Authors: Mary Carter
She'll Take It (4 page)
She turns the page of her magazine before answering. Fashion before friendship. “Tell me what she said again. Exactly.”
“âMelanie, I'd like to see you in my office. Can you be here at eight A.M.?'”
“Uh-oh.”
“Kim. Stop saying that. Maybe she has a great assignment for me.”
“I doubt it. But good luck.”
“Do you have to be so honest? Whatever happened to little white lies?”
“Sorry, Mel. You're right. She's going to give you a fabulous job on the Queen Mary. How's that?”
“Insincere.”
“I'm sure it's nothing. Just go in there, smile, and agree with everything she says.” Kim smiles at me by way of example. I smile back. She shakes her head. “You look like you're in pain.” I imagine Ray kissing my neck and smile again. “Whoa, way too happy,” Kim says. “Discount smile,” she suggests. Kim's favorite thing in the world is a good sale. I imagine stealing a cashmere sweater. “Perfect,” Kim says. “That's the smile.
Chapter 3
A
fter several agonizing minutes of smiling, I start frowning. Should I really trust Kim's advice? Kim is a fellow Fifth Avenue Temp. We've been employed through them for years while managing our “creative” careers. For Kim it's modeling, for me, acting. And if you're thinking I'm just another flash in the pan who enrolled in a three-year acting program, guess again. I may be only a mediocre actor, but let me tell you, I had to claw my way to mediocrity, and I think that should count for something. I was only eighteen years old when I announced to my mother that I was leaving Rochester to study at the Village School of Acting, and suffice it to say, she freaked out a bit over it. Two days before I was to leave, I was ambushed intervention style in my living room by my mother, my brother Zachary, and a postcard from my father, on which he had written, “I agree with your mother. Go to college.”
fter several agonizing minutes of smiling, I start frowning. Should I really trust Kim's advice? Kim is a fellow Fifth Avenue Temp. We've been employed through them for years while managing our “creative” careers. For Kim it's modeling, for me, acting. And if you're thinking I'm just another flash in the pan who enrolled in a three-year acting program, guess again. I may be only a mediocre actor, but let me tell you, I had to claw my way to mediocrity, and I think that should count for something. I was only eighteen years old when I announced to my mother that I was leaving Rochester to study at the Village School of Acting, and suffice it to say, she freaked out a bit over it. Two days before I was to leave, I was ambushed intervention style in my living room by my mother, my brother Zachary, and a postcard from my father, on which he had written, “I agree with your mother. Go to college.”
After hours of screaming and crying and begging (my brother, Zach), and gnawing nervously on lemon bars (my mother), and mentally shoplifting (me), the three of us struck a bargain. I was granted five years to make my dream of becoming an actress a reality and in exchange I agreed not to touch the money that Aunt Betty had left me for college. If after five years I was not a working actress, then I promised to go back to college with Aunt Betty's money and get a degree so I could get a real job and be just as miserable as everybody else.
And so I spent the ages of eighteen to twenty-three dedicated to perfecting my craft, arming myself to be a triple threat. Technically, a triple threat referred to someone who was an actor/singer/dancer, but since I wasn't really adept at singing or dancing, I decided I'd throw in everything under the sun, hoping that knowing how to do a hundred-plus extracurricular activities in a mediocre manner would at least qualify meâif not as a triple threatâat least a threat in general.
So I took movement lessons, tap dancing lessons, oboe lessons, improvisation for the serious actor, sautéing with a wok, acting for the camera, stage presence, Shakespeare, and even speech classes where I learned at least a hundred tongue twisters to improve my diction. (I am the very model of a major modern general.) I was a rollerblading, sewing, stir-frying ball of fire.
After three years completing my studies (although a true actor never really completes her studies), I leaped out into the world of New York auditions with my head held high (a brief stint at finishing school helped me accomplish this), and I directed every ounce of energy I had to landing a paying acting job. But with the exception of a couple of plays (no pay), offbeat commercials (paid in product; I still have a drawer full of vaginal cream), training videos (free footage of me in a hard hat), and student films (I got to play this really drunk girl who made out with a really drunk guy in his stinky dorm room), I wasn't exactly a working actress.
My only steady paying job had been one summer on tour with a murder mystery dinner theatre where my only line was “I'm hungry.” (I'd like to think that my delivery of this line, no matter how short, was a show stealer. “I'm hungry” can have many layers of meaning: think of everything one hungers forâfame, beauty, sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll, along with the occasional Kit Kat barâand you'll get my drift.)
