Jenna & Jonah's Fauxmance (14 page)

Everyone else introduces themselves, but I don’t pay a lot of attention, because I’m trying to figure out how to play mine. Like, is it more obnoxious to give information everybody already knows or to assume everybody knows it? Eventually I settle on this: “My name is Aaron, I have a stupid stage name, but you may know me from my performance in the title role of the Bobbie Sterne Middle School production of
Oliver!
”

This gets a chuckle, which I guess is the best I could hope for.

Once the introductions are over, we spend the next two hours reading through the performance script start to finish. Charlie and I are playing Beatrice and Benedick, two loudmouths who mock everything, but especially each other, and get tricked into falling in love with each other.

Kyanna (sigh) and Calvin (who’s got my gaydar beeping wildly and is therefore not really going to be competition for Kyanna, I hope) play Hero and Claudio, the young lovers who are almost broken up by a stupid plot put together by Don John (played by Paul, who Charlie can’t stop staring at). He hates everybody for no good reason except that he’s the illegitimate brother of the prince, Don Pedro (played by Luis, who, as it turns out, played the troll in
Goblin 4: Revenge of the Troll
).

The plot, as the name of the play suggests, isn’t really the point here. The point is the wordplay, and from my point of view the stuff with Hero and Claudio is a distraction from the real heart of the story, which is getting Beatrice and Benedick to see that their big mouths are blinding them to what their hearts want.

What this means is that Charlie and I are carrying the show. Not as much as we did on
J&J,
but the success of this play hinges on our ability to breathe some life into this complicated language. James has a point about this being good writing, but it’s also a lot more challenging for the actors and, in the wrong hands, the audience. This isn’t just “Aw, Jenna, not again!” It’s fast-moving, witty dialogue by the best playwright ever to write in English, and reading it through, I’m incredibly intimidated.

I’m sitting there with a knot in my stomach as we break for lunch, and it’s not made any better by Flannery, who says, “Charlie, Fielding, I need you for a minute.”

Charlie and I exchange “uh-oh” looks as Flannery comes over to us. I decide now is not the best time to remind Flannery that I’m going by Aaron now. I see Edgar lingering by the stage door, waiting to listen in as we get scolded for God knows what.

“I gave that speech at the beginning to get the rest of the cast off your backs, but your line readings were lazy. I know it’s our first day, but you can’t just breeze through Shakespeare like it’s a Family Network script. You have to show the material some respect, and right now I’m not seeing that from you. I’d better see it this afternoon. Clear?”

“But—,” Charlie starts to argue.

“We’ve got it, Flannery,” I interrupt. “You’ll see something different this afternoon, I promise.”

“Damn right I will,” Flannery says and walks away. I see Edgar snickering as he heads off to lunch.

Charlie looks at me, panicked, and whispers, “I thought I was showing the material respect! I can’t show her anything different this afternoon! I don’t have anything different!”

“Of course you do,” I tell her. “You just have to dig deeper to find it.”

I hope I’ve convinced her, but I’m not convinced. We might be in real trouble here.

15
THE BASIC EMOTIONS

Charlie

I pick at my Greek salad, wishing not only that the feta were organic, but that I had any idea how to act. All this time, I’ve thought my background, my commercial experience, my job meant that I could act. Now I realize that I can perform, but I can’t act. After Flannery’s pointed remarks about my lines this morning, I sit on one side of a wide patio under the shade of a huge tree and feel pathetic. I stare up at the tree for inspiration, thinking that if this were a scene in a film, I’d find enlightenment beneath the leaves. Instead, all I find is embarrassment—I don’t even know what kind of tree it is. I stare up at the branches as though this will tell me.

“Buckthorns,” the fat old man says. He carries himself like a cop, which is probably why he played one on TV before I was born. Studying his creased face, I also remember he hawked paper towels. I fight the urge to say, “Gets the wetter drier better,” which was the slogan.

