5
You have four messages.
BEEEP
Frances, it’s me, your father. I believe your Showcase appearance event is tonight. If we ever actually spoke, I would be able to wish you luck personally, but in these days of advancing technology I suppose I will have to settle for wishing you recorded, taped, good fortune. We’re starting Heart of Darkness next week. Please call me by Lord of the Flies at the very least. Also, about Katie’s wedding—oh well, not to nag—just give me a call.
BEEEP
Franny, it’s Casey. I’ll meet you at the theater at five, okay? Can we run lines? I keep messing up that one speech where I confess to the murder. I’m totally freaking out, are you? See you tonight!
BEEEP
Hi, Franny, it’s Clark. Just, uh, seeing how you are. Call me.
BEEEP
Dude, it’s cousin Katie. Your dad says you can only come to the wedding and not the rehearsal dinner ’cause you need to keep your shift on Fridays? Please don’t sweat it—I’m just glad you can come at all. I can’t wait for you to meet him. See you in June.
BEEEP
The applause is dying down, but the blood is still pounding in my ears so loudly I can’t tell whether it was the really appreciative kind of applause or the “we feel sorry for you” kind. My face is burning as I hurry offstage, still trying to make sense of what just happened—on this of all nights.
Before this, the thing worrying me the most was how miffed Herb seemed that I had to take a night off from the club, and the confusing fact that James Franklin asked for my phone number when he’s clearly dating Penelope. But in light of what happened tonight, everything I’ve worried about in the last two weeks—or ever, really—seems totally insignificant.
The scene with Casey went pretty well. I played a lawyer who interrogated her until she broke down and confessed to being the killer and wept, of course. While the stagehands whisked the table and chairs away, I had just a brief moment to change into my costume for the monologue in the tiny curtained area backstage. I don’t know what I was thinking.
Well, I do know what I was thinking. I was thinking that my character is supposed to have just had sex with her boss, so she’d be wearing a bathrobe, and she’d be naked underneath. I mean, I had underwear on, but no leotard or slip or anything, so that I’d have the extra feeling of, what? Vulnerability or something? No one will know, I thought. It would just be my secret, a secret between me and myself that I hoped would give me some special edge over the competition.
But then it happened.
Who falls onstage wearing nothing but a bathrobe?
Why? Why? Why? Why?
The monologue was going so well, too, or at least I think it was. I’m not sure of anything now. The audience seemed to be laughing in all the right places. That’s actually what threw me, I think. Their laughter threw my whole rhythm off—having to wait until it died down before I could continue. But still, it was all okay until I tried to sit down. The stage was just so dark. And the lights were in my eyes. It was like that dream I always have where I’m frozen onstage, confused about what play I’m supposed to be doing, so nervous I lose the ability to speak.
But it shouldn’t have been complicated to find the one piece of furniture on an otherwise bare set. A chair—just sit in a chair, how hard can that be? I should never have planned to sit; that was my first mistake. My character wouldn’t sit anyway—she’s too agitated about having just slept with her boss. Why did I ever decide she should sit? If only—no, don’t think about it.
And then I just missed the chair. Just by the tiniest bit. I could tell when I started to sit down that the chair wasn’t where I thought it was, wasn’t totally beneath me, but I thought I had it, I really did.
It’s just that Jane’s silk bathrobe is so slippery—much more slippery than the terry-cloth one I used in rehearsals. I was excited when she loaned it to me because it’s exactly the sort of sexy thing you’d wear if you thought you might sleep with your boss, and I thought the bold blue and white flowers would help me stand out. I should never have borrowed that robe. If only I’d stuck with the terry-cloth rehearsal one, none of this would have happened.
To my horror, the robe flew open as I slipped. I mean positively billowed open, as if I’d passed over a subway grate.
There’s no way at least some of the audience didn’t see at least some …
Oh God, don’t think about it.