But that was it, and suddenly my five years were over. So, as promised, at the age of twenty-three I enrolled as a freshman student at NYU. In an effort to please my family I didn't even take a single acting class. I lasted through three years and three different majors, and I may have eventually gotten it together, graduated, and become another human resources manager in a stuffy office who drank gin on her lunch hour and reminisced about her days as an actress if it hadn't been for one memorable night where everything imploded. And as much as I hated thinking about that night, it was a wake-up call, I answered it, and I was out of there. To hell with my promise, I still longed to be an actress.
But I'm still not exactly thriving. In fact, I've spent the last three years waitressing, handing out hot dog flyers dressed asâcan you guess?âand temping. I was beginning to think the problem boiled down to this: In acting, your body is your instrument, and my instrument has cellulite.
Just to add to my jealousy, Kim actually gets modeling work while I'm still dragging myself to crummy audition after crummy audition and zippo. I hadn't done anything since my off-, off-, off-, off-Broadway show four months ago. It was about a psychotic killer who joins a convent. I played a nun with nymphomania. I had four lines. Seven, if you counted “Oh God, oh God, oh God” as three. It ran less than a week, and I didn't exactly get paid. In fact, after headshots, rehearsal fees, posters, programs, and mass mailings, it kind of cost me over a thousand dollars.
And then there's the two hundred I spent on the herbal wrap that was supposed to melt away unsightly inches overnight. (It didn't. Instead I smelled like cabbage for the next two days, and everyone kept their distance. Maybe that was the point. The farther away people get from you, the thinner you look!) But it's all right. I put everything on my Visa. I figure I'll have it paid off in ten months. Ten months is nothing. If you're not willing to invest in yourself, how can you expect anyone else to? I would be fine. I just needed a good, long temp assignment. But Jane Greer had been ignoring my calls all week. Until this.
“Well I'm not worried,” I lie. “So she wants to see me. It's not like I've done anything wrong.” This wasn't exactly true. I'd had a slew of nightmare assignments lately, and it's just possible that on one of them I had a teeny, tiny bit of an attitude. I was processing loan applications for an insurance company, which in itself is enough to make anyone want to slit their throat and write “Save Me” with their blood on the cubicle walls, but for a creative person like me, the job was absolute torture. My immediate supervisor, Tom Spencer, had the nerve to tell me that I'd be a knockout if I would just “lose a little in the caboose.” The fact that I was eating a Cinnabon at the time made it all the more humiliating. So it's possible that when the condescending asshole offered me a full-time job, it's just possible, that I told him I'd rather strip naked and hang myself from the bank of fluorescent lights than work for him.
Well, that's what I meant to sayâbut if memory serves me correct, I think I might have slipped and said, “I'd rather strip naked and hang myself from the bank of fluorescent lights than
sleep with you
.” I didn't mean to, but he was giving me a lascivious look, and I was imagining his fat, hairy body lowering onto mine like a net full of dead, wet fish when he offered me the job.
sleep with you
.” I didn't mean to, but he was giving me a lascivious look, and I was imagining his fat, hairy body lowering onto mine like a net full of dead, wet fish when he offered me the job.
“Well good luck,” Kim says again. “Juan's for dinner?”
“You think it's that bad?” Juan's is our favorite Mexican dive around the corner. We go there anytime one of us has a crisis and commiserate with our “Three Musketeers”â Grease, Salt, and Tequila. Kim stops flipping the pages of
Vogue
and flashes me a discount smile. “Definitely Juan's,” I agree, fighting back tears.
Vogue
and flashes me a discount smile. “Definitely Juan's,” I agree, fighting back tears.
She wiggles her toes. “You can borrow something if you'd like.”
I nod and head into her room.
Unlike mine, Kim's bedroom is immaculate. It's like a mini Barneys. She has loads of clothes, makeup, and accessories that she gets from photo shoots and sample sales. I could spend days in here. But I know what I want. Her baby blue cashmere sweater. I remove it from the pink silk hanger and cradle it in my arms. Pure bliss. I know what you might be thinking, but you'd be wrong. I have rules about stealing, and I never take from friends or family. Kim's things are safe with me, and I know I'm extremely lucky that she is so generous with her things. It's one of the reasons I put up with living with someone so gorgeous.
I mean really, given the choice I'd much rather have ugly friends. Who wouldn't? The ideal would be to have friends who were attractive enough that guys would approach you in a bar but ugly enough that you're really the one they want to talk to. But with Kim around, I could steal a guy's wallet right out of his back pocket (I hardly ever do, I swear) and he'd be so enamored of her that he wouldn't even be able to pick me out of a lineup the next day. They see Kim and suddenly I'm gone. Poof! Except for Ray. Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray. Beautiful, wonderful Ray. He's not the least bit interested in Kim. It's one of the reasons I don't regret sleeping with him so soon after we met. (Four hours later to be exact.)
