Lucid (27 page)

I guess hating myself should make me cancel any plans with James tonight so that I don’t do or say something I’ll regret. But being me, it just makes me want to be with him immediately.

It’s nearly dark. I apologize to my mom for skipping dinner and bike over to James’s house. Because I’m in such a hurry, I go the
direct route, which brings me by the cemetery where they buried Bill. At the service, I read from
The Little Prince
. “In one of the stars, I shall be living. In one of them, I shall be laughing.” And Gordy in his handsome suit was a pallbearer with Tyler and Bill’s cousins. We walked from the Noank Baptist Church, a full procession behind them to the Valley cemetery. We all put bright yellow daffodils on the casket. His dog, Mo, howled. And Gordy and I clung to each other.

There are few streetlights by the cemetery and it’s a cloudy night, no moon, no stars. I bike faster and I realize that I haven’t even called and have no idea if James is even home. He isn’t. I sit on his doorstep and wait, which is progress from hiding behind a tree.

It’s dark and really cold when he drives up. He is, of course, surprised to see me on his doorstep and worried that something is wrong.

“Something is really wrong. And it has nothing to do with you,” I say, burying my face in his chest as he hugs me.

The place is empty. His dad is traveling for work, so he takes me into the kitchen and starts to make this homemade hot chocolate from a huge block of dark chocolate. I notice that the cupboards are pretty bare. I’m guessing he and his dad don’t cook very much.

“What happened?” he asks since I’m just sitting at the table smooshing a marshmallow, unsure of where to start.

“I told Gordy about us.” I wait for him to ask why that would upset me so. But he seems to know. He sits down with the hot chocolate and looks in my eyes.

“I wondered about that today. You don’t really see who you are. You don’t really know how any guy who got close to you would feel about you. It just wouldn’t be possible for Gordy not to be hurt.”

“I’m a despicable person.”

“Because Gordy’s hurt.”

“Because I’m the one who hurt him.” I turn the mug over in my hands. It’s a souvenir from Muir Woods. It looks like his younger sister decorated his mug at Color Me Mine; it’s purple swirls with a pink heart on the bottom.

“How? Did you lead him on? Did you make promises that you didn’t keep?”

I don’t know what to say. So I hold the mug to my lips but can’t bring myself to take a sip.

“Of course you didn’t.”

“I did. I thought I could just be his best friend and at the same time sort of keep alive the possibility that maybe someday we could be even more than that.”

“And that makes you despicable, huh?”

I nod. Tears flow from my eyes, but I’m not crying. It feels like something punctured the dam today and I’m leaking. I turn my gaze from him. The hardwood floor of their kitchen is immaculate. Not a crumb. A stray tear splashes by the leg of my chair.

“What you’re not looking at is that Gordy felt exactly the same. Neither of you had found the person you really belonged to. And you were both wondering if maybe that meant someday you’d belong to each other.”

He reaches out and strokes my hair. I hold the warm mug between both my hands and sit still, frozen in my chair, staring at the floor.

“And then you found me.”

I sniffle and look up at his elegant hand curved around the purple
cup. I can now smell the rich earthiness of the chocolate. “Oh and you’re so great, huh?”

“It’s not about me being great. We belong together.”

My eyes dart to his and I study them briefly; the flecks of blue, brown, and green meld together into a solid granite color. “You say that. But you don’t know me.”

“But I do. There are a million little pieces that I don’t know, and it may take the rest of our lives for me to learn them all. But I know that you’re wonderful.”

“Except you’re wrong. You’re really, really wrong. It’s nothing to do with Gordy. I’m the last person in the world that someone like you should waste their time with.” The mug suddenly feels hot and my hands are sweating. I put it down on the table and rest my hands under my thighs.

He grins. “Okay, just tell me why.”

“Because I’m crazy.” I say this softly, to the clock on the wall behind him.

“That’s the most adorable part.”

I look directly at him now. “No. Not adorable crazy. Actually, psychotically, clinically crazy. Secretly crazy. In a way no one could ever understand. No one could ever understand about me and Maggie.”

