if I’m being watched on a hidden camera. I wonder if I should be worried about the alarming frequency that the concept of being watched on a hidden camera occurs to me. But if I were being watched, what chair would the people sitting behind the monitor in the hidden control room consider the right one? Does Absolute Artists work only with people who’d choose to sit at the head of the table? Does that say “I’m a star”? Is that the kind of boldness they’re looking for, or does it send the wrong message? Does that chair say “I think I’m so special and important that I’m deserving of the best seat in the house,” and therefore does that tell them I’m going to be very demanding to work with?
But, on the other hand, why would they want to work with anyone who would choose a chair in the middle? Isn’t that a choice that says “I’m totally mediocre”? Isn’t that like choosing a supporting part when you could have had the lead? If I make that choice, I might as well announce to everyone that I have terrible insecurities and can’t imagine myself ever being the star of anything, not even of this conference table.
This is silly. I’m way overthinking this. I’ll just pick a random chair.
I’m in mid-sit when the door behind me opens, nearly hitting the one I’ve chosen.
“Franny Banks. Hello. I’m Joe Melville. Please, have a seat on the end.”
Shit. I picked the wrong one. I awkwardly reverse my halfway-lowered position to stand back up so I can shake his hand. He directs me to a seat at the head of the long table. Then he sits a few chairs away, in one of the side chairs, which throws me. I sort of expected him to sit in the power seat at the head of the other end of the table so that we’d face each other from across the long distance, the way they do in movies about kings and queens, or couples who don’t like each other very much.
Joe Melville looks like he works in a law firm or a bank, not like someone who works with creative types. His dark blue suit fits perfectly, and his skin is taut and smooth and pink and almost shiny, as if he just got a facial and a steam before entering this room. His glow makes me feel sloppy and underdressed. Because he sent Richard, who’s obviously a junior person from the office, I’ve been informed that I have to do my Showcase monologue again for him.
Once we’re seated, Joe stares at me for a moment, and I’m not sure if I should just start my monologue or make small talk by asking him a question, or if I should wait for him to ask me a question or tell me to start. I already feel nervous, since it seems odd to try to do in someone’s office what I did in the theater, which had the energy of the audience and the other actors from my class. We were lit with bright lights, so you couldn’t see the audience very well. But here in this bright office, Joe Melville seems so close to me that I could see every expression on his face, if he were to make any.
“Why don’t we get started,” he says. “Please go ahead and begin your monologue whenever you’re ready. We can chat afterwards. Take your time.”
His words are encouraging, but his face is neutral at best. And when there are two people in a room and one of them is there purely to see the other person do something, the notion that that person could actually “take her time” seems ridiculous.
But I try. I try to take a deep breath, but the air gets sort of stuck and doesn’t go down all the way to my lungs. I need a minute to calm down, but I can’t possibly take it. Are there any actors out there who would go bow their head in the corner or step out in the hall and hum or meditate or jump up and down, or do whatever they liked to do to warm up, to “take their time,” making Joe Melville just sit by himself and wait for them? Maybe somebody could do that, but not me. I’m going to start right away, to show him I’m ready, that I’m always ready to go.
I start my monologue, the same one I did in the Showcase. Over and over in the play my character says, “I’m thirty-two years old,” as if that should explain everything that’s wrong in her life. I don’t know what it’s like to be thirty-two, but I can imagine. I imagine that she means she’s stuck in an in-between time, she’s at an age that isn’t a milestone but more of a no-man’s-land, an age where she’s feeling like her hopes are fading.
That I understand.
When we performed the Showcase in the theater, I was standing up at first, but in this room the table makes that awkward, so I decide to stay seated the whole time. The chair I’m using is a cushiony office chair with wheels, and I become aware about halfway through the monologue that I’ve been sort of sliding back and forth in it, the chair-with-wheels equivalent of pacing. I steady my feet on the floor and command myself to stop moving, which causes me to forget my next line.
Shit.
I’ve totally lost my place.
I pause, trying to stay in character. I look out the window as though I’m (she’s) having an important thought. If I relax it will come to me; if I panic it will not. That’s what I’ve learned in class. If I relax it will come to me.
If I panic it will not.
Relax.
Relax.
Finally, after what seems like a long time, too long, the line comes to me. I finish, then smile awkwardly at Joe to let him know, in case he isn’t sure, that I’m done.
“Delightful,” he purrs. “Very funny.” His voice sounds warm, but his face still doesn’t move very much. I can’t tell if he actually liked it or not.