“Oh!” Kim says as I parade past her in the sweater and my black miniskirt.
“Does it look okay?” I ask when I see the funny expression on her face. “Is something wrong?” I crane my head around trying to inspect my ass.
“Your behind looks fine,” Kim says. “It's the sweater.”
“Not my color?”
“Actually it is. It brings out the blue in your eyes.” I wait. “It was a gift from Charles,” she says finally. “I haven't even worn it yet.” Charles is her latest beau. He's our age and a physicist of all things. The two of them are a walking Kohler commercialâ“The perfect combination of beauty and brains.” And from the dreamy looks I've seen passing over Kim's face these last few weeks, I'd say I'm not the only one madly in love.
“Maybe I should find something else,” I say, sourly disappointed. I really love how beautiful the sweater makes me feel. I was hoping if I wore it, I wouldn't be tempted to steal.
“You can wear it,” Kim says finally. “Just be careful.”
“I promise,” I say. “I'll have it dry-cleaned.”
“Good luck,” she says again. Does she know she's said this three times already? And by this time, I am starting to believe I will need it.
This is how I die:
FIFTH AVENUE TEMPS
Temporary Assistant: Melanie Zeitgar
Assignment: Insurance Division/Death and Dismemberment Benefits
Duties: Cold calling.
Duration: Three hours
Hello? May I speak to Mr. or Mrs. Davis? This is Melanie from J.D. Harrold's Life Insurance Division. I've got good news. We're offering you three free months of death and dismemberment insurance. That's right! If you lose a limb or your life in the next three months, we'll pay you or your family accordingly. Fifteen thousand dollars for a finger or a toe, fifty thousand for an arm or a leg, and a whopping one hundred thousand dollars if you die in an accidental, tragic way. Hello? Hello?
Fifth Avenue Temps is situated in midtown Manhattan just a few blocks away from the main branch of the New York Public Library. Most mornings I make sure to stop in front of the library to stare at the pair of stone lions flanking the entrance. They give me strength and today I really need it. I stand there for a few minutes gazing into their cold stone eyes until I feel better. I glance at my watch. Seven forty-five. I have enough time to get coffee and a muffin. Then I remember that this is the day I'm supposed to knock off the pastries and start a healthy eating/exercise regime, but in light of the situation it will have to be postponed. If all goes well with Jane, I can start my healthy regime tomorrow.
I love the delis in New York. The outdoor buckets of fresh flowers and arrays of colorful fruits and vegetables are a shoplifter's dream. It is child's play to swipe an orange or a kiwi as you float by, and there's no danger of cameras or sensors. However, I hardly ever steal fruit anymore. First of all, I can't hide fruit in my closet (it's not an Egyptian pyramid that can mysteriously keep fruit from rotting if placed directly in the center) and second of all, stealing fruit just doesn't give me as much of a rush. I'll take a bottle of lotion over a squishy orange any day.
I hesitate at a bouquet of yellow roses. Should I bring them to Jane? “Just a little something to brighten your day,” I'll say, waving off her gush of gratitude. Or would she smell the fear and think I was trying to bribe her? I pick up the flowers. I put them down. I pick them up again and smell their faint, powdery scent. I touch a petal ever so slightly. It floats off and sticks to the palm of my hand. No flowers. I put them down and enter the deli.
“You break, you buy.” She is right behind me, a stout, dark woman with bushy eyebrows and an intense glare. She shoves the yellow roses at me.
I put my hands up as if at gunpoint. “I don't want them.”
She thrusts them toward me again. “You break, you buy.”
I head to the counter. She follows. “One regular coffee and a chocolate chip muffin,” I say to the man behind the counter.
His eyes slide from me to the yellow roses. The woman speaks to him in rapid tones in a tongue I can't recognize let alone decipher. He speaks back to her and she hands him the roses like the passing of the torch at the opening of the Olympic Games. He rings the roses up along with my coffee and muffin.
“Eighteen dollars.”
I dig in my purse and hand him a twenty. I glance behind me to see if I'm still being tailed, but she has already headed off to harass other innocent, flower-sniffing customers.
My right hand drops down to the candy section and my fingers play across them like a Beethoven concerto. I lift candy bars and flick them into my purse with a sleight of hand that would impress any magician. Although I don't quite make up for the twelve dollars the roses cost me, I do manage to swipe two Kit Kat bars, a bag of peanut M&M's (New! Twenty Percent More!), and a box of Chicklets. My diet is indefinitely on hold.
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