Something in his face changes; he is alert. He immediately understands that there is something really wrong here. Something really wrong with me.

“Who’s Maggie?”

I can’t open my mouth. I can barely breathe.

“Sloane. Who’s Maggie?”

“She’s me.”

I
’m a hot mess. My mouth is tacky and dry. My lips are raw and chapped. My hair looks like a hamster has gone loco in my locks. My cheeks appear as if they’ve been sandpapered, and last night’s mascara is basically everywhere. Thank the good Lord I turned down Andrew’s sweet begging for me to stay the night with him. If he could see me right now, he’d wonder whether his fancy French wine gave him beer goggles.

He raced back into the restaurant (after enough people on the street told us to get a room), grabbed the bottle, threw money on the table, ran back out, and we caught a cab for his place. I am not really experienced at making out (without a script). If someone told me to make out for four hours with (mostly) all my clothes on, I’d have no clue how to keep that interesting. Turns out, it wasn’t interesting, it was spectacular. The secret is choosing the right guy.

By far the best night of my life.

This morning, I leave extra early to meet him for brunch. As I’m walking down Houston, I start to realize how pissed off I am at Sloane. After all that hand-wringing and whining about how she could never tell anyone about us, and least of all the amazing James, she just blurts it all out in the scariest, craziest way possible. The worst part is, she gave away so many private and secret things about my life. I would never do that to her.

The subject makes me walk faster and more aggressively, like a typical New Yorker. I weave through a crowd waiting for the walk signal at West Broadway and position myself in front. As I’m crossing the street, an attractive blonde coming toward me catches my eye. I have a feeling I know her from somewhere but know I really don’t, so she must just be reminding me of someone I do know, and when we pass…

…she flashes this really warm smile and says, “Hey, Sloane,” and walks right by.

Amanda Porcella.

I whip around. There is nobody there. There are hundreds of people there, but they are all real, they belong to the world. Not to my dream. I stand there in the middle of the crosswalk, terrified for a moment.

It must have been a real blonde, who thought she knew me, and I imagined the Sloane part. The light is about to change and I’m like a squirrel, turning back the way I came. I think she went south on West Broadway. I head down the block, almost pushing my way through to the curb, trying to beat the timing of the lights, but I can’t get through the sea of people. Three blocks later I give up. I’m just tired. It’s surprising that my mind doesn’t play these tricks more often.

When I get to brunch, he’s already at the table, and he looks really upset. More than upset, angry. What have I done? Or not done? It can’t be that. When he sees me coming, he jumps up, kisses me, holds my chair. And when he sits back down, he says, “I’ve got to tell you something.”

I take a sip of water, bracing myself. I blew it. I risked my friendship with him by crossing the line with that kiss, all those kisses last night, and now I’ll have none of him. He’s going to say this isn’t working for him. Last night was a mistake. Every cornball line that every actor has ever said to every actress on-screen when dumping her rolls through my mind.

He must be able to see it happening because he reaches out and takes my hand, gently kisses each finger, and says, “I’m so happy I finally get to do this, and this, and this…”

And all is once again well in the world, until he tells me he spoke to Edward Duncan after class this morning. The Dunc, as Andrew calls him, is the professor who’d admired my Inuit accent and who is kind of a mentor and a friend to Andrew. He also happens to be good friends with Macauley Evans. Andrew asked the Dunc to find out why I lost the role.

“Macauley told Duncan that someone inside the situation, who knew you personally, confided that you have a serious drug problem and that your behavior is extremely erratic.”

My whole life implodes before my eyes. All the work and sacrifice, the cattle call auditions, weathering every inch of me being picked apart and judged, all for nothing. I’ll be known as uninsurable, unbankable, unworthy. It had to be Thomas. How could anyone be so vindictive and evil and hurtful?

“Duncan said you’d been Macauley’s first choice.”

“Then why wouldn’t he come and talk to me about it?”

“Because people are cowards and take the easy way out. And I guess he would never assume that anyone would be a big enough asshole to lie about something like this. Particularly since Thomas, the prick, recommended you for the role in the first place.”

