Hidden Gem Short Story Collection (9781301405985) (16 page)

Past Me
– Hey. 
Please get help.  You are never past the point of saving and
you have no idea how much potential there is inside of you.  I
wish I could give you a crystal ball to show you what a good and
healthy person you will be soon.  I don’t have one of those so
just take my word for it.  Please.

Present Me
– Keep on
trucking.  Find your real friends, your good
influences. 

Future Me
– Hi! I
can’t wait to be where you are.  I imagine it’s incredible to
have made yourself proud by staying healthy and reaching your
goals.  I’m sure there are road bumps but please don’t give
into your temptations because I am literally kicking my own ass to
get to where you are and damn, it is tough.  But I’m going to
keep going because good things come with effort and I want what you
have.  Congratulations, by the way, on all your hard
work.  I know it was hard.

Anyway, that’s all for now.  Till next
time.

All the best always,

Ian Marsh

*****

MADISON

“
So you studied dance at
NYU?”

“
Yes,” Madison replied, a
friendly smile on her face despite the fact that no one was looking
at her. The two casting directors hadn’t bothered to lift their
gazes from her headshot and resume since the cursory glance they
had given her upon entering. She bit her lip, concerned over the
attention they were giving her sparse experience. Madison knew
there wasn’t much on there for them to be spending as much time as
they were reading it.

“
I saw you in
Carbine
.” One of the two
directors looked up. She was a little bit older, stern-looking with
her silver bob and dark framed glasses. She pursed her lips,
propping her elbows up on the table and folding her hands below her
chin. She studied Madison for a little longer before her partner, a
younger man, looked up as well.

“
Thank you,” Madison said,
immediately regretting her choice of words.
It’s not like she said she
liked
you in the movie… or that she
liked the movie at all.
“For watching the
movie, that is.” Madison shook her head, disappointed with her
failure of a save.
So much for a good
first impression.

“
I haven’t seen it,” the
male casting director said. He was thin and wiry, wearing the same
glasses as his older, female counterpart. “But I’ve heard great
things and Barbara over here said she thought Tyler Chase
was
incredible.
”

“
Oh, he was,” Madison
nodded.

“
Well-deserved
nomination,” Barbara cracked a smile. “Who would’ve thought. As if
the legions of young teenaged girls screaming your name wasn’t
validation enough. Oh, and it’s a shame Liam Brody didn’t get
nominated, I thought he was quite good as well.” Madison maintained
her smile, wondering if Barbara was deliberately leaving out any
praise for her role as “Dakota.” After all, the three had been a
trio through production and all the press that followed. Wouldn’t
it only be natural to acknowledge
her
performance as well?
Unless she thought you were awful,
Madison thought, biting her lip. She straightened
her back, hoping her posture would trick her growing insecurity
into submission.
What’re you nervous
about? You don’t even
want
this role…

For the year before the movie came out,
Madison understood why casting directors didn’t take her seriously.
The only credit to her name was a movie that was still in
post-production and starred a teen idol and an infamous womanizer –
not exactly the formula for anything that would be
critically-acclaimed. But after the movie came out, after the
glowing reviews began pouring in from the most reputable
international publications, Madison was sure things would be
different. After all, she had received recognition and praise for
being an actress with no experience who was able to hold her own
against the powerful performances of her co-stars’ breakout roles.
She was heralded for her beauty and charisma, for the effortless
charm that radiated off the silver screen.

Then suddenly, agents
scrambled to represent her. Her phone rang so often that she found
herself both delighted and overwhelmed with the potential that her
new life held. There seemed to be opportunity everywhere
because
everyone
wanted her. Eventually, she signed with an agent whose main
focus was to get her a role that would clinch an Oscar nomination,
since she had seemingly gotten so close with her role in
Carbine.
Shortly after,
she picked up a contract to work on an independent film that looked
like a promising route to recognition, only to find herself packing
her bags and leaving the set when the production unexpectedly ran
out of money.

And just as suddenly, the
six-figure sum she had been paid for her work in
Carbine
had run down to
an uncomfortably low figure. The agent she had signed with was
calling less and less. With every day that went by without a new
audition, a new job, her social circle began to dwindle. And as
quickly as it all came together, it had all fallen apart. The
media, the producers, the directors – everyone who had loved her
just months before, everyone who had speculated over just how
meteoric Madison Lennox’s rise in Hollywood would be – had
forgotten about her. In the flurry of excitement and attention that
she had gotten following the months after
Carbine
’s release, it had seemed
damn near impossible that she’d have to struggle to find a job and
in some cases, remind people “who she was” and how she had even
landed an audition with them.

That was when her agent decided it was time
for a change in the gameplan. Instead of prestige, they were
suddenly focused on money. If Madison were to be of any value to
her and her agency, she would have to bring in some cash. And with
that, Madison’s dream of a quick climb to the A-List became
secondary to the fact that she couldn’t be called a professional
actress without any paying jobs.

It was a topic she avoided, preferring to
keep the image of someone in control and a constant exception to
the rule. Everyone knew that the entertainment industry was hard to
break into and hard to maintain. But like everything else in her
life, she had gotten her first big role so easily that she had
underestimated the difficulty of everything that followed. And now,
here she was, back in New York and auditioning for some cheesy
daytime soap opera that no one under the age of fifty who had
something other than sweatpants in their wardrobe would watch. To
make things worse, the casting directors weren’t impressed by her
presence at all. She was just another girl. Just another name and a
head shot and a time slot that they’d have to get through before
they could take their lunch break.

“
Alright,” Barbara said,
pointing at the camera that was set up in front of her. “Whenever
you’re ready, please slate.”