After a moment, he clasps his hands in front of his face, pointer fingers up, resting on his pursed lips church-steeple-style. Then he taps his lips with his fingers a few times.
“So tell me, Ms. Banks,” he finally says, “about yourself.”
“My, uh, self?”
“Yes. I’d like to know what brought you here. Why you came to New York. What kind of work interests you?”
“Um. Well. Theater, mostly. I want to work in the theater and be a real actor, not the kind with a perfume.”
“A …? I’m sorry, what about perfume?”
“You know, I want to act, rather than have my own perfume.”
“I see. Although one of our clients, Cordelia Biscayne, is having wonderful success with her new perfume, Helvetica.”
“Helvetica? That’s a perfume?”
“Yes. Surely you’ve seen the ads: ‘Wear the font that fits’? She’s really got her finger on the pulse of the recent boom in computers.”
“Oh. That sounds great. I mean, I can’t wait to, uh, smell it.”
“Now tell me, what was it that drew you to acting?”
He waits for my answer, but instead of coming up with a response, I find myself imagining what Joe Melville would be like if he were ever nervous or jumpy or at home wearing a bathrobe. I try to picture him vulnerable in any way, but I can’t imagine him anything but calm and self-assured and glowing and pink. I’m not sure if I like that about him. I’m not sure if I like anything about him.
But mostly, I’m not sure if he likes me, and that means that I have to win him over.
“Why do I want to be an actress?” I say, repeating the question idiotically, trying to buy myself some time.
I hate that question, I want to tell him. I don’t really have an answer.
It’s just the way my brain works, I want to say. It’s as if I don’t have a choice. I read something about someone and I start to imagine being that person. I see someone on the street or onstage or on TV or anywhere—it doesn’t even matter whether it’s a real person or an actor playing a character—and if the person or character is interesting in some way, I put myself in his or her shoes, imagine what it would feel like, what I would say or do if I were that person.
I don’t remember deciding to do this as a career, I want to tell him. There wasn’t any one day where it came to me. My mother died and I started pretending it didn’t happen to me, started imagining what it would be like to have someone else’s life story, and pretending became a relief. It wasn’t a conscious decision. Moving to New York was a decision, but wanting to be an actor was always more of a given. I feel like it chose me. I can’t say that, though:
“It chose me.” That sounds completely pretentious.
“I feel I have something to say as an artist,” I hear myself say. This is an even more insane response, because it isn’t true; I’ve never even thought that before, and it’s a much more pretentious thing to say than the thing I thought was too pretentious to say but that was at least closer to the truth. There’s something about Joe Melville that makes me act like someone I’m not sure I like.
He doesn’t say anything, so I feel obligated to keep going. It’s as if I’m not driving this train anymore. I’m just holding on, trying not to crash completely.
“I’ve always loved the theater,” I say. Thank God. It isn’t original, but it’s true at least. “My dad would take me when I was a kid to whatever little show was playing in our town in Connecticut, and we’d also see most of what was in New Haven, and sometimes we’d come into the city, and it wasn’t just theater—it was ballet and music and modern dance, too.” I pause. “He teaches English,” I add, nonsensically, as if that explains his interest in modern dance.
Joe Melville nods blankly, as though what I’ve said isn’t totally uninteresting, but also as if he might be thinking of something else entirely, like the stock market, or peas. I was determined to win him over, but now I’m feeling jittery and light-headed, and it occurs to me that I uncharacteristically forgot to eat anything this morning. I’m suddenly dying to get out of here. I just want this meeting to be over.
“You realize, I’m sure, how competitive this business can be. Are you ready for the competition?”
He arches one eyebrow, ever so slightly, like an evil character in a children’s story.
Of course I know how competitive it is to be a working actor, because all anyone tells you is how competitive it is and how only 5 percent of any of the union members make enough money to live on, and out of those 5 percent only 2 percent make a lot of money, which Jane says must mean that Bruce Willis pays for everyone’s dental insurance. Of course I’m worried about how competitive it is.
“Oh, I’m not worried. I’m very competitive. I’m from a very competitive family.”
“Sports?”
“God no. No. That’s hilarious to think about.” I laugh, picturing me and my dad—who have been known to spend an entire weekend sitting in the living room reading books one after the other, stopping only to eat a frozen pizza or make popcorn—playing tennis or skiing or kayaking down some rapids.