And then what happened? Did I say something? I think I said something, after I thudded to the floor and scrambled to cover myself with the loose ends of the robe. There was a moment of awkward silence, and I didn’t know what to do, and it felt like everyone in the audience was holding their breath, waiting for me to say something.
What was it I said?
Oh yeah.
“WHO PUT THAT THERE?”
Oh no, is that what I said?
Yes, that was it. I have no idea why. It doesn’t even make sense.
“Who put that there?”
How stupid! I just couldn’t think of anything else.
They laughed though. I think they laughed. Maybe they gasped in horror. No, they definitely laughed when I said that. They gasped when I fell, that’s what it was. Was it a gasp of disgust, or were they merely expressing concern for my safety? I can’t remember. It doesn’t matter anyway. Either way, I blew it.
Maybe it wasn’t that bad, I try to convince myself as I emerge from the dark theater into the hallway where the dressing rooms are. Maybe no one saw anything too revealing. Maybe I caught the left half of the robe in time.
“Hey, Franny, nice ass.”
Oh Great. Charlie saw the whole thing. Everyone already knows. Everyone knows I fell. They saw everything. I’m humiliated.
“What’s that?” I say, trying to buy myself some time to figure out how to respond with dignity.
“ ‘Nice class,’ I said.”
“Huh?”
“Right? Everyone seems to be doing well tonight.”
“Oh, right. Yes, they do. Did you, by any chance, see my monologue?”
“No, sorry. But I heard part of it on the monitor. Sounded like you really went for it.”
“Oh, thanks. Yes, I do think I went for it, part of it at least.”
“Cool. Well, good luck with the callbacks.”
The callbacks. I forgot about the callbacks. There’s probably no hope of one now. But maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought. Maybe there’s still hope if only, I can’t help thinking—if only I stayed standing, if only I hadn’t missed the chair, if only I made better undergarment choices.
I want to ask someone how bad it was exactly, but the backstage area is so small that all the students here now are waiting for their turn and too nervous to talk. Anyone who could have been watching from the wings is probably downstairs now in the green room, smoking cigarettes and talking about themselves. As much as I want feedback, I don’t feel like going down there. I can face one person trying in vain to convince me it wasn’t so bad, but not a sea of pitying faces.
Instead, I duck out into the alley behind the theater. I figure I’ll just have a smoke and be by myself and maybe figure out what actually happened.
But of course, I’m not the only one who thought of the alley, either; five or six classmates are already out there smoking and talking in hushed tones.
“Hey, how’d you feel?” Don asks, looking genuinely interested.
Don can be catty and competitive, but he’s also a walking theater encyclopedia. He has a huge collection of Playbills he inherited from his father, who was a Broadway director, and he’s memorized them to the point where he might actually believe he not only saw every one of the productions, but was in them, too.
“I’m not sure. I think there was something weird in the monologue, but I’m not sure what.”
“I didn’t see it,” Don says with a shrug.
What a relief! News hasn’t spread. At least, not yet.
“But I heard some of it on the monitor. You dropped a section,” he says, his eyes narrowing.
“I did?”
“Yeah. You dropped the stuff about how your mother knows where you go on Monday nights, and how she has a crush on your boss, too. But it was just a couple of lines. I’m sure no one noticed.”
Don turns back to his conversation, and my head starts spinning. I dropped a section. I fell, exposing a yet-to-be-determined portion of my naked body, and I dropped a section. That information destroys the last bit of hope I had that, despite the obvious blunder, it might have gone better than I thought.
I picture the audience, the agents and casting people I’ll probably never get to meet now, and I’m suddenly and overwhelmingly tired. I wish I could go home. I wish I could go back to Brooklyn and get in bed and hide, but I have to wait until everyone is done and help clean up the theater and then get feedback from Stavros, as if there could be anything to say to me except “don’t fall next time.”