~

“
Oh my God, I think that
guy over there recognizes you,” Claire said in an urgent whisper.
Her French-manicured nails dug into Madison’s forearm. “Oh my God,
he’s been looking at you all night, he’s so going to ask for a
picture with you. But don’t worry, I can tell them you’re just out
to dinner with your friends and you don’t want to be
bothered.”

“
I think they’d be looking
at her whether or not she was in
Carbine,
” Chrissy laughed. “In case
you don’t remember, this was what it was like
everywhere
we went in college,
before Madison was known for anything other than being super
hot.”

“
Alright, that’s enough,
girls,” Madison said, holding her hand up in mock protest. She
smiled, pleased to be getting the type of attention she had been
used to, before the days of being “one of many.” It helped ease her
nerves about being back on the East Coast, if even for a short
visit.

“
I wish we had the money
to come visit in L.A.,” Claire sighed. “But if I had the money, I
wouldn’t have the time.”

Chrissy rolled her eyes.
“That’s because she got picked up to dance at two separate shows
this season at City Opera,” she interjected. “So don’t feel bad for
her. Feel bad for me. I have such bad plantar fasciitis that I
can’t do shit the way I used to. Haven’t quite regretted majoring
in
dance
as badly
as I do now. Hell, I can’t even wait tables comfortably.” She
winced and flexed her foot under the table before laughing.
“
But
half my
regulars do tip me over twenty-five percent because my hobble looks
like I’ve got some kind of problem or something. And pity tips are
what pay for dinners like these.”

Madison giggled. “I’ve missed these dinners
so much. You can eat at midnight and not be limited to a taco truck
here. And then you can still find a place that’s open for a drink,”
she sighed. “Plus, you can party here past 2am without having to
break up the flow of the night by moving everyone to some person’s
house.”

“
Yeah, but when you say,
‘some person,’ you mean like,
celebrities
,” Claire teased. “If I
ever get to visit,
that’s
the L.A. I wanna see. I want to hang out with you
and your new best friends. Chrissy and I have the right to know who
our West Coast counterparts are, don’t we?”

Chrissy snorted. “Just Tyler Chase and Liam
Brody, no big deal.”

Madison swallowed at the
mention of those names, though it was Tyler’s that really made her
smile falter. They hadn’t spoken since the premiere. She wasn’t
sure what she’d been expecting to come of their relationship once
filming had wrapped, but she certainly hadn’t expected for it to
feel as if they’d never met at all. They had virtually no
relationship whatsoever, not even the tiniest hint of a friendship.
It made Madison actually shiver when she recalled the copious
amount of daydreaming she’d done on the set of
Carbine
, the fantasies she’d had
about being Tyler Chase’s confidante, the gorgeous best friend who
would Instagram cute pictures of them hanging out, pictures that
would make the public wonder whether they were dating yet and when
they would finally get together.
That
definitely didn’t happen
, Madison thought
bitterly.

“
Ugh!” Claire groaned.
“Once I have the money to go to L.A., you’re introducing me to all
the beautiful people, Madison. Specifically Tyler and Liam,
because
ow ow.”
She pretended to touch her tongue with the tip of her finger
before making a sizzling noise. Madison’s eyes gave a nervous
flutter as she watched the girls laugh and joke around about who
would get Liam and who would get Tyler.

“
Yeah, but,” Madison
started warily, her pale blue eyes darting back and forth between
Chrissy and Claire. “It’s… not like we hang out
all
the time.”
It’s not like we hang out at all.
Immediately, she spotted the disappointment on her old
roommates’ faces.
Crap
. She put on a winning smile. “I mean, we did talk on set
though, and we got to know each other there…”

She watched her roommates’
shoulders slump ever so slightly. It was obvious that she wasn’t
coming through with the juicy stories that they wanted to hear. In
their brief exchanges while she was out west, Madison had painted a
life of Hollywood glamour so bright and promising that it
should
have been chock
full of amazing tales that she could casually relay to her old
friends upon their reunion. That was what they were expecting and
sadly weren’t going to get.

Because
nothing
about her time
out in the Hollywood world was what she imagined it’d be. Her
talent and attractiveness got her as far as the role and she no
doubt had the attention of every
crewmember
on set. But to her shock
and disappointment, her co-stars were different. For the most part,
everything was professional and truly contained to work. And
Madison soon learned “work” extended to the parties and
after-parties they would attend as a cast and that her interactions
with her cast mates were truly as professional as they came. Liam
Brody, the notorious womanizer, was surprisingly uninterested in
her. He spent the least amount of time on set, coming in and doing
his scenes and leaving as soon as he was cleared. During press
events and after-parties, he hung out with the throngs of people he
already knew. They were mostly lingerie and swimsuit models, as
gorgeous in real life as they were on commercials and billboards.
All the talk about lighting and makeup and airbrushing doing most
of the work suddenly seemed like bullshit in their presence.
Besides, Liam seemed to be driven by name and fame. The women he
went after were women that were already known, that
every
man wanted and
every woman wanted to be.

In high school, she
was
that girl. Madison
had nothing but the sunniest of futures in front of her and
everyone around her knew it. She was every superlative there was,
confident in her ability to succeed through her beauty and charm.
Back then, every girl she knew was in love with Tyler Chase but
none of them could seriously,
actually
entertain the idea of being
with him. It was unrealistic, simply a dream. Madison didn’t feel
the same way. She was sure, given the chance to be in the same room
as Tyler, that she could gain his attention in a manner that no one
else could. She had bragged about it back in high school, smiling
smugly as her friends agreed with her.