“Buckthorns?” I say back to him as he deposits himself into a chair. I don’t know if that’s his name or a line of dialogue, and I’m feeling dumber and dumber by the minute. I hunch down in my chair, resting my elbows on my knees as though shrinking will make this world I’ve stumbled into disappear. Looking at him, I feel a mixture of awe and pity; he’s a veteran in the industry and yet now he’s reduced to doing small-town Shakespeare when he used to win Emmys. Maybe it’s better to be like my dad and always do crap. Both my parents seem content in their mediocrity; no one expects much from them. No one’s waiting for them to fall.

“The trees. They’re buckthorns.
Rhamnus
in Latin, but I don’t suppose you speak Latin?” His gray blue eyes are gentle; his voice sounds as though he might have only recently kicked a pack-a-day habit.

“I don’t, um, speak Latin …”

“But the question is—can you play someone who does?”

I twist my hair up off my neck and squish it into a messy knot to cool off. Off to the side, Fielding-Aaron sits with the few actors who will deign to speak to him, and inside in the air-conditioning Flannery and the heavy hitters eat lunch together, roaring with laughter that’s audible through the French doors.

“Actors always outdo each other with their stories. I’ve been there too many times—I don’t need to sit in there and hear the bullshit fly,” the guy says, following my gaze. “I’m Al, by the way.”

“I’m Charlie,” I say, grateful he reminded me of his name. Normally, stars have assistants to remind them of names. Martinka wanted me to hire someone so I wouldn’t have to pay attention to other people, but I never did. Then I add, because he could be Jenna’s long-lost grandpa, “I don’t know if I can do this.”

Al nods, his white hair falls onto his forehead, and he tries in vain to make it stay put. “Listen. It takes three things to be a success.” He breathes deeply and coughs before going on. He holds out a thick finger for each item he lists. “Luck.” He eyes me. “Which you got … Hard work, which you’re also familiar with—I remember those hours on set. Nothing easy about that.”

I sigh and nod, relieved that at least someone here knows what working on a television show actually entails.

Al continues. “And the third part of success is …” He raises his eyebrows and smirks. “Talent.”

Birds sound in the trees behind us. I don’t look up, but I wonder what kind of birds live in buckthorn trees. I wonder if I have the third thing.

“Most people in this business got two out of three. They’re terribly talented but have no luck so no one finds them. Or they’re rubbish actors but very lucky. Or they work very hard but they’re talentless.”

“And what am I?” I ask like Al would have any clue. “I mean, I want to have all three.”

Al nods as Flannery rings a bell. Somehow, the experienced cast knows this means lunch is over. “Take this,” Al says and hands me a thick book, its pages yellowed on the edges, the cover worn and ripped in the corner. “It’s not the answer. No one thing is the answer. But it might help.”

I hope it’s not a Bible. I’ve had many people try to convert me. I look down at the title.
Acting from Within
. I smile. “Thanks, Al.”

He stands up and pats my shoulder. “It was a gift from my first director to me, and so I give it to you.”

If we ever get out of here, I think, I’m demanding he work on
Jenna & Jonah
. Then, with a smack of reality, I recall there’s no production schedule. There’s no anything. It’s O-V-E-R. “See you onstage?” I ask.

“Of course, Beatrice.” Al bows. “But not for a few hours. Your call’s later.”

He eyes the tree again. “Buckthorns, as their name suggests, have spikes … but the Oregon species don’t.” He gives me a meaningful look. “Just thought you should know.”

I hold the book to my chest, feeling as though I have a secret, and shovel my salad in so I can go read in peace.

I take
Acting from Within
to my cabin. Inside, the dim light is welcome but the stifling heat is not. Maybe lack of creature comforts is good for the soul, I tell myself, and begin to read.
What are the basic emotions?
I sit there on my bed, wondering. Love? Hate? Anger? Fear? Sadness?
Prepare a gesture that goes along with each of the words.

I stand up. Love? What’s a gesture for that? A hug? No, that’s more kindness. I sigh in frustration. “What about hate?” I ask aloud.

“What about it?” I hear Aaron’s voice before I actually see him. He sticks his head in the door and grins.

“Nothing.” I immediately slam my book closed, but not before Aaron sees it and grabs it, holding it above my head.