I don’t feel like running into anyone else, but there are no other places to hide. I could wait in the lobby, but the audience will be letting out soon. Maybe I’ll just stand outside and then slip back in when people start leaving. At least I can be alone outside.
Avoiding the greenroom means avoiding my coat, and after only a few minutes of loitering in front of the theater, I’m already shivering. But it feels good, too. I want to feel something that is actually something. A feeling that is identifiable and real.
A sense of gloom creeps over me. The cold is helping me think more clearly and I can almost put into words this ominous thought I haven’t yet named.
Then, all at once, it comes to me: What’s the point?
If I left show business tomorrow, no one would know and no one would care. And what kind of person wants to work in a business that’s completely indifferent to her efforts? If I stayed, no one would thank me for my presence, either. I’m not exactly Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin, something people are still thankful to have. If I’d never come to New York, someone else would have taken my place: in class, on the train, as a waitress at the club. No one would be sitting at home saying there’s something missing from this Sally’s Wear House commercial. No one’s thankful that I did it. No one would say, “If only Frances Banks had done more. What a contribution she could have made! Think of all the lives she could have saved by wearing that fuzzy acrylic sweater.”
I feel a tap on my shoulder.
“Aren’t you cold?”
It’s James Franklin. The last person I want to see right now. Nothing could make me feel worse after what happened tonight than to be reminded that a guy I gushed all over got my phone number but never called me. Even after I learned that he and Penelope were some sort of couple, I held my breath every day for the last two weeks while waiting for the machine to rewind, hoping he’d left a message. But he never did.
James smiles at me and stamps his feet, rubbing his hands together and blowing on them. He’s wearing his green army jacket and his blue and red striped scarf. Standing this close to him for the second time, it occurs to me that his scarf is homemade, and I feel a pang of jealousy, wondering who knit it for him.
“I like to be cold,” I say, in what I hope is an appealing yet mysterious way that will make him regret not calling me, while trying not to shiver. “Did you—were you just in there?” I ask, eyeing him carefully. Please, God, say no.
“In the audience? Yeah. I was standing in the back. It’s over. They just had curtain call. Stavros is giving his little speech about how to fill in the callback sheets. They’ll be coming out in a minute.”
I missed the curtain call, forgot there even was one. I missed the chance to bow with everyone and to be seen one last time actually upright on two feet. And the callbacks. Stavros will be collecting the response sheets right now, where the agents and directors and casting directors will put a check next to the names of people they want to see again. Suddenly I’m deeply, freezing cold. I hug my arms around myself, trying to warm up, and stare down at my feet, attempting to look tough.
“You sure you’re warm enough? Want my coat?”
“No, thanks, I’m fine.”
“Well, take this at least.” James unwraps the long striped scarf from around his neck and drapes it over my head, winding the ends round and round. I want to protest, but my knees are shaking from the cold, and I’m afraid I’ll cry if I speak. Besides, it does make me feel better to think he wouldn’t be offering his scarf to me if it were some precious item an old girlfriend had made for him. This small bright spot in my otherwise miserable evening emboldens me.
“So, you saw me fall?” I might as well just get it over with. I want to know how bad it seemed from someone who saw it.
“Yeah, but that was nothing. You’ll laugh about it someday. You really held it together well.”
That’s not what I wanted to hear. People who are admired for “holding it together” are not people who are about to get agents; they’re people who are recovering from cancer, or undergoing a murder trial.
“And I dropped a section,” I add, hoping he’ll say he didn’t notice.
“Yeah, I know. But I only know because I’m obsessed with that guy’s work. No one will dock you for that.”
It’s not exactly a glowing review, but he doesn’t seem totally horrified. Still, he’s avoiding the thing I most want to know.
“But when I fell—I mean, how bad was it? Was it really—”
“Can I tell you the truth?” James looks very serious. He’s going to tell me it’s even worse than I thought; I can tell by his face. Why does he have to be the person to deliver this information? I’ll never be able to look at him ever again.
