13
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BEEEP.
I’ve had no auditions in the last two weeks and I’m starting to get nervous.
Joe called the Monday after the Kevin and Kathy shoot to congratulate me again, and say that he wanted me to come into the agency at some point and meet the other agents, because “they were all very excited” about me. But the first two weeks after Kevin and Kathy were so full of auditions and meetings with casting people, there wasn’t time to schedule an appointment. And in the last three weeks, no one called to set one up.
I tried my best to be prepared for every audition, but I’d never had such full days before. It was all a blur of papers coming off the roll from the fax machine and time spent rushing from one building in Manhattan to another. But then we ran out of fax paper and I kept forgetting to get a new roll, so I had to cold read a few times, and I’ll admit, there were a few days when I showed up at an audition not really prepared. And then there was the big audition I had prepared for, a small part in a Broadway play directed by Mike Stanley, but I was so nervous to meet him that I left out an entire page of the scene and he didn’t ask me to read it again, and when he asked me if I studied with anyone in town I went blank and couldn’t think of Stavros’s name, and I went home and cried.
“The feedback was that you seemed a little green,” Richard explained, delicately.
Those first few weeks, Joe would come to the phone when I called, but now Richard, Joe’s assistant, is the only person I get. I thought that was fine at first since he was the one who actually saw me at the Showcase, but now I worry that I’ve been demoted. It was Richard who sent me to the photographer that “Joe loves” to get new head shots, even though I’d had new ones done just a few months ago that cost over a hundred dollars. Richard said that Joe thought mine were too smiley and commercial, and I needed some that looked like I could be a dramatic actress, not just a comedienne. I thought my new one looked more angry and stiff than dramatic, but he assured me the photo would transform after it was retouched, a painstaking process using a tiny paintbrush to take out imperfections on the blown-up negative before the photos can be copied. The retouching took two weeks, and the eight-by-ten glossy copies cost three hundred dollars. Now I have no freckles, and the half-moon area under my eyes looks oddly whiter than the rest of my face, but I still look angry.
I thought it made sense that I’d had no auditions while the agency was waiting for the new pictures. But there were no auditions the week after I dropped them off, either.
I’m worried that those first three weeks were my chance to prove that getting the Kevin and Kathy job wasn’t some sort of fluke, but I blew it and they’ve forgotten about me now. I read an article in Backstage that said it’s important to remind your agent that you are available and interested in working, so I finally braced myself and called Absolute at the beginning of the third silent week. The problem was that because I didn’t really have a reason to call, I sort of choked on the phone. I asked to speak to Joe, and Richard said he was sorry, Joe was in a meeting, but could he help me with anything?
“Um, uh, no that’s okay.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, well, actually, as long as we’re talking, I was just wondering if there’s anything I can be doing, or if there’s something I’m not doing, or, um, are my head shots working okay?”
“Your head shots?”
“Yeah, the new ones. I was just checking. I mean, Joe picked that serious one where my hand is on my chin, right?”
“I think so, I have it here somewhere … yes, your hand is on your chin, and your head is sort of tilted to the side?”
“Yeah. Is that … I wonder if it’s sort of cheesy? And maybe that’s why, uh, no one is calling?”
I didn’t intend to complain or bring this up. I must sound rude, like I’m telling them how to do their job. I’m just looking for someone to give me some sort of explanation for why nothing is happening.
“But Franny, Joe loves this shot. I mean, I do, too, but Joe really loves it, which is why he picked it. He’s really a master at choosing the picture that best represents you. So, no problem there. Sooo, there’s really nothing else for you to do right now but wait. Sorry.” There’s a pause where I feel as though Richard wants to say something else, but then doesn’t.
“So … anything else, Franny?”
“Yeah, no, thanks. That’s it. Just, uh, checking in.”
“Okay, thanks Franny, I’ll let Joe know you called … to check in.”
It was worse when I heard Richard say it back.
I thought my life was going to radically change when I got an agent, but it’s exactly the same except that I’m spending more money.
I finally got the check from Kevin and Kathy, but I was shocked to see over half of it gone to taxes and commission to the agency.
“That’s it?” I said to Dan as he looked the check over carefully. I hoped he’d find some error, or maybe realize I’d filled out the tax form incorrectly. But he handed it back and shook his head.
“They’re taxing you like you make that kind of money every week,” he explained.
“But I don’t,” I said helplessly, and he shook his head in sympathy.