“Thanks,” I say. I jump up from the table and run out the door. I don’t know if he’s coming after me because I catch a cab so fast it doesn’t matter.

On the way to Thomas’s office, I realize that making a scene there will brand me as an unbalanced druggie. So I call on all of my training, pull out my cell phone (ignoring Andrew’s third missed call), find my center (yep, we actually do that), and call Thomas. I make nice to his assistant, and when I get him on the phone, I’m bright and sunny. I tell him I miss him and that maybe now that I’m not going to be doing the show, we can pick things back up.

He buys it. He asks about Andrew. I say Andrew who? And he asks me to lunch.

I hang up and say a little prayer before I call to set the essential post-lunch appointment. It is carefully explained that I’m being squeezed in and there will only be a few minutes. That will be plenty. I turn off my phone after texting Andrew that I’m on a vigilante mission and will be in a much better mood by dinner. I need to focus.

I sort of hide halfway down the street until I see Thomas walk into Nobu. I take ten minutes to both gather my wits and make him wait. When I finally enter, I head straight toward his table. He jumps up with a smile. I smile back and say in my sweetest voice, “Sit the fuck down.”

Having thus established the proper tone, I take a seat, lean forward keeping my smile in place and my voice low. “Rule number one of this conversation, you have no lines. Here’s what’s going to happen: your career, your professional life, is over. Thank you for your attention.”

I stand up and walk out of the place. I can’t help high-fiving a random businessman once I’m on the street.

After scarfing down two victory sandwiches at Pain Quotidien, I’m feeling that a beer or something stronger at some bar that will serve me might give me extra courage, but would also let my afternoon meeting smell something on my breath. Accordingly, my breath becomes laced with hot chocolate.

I walk into the lobby adorned with movie posters of all the films they’ve cast. The receptionist offers me a seat and a bottle of water. I take a seat as directed and pull out my Kindle. What will I do if Thomas shows up? I decide that if he gets in my face before I get into Rosalie’s office, it will be the second-biggest mistake of his worthless life. The rat never shows and the receptionist misses out on the throw-down of the century.

Rosalie greets me warmly, probably figuring that this will simply be her chance to reassure a young actress that she has a bright future. Obviously, she has no idea that I know why I lost the role. She begins with all the expected positive and encouraging words, ending by telling me that it was extremely close between me and the other actress.

“I know it was close. I also know that Macauley had chosen me. I was only denied the role when your employee, Mr. Randazzo, defamed me to all of you by alleging that I had a substance abuse problem. Why no one came to me with this ridiculous story is a bit
of a mystery. Why Mr. Randazzo told the lie is not.” I sound a little bit like a lawyer on a procedural TV show, but too late to change tactics now.

Rosalie sits, listening with attention, revealing nothing on her face. For all I know, she’s pressing some button beneath her desk to call security.

“Mr. Randazzo has been sexually pursuing me from the moment he met me, trying to dangle this role as an incentive to get me in bed. As you know, I’m underage. When he learned that I was rejecting him and dating someone else…”

“That nice guy who was with you at the audition. I thought so.”

“So we have two choices. I turn this over to my attorney, and that’s the end of it. Or you can do some belated due diligence. It’s not possible for someone to have a serious drug problem with no trail of any kind. You can talk to my family, friends, physician, everyone in my life. Police. I’ll happily take a drug test for you right now…”

“None of that is going to be necessary. You’re a wonderful young actress, but you’re not good enough to be faking this conversation. I will confront Thomas, and unless he can offer some kind of proof, he’ll be fired immediately. I’m sorry to say, terribly sorry to say, that the role has been given to Rebecca McNally; her deal has been closed. I’ll have to find some other way to make this up to you. I promise it will happen.”

Then she looks at me in silence and says, “I’m sorry for my cowardice. It was easier for all of us to just take the other girl and let it go.”

I don’t smile. I simply say, “Apology accepted.”

I stand up. We shake hands. I walk out.

When I hit the street, I try calling Andrew to explain and apologize. When he doesn’t take my call, I try texting Andrew to explain and apologize, asking him to call me right away. Four ignored stalker calls later, I’m beginning to feel I’m in trouble.