“Sure.” I pull myself up a little taller, steeling myself for what’s to come.
“Usually you … I hope you take this the right way … you’re usually kind of, covered up, I guess? In the way you dress? But tonight, and I hope you won’t be offended by this, but what I saw tonight told me, well, you’ve got a very pretty little body under there. You should show it off more often. Not just by accident.”
James turns red and stuffs his hands in his pockets, and holds my eyes with his. I don’t even care if he’s lying to make me feel better, because I do; I feel better. I want to say thank you, maybe even give him a hug, but then the heavy theater door bursts open, and Penelope appears in a short, blinding white fur jacket. She smiles when she sees James, but then her gaze shifts back and forth between us and her eyes dart down to his scarf around my neck, and her smile seems to crack, her eyes narrowing a bit. She recovers in an instant, though, and cocks her head at me, making a sad face and pushing out her lower lip in a little pout.
“You poooor thing,” she says, coming toward me with her arms outstretched. “C’mere, sweetie. I bet someone needs a hug.” She encircles me with a surprisingly strong grip and lays her head on my chest, rocking us both back and forth like we’re an eighth-grade couple slow-dancing to “Freebird.” “Awwww,” she whispers into my clavicle.
Arms welded to my sides, I look helplessly over Penelope’s head to James.
“Uh, Pen?” he says gently. “I was just telling Franny how the chair thing wasn’t really a big deal …”
“Well, of course not!” she exclaims at full volume, releasing me with such force that I have to take a step back. “Not a big deal at all!”
“I was telling her the performance was still there,” he adds.
“Absolutely!”
“And that she’ll laugh about it someday.”
“Of course she will!” Penelope nods, turning away from me and beaming at James. She slides over to him and slips her arm casually through his.
“Yeah, I’m almost ready to laugh about it now, in fact. Ha, ha, ha,” I singsong.
James nods sympathetically at me, and slaps his knee in faux enthusiasm. Penelope smiles and then tries to stifle a giggle, but she doesn’t seem to be able to control it, and it erupts and grows into a full-blown laugh that eventually spills out into a sort of snort. “Well, that’s a relief,” she cackles. “I mean, it is pretty funny.” She’s laughing so hard now that she’s having trouble breathing. I smile like a good sport and chuckle a bit, trying to play along. I did say I was ready to laugh about it, after all, but Penelope is curiously on the verge of some sort of hysteria. She holds her stomach and bends over a bit, gasping for air. “The funniest part … (giggle, giggle) … is that … (gasp, cough) … it isn’t even Monday.” And she lets out a whoop that pierces the cold night air, then punches me on the arm in a way that’s meant to be playful but is just hard enough that something in me snaps. She has an agent, she has a boyfriend, she didn’t fall onstage tonight revealing her inaccurate choice of days-of-the-week underwear, and I’m inexplicably mad at her for no reason.
“Is that real?”
“Huh?” Penelope asks, still panting a bit.
“Your jacket. Is that made of real fur?”
This is mean. But my arm hurts where she punched it and I’m upset. I don’t think I really care if her jacket is made of real fur. I guess if I thought about it, I would say I’d have to come down against fur jackets made of formerly frolicking bunnies, but it’s not something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about. And even if I give it more thought, and someday decide I’m very definitely against wearing the same animal that brings Easter baskets to little children, it’s not really like me to judge someone else for her rabbit-related choices.
Penelope’s face falls and she looks down at her jacket.
“You know,” she says, “it is real. I wasn’t sure about it myself. But it was my mother’s, and so I figured, it’s vintage …”
She trails off and absently runs her fingers over the silky white collar. When she looks up at James, he puts his arm around her and gives her a little squeeze.