On top of that, I’m still recovering from the various shifts that Herb docked me for shooting Kevin and Kathy that Friday night, plus the cost of the new photos. I had to start picking up some shifts at Best Intentions, the catering place where I briefly worked when I first moved here. At first, watching weddings from the back of the grand ballroom was inspiring. I’d tear up during the toasts, even while clearing glasses. But after a while, the demanding brides wore me out, the grand ballroom felt impersonal and overused, and I became as jaded as the waiters I swore I’d never become, who start eyeing their watches exactly at eleven P.M. and prying half-full glasses out of the drunk attendees’ hands.
I find myself wondering whether things would be different if I’d signed with Barney Sparks. I imagine calling him up to “check in,” and I don’t think I would have felt so awkward. Plus, he has no assistant, so he actually would have had to take my call. But I can’t allow myself to picture that—I signed a yearlong contract with Absolute.
Getting an agent was undeniable progress, an actual box I could check and an accomplishment I could point to. But if you have an agent who never calls you for anything, I’m not sure it’s any better than not having an agent. In fact, I think it’s worse. Before, I wasn’t being rejected so much as I was going unnoticed. Now I have someone who noticed me at first, but now seems to have found me lacking.
I called my dad after the sixth week of not receiving any calls from Absolute.
“I think my agent forgot about me.”
“I think my daughter forgot about me.”
“Dad.”
“Who is this?”
“Har-har. It’s your daughter, the unemployed actress.”
“She lives!”
“I think I need a manager.”
“Why do you need a manager? I thought you just got an agent.”
“I did, but they aren’t getting me any auditions.”
“If you have no auditions, what’s there to manage?”
“A manager would help me get auditions.”
“How could a manager do that when the agents can’t?”
“Well, managers have fewer people, so they can focus just on you.”
“Then why do you have an agent at all? Why not just have a manager?”
“You have to have an agent. They’re the only ones allowed to negotiate contracts. Agents are franchised. Managers aren’t.”
“So, anyone can say they’re a manager?”
“Well, sort of, yes.”
“Why don’t I say I’m your manager and go tell your agent he’s doing a crappy job for my favorite client?”
“Thanks, Dad.”
A few days later, Jane and I are in the living room sitting cross-legged on either end of the couch and flipping through channels when Still Nursing comes on. Dan is working at the dining room table, but he always says he isn’t bothered by us sitting and talking in there while he’s writing due to his uncanny ability to completely tune us out, and in fact our chatter is so incessant, we’re like human white noise. It’s a handy thing to have in a roommate.
“I think I don’t look right,” I say, mesmerized by the actress on the screen.
“Right for what?”
“You know, in general. For show business. I think that’s why I’m not getting any calls from the agency.”
“What do you think is the right way to look?”
“You know, more like these girls on Still Nursing.” I gesture toward the television, where a buxom blonde in a short skirt and open doctor’s coat is struggling to reattach the I.V. of an elderly male patient by straddling his hospital bed, “accidentally” smothering him with her cleavage. The studio audience screams with laughter.
“Uchh. Gross.” Jane waves a hand dismissively. “This show. It’s the absolute end of civilization. One male nurse in a pediatric ward with all female doctors! What a premise! Look at them—none of them are believable as doctors. Half of them got new boobs between seasons one and two. I saw you last season, ladies—am I to believe you suddenly grew those mammaries over the summer? Please. They’re too skinny, anyway.”
The blond doctor on the television drops her clipboard on the floor and as she leans over to pick it up, the heart monitor of the patient starts beeping rapidly. More laughter.
“Yeah, but maybe that’s what people should be saying about me. Like when The Enquirer does those covers where they call someone SCARY SKINNY! People don’t look at it because they think the people on the cover look bad. They look at the magazine because they wish it was them. They want to be scary skinny, too. I’d be proud if people said, ‘She’s too skinny.’ ‘Have you seen that actress, Franny Banks? I’m worried about her. Someone should give her a candy bar, she looks like she might faint.’ That’s what the people want. That’s what makes people look up to you.”
“I’m going to order you some of those ‘Stop the Insanity’ tapes.”
“Casey told me about this special pot they have in L.A. that doesn’t give you the munchies. That’s apparently how those Still Nursing girls got so skinny.”
Jane shakes her head and speaks to me gently, like you might to a toddler who is sleepwalking. “Casey? Casey, the model who cries in every scene, told you that?”
“Yeah. The pot is really expensive, though, and you have to know somebody who knows somebody in order to get it. Somebody she went to high school with got her some. She could probably get me some, too. Maybe I should start smoking the skinny pot.”