He reads it as he keeps it out of my reach. “Present your gesture to the rest of the group. Try to feel the emotion as it arises from the experience of the gesture …”

I give up trying to grab the book. “Never mind.” I wasn’t good at the exercise anyway, so I might as well give up. My stomach turns over thinking of being onstage, with Flannery yelling at me about my lack of respect for the character.

“No,” Aaron insists. “Let’s do this.” He doesn’t look happy about it, mostly resigned, his scowl hidden behind his flushed face. “Let’s see … five basic emotions …” He pauses, thinking. “Horniness—” He laughs. “Does that count?”

“Not unless you’re acting the part of the prick,” I quip. I notice how my body snaps to attention when I say this, my posture erect.

He falters, but only for a moment. He leads me out into the living room and stands with his hands behind his back in front of the unlit fireplace. “There’s hate, anger, fear, sadness, trepidation—”

“That’s the same as fear—at least for this exercise.”

Aaron sways as though he hears music I don’t, his mouth twisted to the side. His T-shirt shows sweat marks from his abs, and for a fleeting moment I think about the cool water near his place in Carpinteria. How his hands felt under the water.

“You’re forgetting love,” I tell him.

He looks like I’ve slapped him. Then he regains his control and looks pissed, his jaw clenched. “I didn’t forget it. I misplaced it.”

“Perhaps it’s in your pants,” I suggest. I could get used to these verbal sparring matches; they’re so much better unscripted.

“How’s this for a gesture of anger,” he asks and shows me a finger.

“Not very creative, but then, what can we expect from a fading television star?” He swipes at the air. “That’s a better gesture.” I snag the book and read aloud. “Now we imitate it.” I do and Aaron starts to grin, but then grabs it back and reads more.

“Repeat the gesture exercise above, this time using a different emotion, which you express in a gesture plus a nonverbal sound.” His voice is loud in the small, airless cabin.

Sunlight speckles the room as we work our way through sadness—which I communicate with my head down, shoulders dropped—and fear, which is surprisingly difficult to do.

“Come on, you look like you’re on the run from a B-movie psycho killer,” Aaron complains as I hold my hands in front of my face.

“Well, psycho killers around a lake are scary,” I say.

Aaron approaches me suddenly, his eyes wild, his mouth in a snarl.

“What about in a small cabin in the woods?” I gasp and hunch my upper body down. “See? That’s fear!”

He repeats my gesture, adding a nonverbal unsteady groan, and I do as the book demands. “Repeat the gesture-plus-sound exercise or choose a different emotion, now adding a single word or short phrase to the gesture and sound,” I read, then perform it, hunching down, gasping, and adding, “No, please!”

Aaron sits on the arm of the couch and does his nod that looks like a chicken—head out and back. “The ‘please’ was a smart choice,” he says. I sit on the floor, looking up at him, my arms crossed over my knees. “It sort of made a character.”

I nod, excited. “That’s what I thought! Like, just with one word, you could tell she was scared but also that there was something more than just not wanting to die, right?”

Aaron agrees, tapping his flip-flops against the bottom of his feet while he thinks. He chews on his thumbnail, which he can do now that there aren’t any close-ups of him playing guitar. “She’s probably cultured, or polite …”

I tilt my head back and forth. “I think there’s more than that. When I add the ‘please,’ it’s because she has something else that she wants to live for, beyond the ‘Please don’t murder me with a hacksaw in the woods.’ ”

As we sit there in the heat, sweat beading on our lips, pooling under my bra, the faintest nibble of a feeling starts in my chest. Aaron looks at his watch. “We should make a move. Flannery’ll be even more heavy-handed with the criticism if we’re late.”

I start to stand up and he offers his hand, yanking me a bit harder than is necessary, and I go flying forward, landing squarely against his chest. There’s a second or two of bodies pressing together before I steady myself, and Aaron covers any awkwardness by doing the fear gesture again. “Gasp! Help me—my career is attacking me!”

I fire back at him with, “Please, no! I’ll never get laid again!”

Aaron twists his mouth in retaliation, but comes up with nothing as we head out the door.

It’s only when we’re halfway to the stage that I realize we never did come up with a gesture for
love
.