I feel terrible now. I wish I had something my mother had left me, besides the baffling legacy of being named after a character in a J. D. Salinger story who does nothing more remarkable than pick at a chicken salad sandwich and a glass of milk and then faint on a bad date with a pretentious college boy. I wish I had something of hers that made more sense, something I could wear or look at and remember her by. But my mother accidentally went the wrong way down a one-way street, and after that, the sight of her books and blue jeans and white cotton shirts was too much for my father, and he gave them all away. How could he have known I’d be standing across from Penelope Schlotzsky fifteen years later, feeling jealous of her mother’s vintage fur jacket?
Penelope is wearing her dead mother’s jacket, and I’m trying to make a political statement about something I only decided I cared about five minutes ago.
“No—I didn’t mean—I wasn’t saying—is your mom—? That’s so sweet. She passed it down to you, after she …?”
Penelope scrunches up her usually unfurrowed brow, but then her eyes light up, and she throws her head back and laughs.
“Oh, you thought she’s—? Oh hell no, my mother’s not dead. She’s alive and well and probably sitting by the pool at her condo complex. She just gave it to me to wear ’cause she thought it had a little Hollywood glamour in it!”
After I give James back his scarf, I duck back into the theater and run downstairs to get my coat and bag. The greenroom has almost emptied out now, but I have to face Stavros, and the results, and I’m dreading it. I’m fairly certain I’ve blown the one real chance I’ve had in over two years to achieve something. There will be another Showcase next year, but my deadline expires way before then and I refuse to break it. I refuse to become one of those people who can’t accept the truth that it just isn’t going to happen for them.
Something cold grabs my heart and my mouth falls open.
Maybe I’ve already become one of them while I wasn’t looking.
Maybe I can’t accept the truth that it just isn’t going to happen for me.
Maybe I already know, but I can’t admit it. How many more days of waiting do I really need before I have to face facts?
Maybe there’s enough evidence already—I don’t need to wait for the results of the Showcase to decide. Maybe I have to accept that time’s up.
This revelation makes my hands start to sweat.
I’ve been in New York for over two and a half years. It took me that long just to get a semilucrative waitressing job and a commercial agent who sends me out sporadically. What acting job could I possibly get in the next few months that would tell me that this is absolutely without a doubt what I’m meant to do?
The theater is nearly empty. It’s my turn to see Stavros. I can’t keep him waiting. I’ll tell him right away that I’m thinking of leaving, to make it easier for him to admit he thinks that’s the right thing to do. Maybe he’ll say he was planning on telling me he didn’t see a future for me, and anyway he’ll be relieved that I figured it out on my own.
Then I’ll call my dad and tell him I’m leaving New York. “You’re doing the right thing, honey,” he’ll say. “Now you can get your teaching certificate.”
I imagine what a relief it will be to have a real job. I’ll have a regular paycheck, and a desk and a phone and a fax machine. I’ll have a computer, which hopefully will come with someone to teach me how to use it, and I’ll have people to go out with sometimes after work for a drink at Bennigan’s, who’ll tell me about their boyfriend or their kid or a project they’re working on in their garage. Maybe my work friends and I will talk about what we watched on TV the night before and I’ll say, “You know, I tried to be an actress for a while.”
No one will blame me for giving up. Everyone says it’s impossible anyway. I’ll be normal and maybe that’s fine. Maybe my life story is to be a person with a normal job and a normal life. That’s what most people have. I was wrong to believe I was any different. I’ll call Clark. I’ll explain to him that I’m finally ready to get married like everyone always thought we would. In fact, I kind of want to call him right now. Maybe I’ll book a flight to go see him in Chicago after my shift tomorrow. My backup plan is looking pretty appealing right now.
I think of all the goodbyes I’ll have to say. I’ll miss my dad, and big, clumpy Dan, in a weird way. It will be hard to be without Jane, but Chicago isn’t too far away.
It’s the right decision. I know that now.
Slowly, I take the last few steps down the hallway toward the closed door of Stavros’s windowless office in the back corner of the theater. I take a deep breath, then knock three times.
(Goodbye, New York.)