Jane clicks the remote and Still Nursing fades to black. She turns to face me. “Frances. Truly. This kind of reasoning results in being found dead at three A.M. in a bathtub at the Chelsea Hotel. You’re an actor. You used to just worry about being an actor. And anyway, the last time we tried to smoke pot, you fell asleep by eight thirty.”
I slump back against the couch with a sigh. “But there has to be some trick. All those people can’t just be walking around starving and happening to look great all the time. They must know something that the rest of us don’t. Or worse—maybe there isn’t a trick. Maybe they are walking around hungry all the time. Maybe that’s the difference between being successful or unsuccessful. Maybe I’m too weak. I’m too concerned with feeling good to be willing to feel as bad as I should to be successful.”
“Why would feeling good be bad? People spend their lives trying to feel good. You’re not supposed to walk around miserable all the time. You have to eat to stay alive. These are truths you used to know. Who says there’s some agreed-upon ideal, anyway? The girls on Still Nursing aren’t appealing to everyone—just to the dumb people who watch that one show. One dumb show isn’t for everybody. Why can’t you just be yourself and find the people who like that?”
“I know. You’re right. Hey, maybe I should get my hair cut in The Rachel.”
“Franny. My ex-stepmother, who moved to the suburbs of Long Island, has The Rachel, as do all of her friends. It’s trickled out to the masses already. You missed the Rachel hairdo boat.”
“See? That’s what I’m talking about. I have follower hair. Successful actresses have forward-thinking, trendsetting, exciting hair that women in the suburbs want to emulate. I should be thinking less about my work and more about my hair.”
“Can’t you go back to the time when you thought you would magically get an agent if you memorized a Shakespeare sonnet every day? That made about as much sense as this, but at least it was more productive. What about doing important work, like you always said? What about the theater and truth and connecting with humanity, or whatever you used to talk about?”
“I have an agent now. I’m trying to work in the professional world. There seem to be rules. I do still care about humanity and, you know, that other stuff. I’m just trying to be a—a professional. In a professional-looking package.”
“I guess. I don’t know. I just can’t picture Diane Keaton or Meryl Streep obsessing over The Rachel or the dingbats on Still Nursing. Isn’t it more important that you’re a talented actor?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I’m not sure about, I guess. I used to think that. But now I think I should be talented and have better hair. I’m confused. I think it’s all important. Maybe I should be a vegan.”
“Frances. Seriously. Get a grip. You’re not going to ever look like those dumb girls. But if you want to, I don’t know, be some sort of superhuman, don’t just smoke and throw away the inside of your muffins. Go get a book about nutrition or something.”
“I know about nutrition already,” I say, waving her away.
Jane looks doubtful. “Is that so? Name three food groups.”
“Easy,” I say, folding my arms. “Chinese, Mexican, tuna on a bagel.” She shakes her head, and I smile at her sweetly. “You know, Jane, I did buy actual vegetables, just last week.”
“Yes, I noticed that. This may come as a shock to you, but many studies have shown there’s at least a slight nutritional difference between spinach that’s rotting in the crisper drawer and spinach that’s ingested into the body.”
“Details,” I scoff.
“I give up,” she says, heading for the kitchen. “More coffee?”
I stare down at my bagel, which seems to eye me warily back. Maybe Jane’s right. Maybe I need more education. I wonder what Penelope Schlotzky eats on Sunday. Probably not bagels. Maybe bagels are my problem. Although, one bagel doesn’t seem like a lot of food. I decide I will finish the bagel but not eat anything the rest of the day. Except maybe a salad for dinner.
Or soup.
No. Soup has hidden stuff in it. Yes, I’m fairly certain, soup is another food that seems innocent but is actually fattening.
Chicken broth. That only has like seven calories. Can I get chicken broth at the deli? Where can I get chicken broth …
“You don’t need to change anything, Franny. I think you look good.”
I swear it takes me a second before I realize it’s Dan who is speaking. I had totally forgotten he was in the room. He has never before acknowledged anything we say while he’s working. We know for sure he tunes us out completely. We’ve tested it. Usually it takes three or more tries of us practically yelling at him to get his attention before he’ll even look up, blinking like we’ve startled him out of a dream.
The first thing I wonder is whether Dan has been secretly listening to our living room conversations all along, but Dan is a pretty honest guy and not devious like that. If he were ever distracted, he would have joined in the conversation or kicked us out while he was working.
It’s weird, but I’m pretty sure he hasn’t been listening all these months, that he hasn’t ever heard us before. I’m pretty sure I broke through to him just this once.
“Thanks, Dan,” is all I can think of to say.