“Competitive, like, I always made everything a game when I was a kid. I have a good memory and so does my dad, so we’d try to stump each other, like try to start reciting ‘Jabberwocky’ from the middle. Or I would test myself, like, a song would come on the radio and I would pretend I was in the final round of a million-dollar Name That Tune tournament, and I had to guess the title before the chorus started or I’d lose everything. And I was always imagining how to make a tough situation work. Like when the L.L.Bean catalogue would come in the mail, I would pretend I had to get all my clothes for the rest of my life just out of that one catalogue, which might seem easy because they have a lot of variety at L.L.Bean, but not if you think about what you would wear to your wedding.”
I’m a little out of breath. I think I’ve been talking for too long.
Joe Melville is silent for a moment, then asks, “Your wedding?”
“Yes. Or prom. There’s nothing in L.L.Bean for that kind of stuff. Unless you were one of those kids who was really alternative and weird and you could pull off wearing madras pants and duck boots.”
I think I should really leave it at that.
“And a hunting cap,” I add.
Joe Melville is staring at me.
“With a monogrammed tote bag,” I blurt out. “As your purse.”
I laugh a little, trying to cover for the fact that I know I’ve strayed too far from the question, but it comes out more like a witchy cackle.
“Also, I should mention, I just booked a national commercial.”
“Mm-hmm,” Joe says, not looking very impressed. “Those can be a wonderful source of income.”
I’ve lost him entirely, I can tell, but I’m going to try one last time to save myself. I take a deep breath.
“My point is, about the competitive thing? I’ve always naturally made everything a competition in a way, so I already know I’m tough, and it actually comes sort of easily to me, and I’m not afraid to be hurt or rejected because I have naturally low self-esteem anyway, so I always expect the worst, which is weird because I also have a vision for myself where I can totally picture succeeding—well, almost totally, on a good day. And I’m quick and I’m sure that whatever I don’t know yet I can learn quickly, because I’m quick, which I know I just said, because I’m quick—ha ha, get it?—but seriously, for example, today I’ve quickly learned that if I don’t eat anything all day except a giant coffee, I’m bound to crack and start talking about the L.L.Bean catalogue.”
I try to smile confidently, but then I hold the smile for a moment too long, as if I’m posing for the family Christmas card, and after a beat I have to drop my eyes and let them rest at the tops of my shoes. I have no more energy for pretending, but I need to pull myself together because I feel like I could start crying. This has all gone totally wrong, not at all the way I’d pictured it. My life story today was supposed to be me exuding composure, and having far less of a gap between the bottom of my top and the top of my skirt. Once again, I’ve been thwarted by the massive difference between my vision of the successful me and the me I’m currently stuck with.
I force myself to look back up at Joe Melville, expecting him to be frowning, to be horrified, to be speed-dialing security.
But Joe Melville is smiling. Really smiling. It’s the first undeniable human emotion I’ve seen on his face. And then he starts to laugh. I think. Yes, I’m sure of it. He’s laughing, and although it’s not exactly audible, it’s as close as I suspect he comes to having a laughter-like response. He’s nodding his head and smiling and sort of rocking back and forth.
“Franny Banks, you’re a funny girl,” he says. Then he tilts his head to one side and gently shakes it a bit. He’s either having a thought or he’s got water in his ear from a recent dip in the pool.
“I have a thought,” he says.
Well, at least I got that one right.
“Tell me—are you … have you taken other meetings?”
“Other … you mean … other agency meetings?”
“Yes.”
“No, well, yes. I met with Barney Sparks. The Sparks Agency?”
Joe gives me a look as though I’ve said the right thing. “Aww, yes, I remember old Barney. Wonderful agent, in his prime. But you’ve signed no papers?”
“Papers? No.” I think of Barney in his office, with his shabby blazer. I was sure he was the one for me, but I had nothing to compare it to. Thank goodness I didn’t sign anything, thank goodness I waited, because I suddenly very much want to be wanted here, the place with the silky gray carpet and the phones that chime in an elegant way.
“There’s a casting session going on right now, just down the street. They’re seeing a few of our clients for a large recurring role, but there’s another part they mentioned—very small, you understand, smaller than I’d normally send a client of ours to. But I’d love for them to meet you, and see how things go. I know it’s last minute, but are you free?”
I’m supposed to be at work in something less than thirty minutes. If I leave now, as I’d planned, and get a cab, which isn’t a sure thing during rush hour, I might make it there on time. If I go to a casting call, even one just down the street, I’ll definitely be late to work, which I swore to Herb I wouldn’t be, which could mean he’ll take my shift away tonight and maybe take my next shift away, too, and maybe even get mad enough to take away my job entirely.
“Sure,” I say to Joe Melville. “I’m free.”