If You Were Here

time we’ve had a conversation without snapping at each other.

And that’s when it occurs to me that the floor was a sign.

We need the money to bring in an outside professional to get this house done if we’re to have any hope of a future together. I imagine we’d have to pay a premium to put up a whole crew of folks from an area outside of Vienna’s family’s reach, but as much as we love each other, we can’t continue to live like this. If our formerly rock- solid relationship is already on shaky ground after three months, I can’t bear to think of where we might be in three more. I hate to leave, but I think that’s the only chance we’ve got to stay together.

Los Angeles, here I come.

Chapter Twenty. MOSE(Y) GOES TO HOLLYWOOD

“Just so you know, I’m comfortable with nudity. Very comfortable. In fact, I prefer it. I’m, like, naked all the time in my apartment. My roommates, too!”

I sneak little glances at everyone sitting at the table with me. As no one else seems on the verge of collapsing in nervous laughter, I guess they’ve all heard auditioning actresses say this stuff before.

I’m sitting in a casting session. I’ve been in LA for about two weeks and we’re just starting to test people for principal roles. Since I’ve been here, we (meaning a big team of people who seem to know what they’re doing, and me, who does not) have done a lot of the legwork that happens before a film goes into production.

Before I even signed on, financing was secured¹⁶¹ and now key personnel have been hired, casting directors have been engaged, scouts are checking out potential locations, etc.

To be honest, I still don’t really understand the process. I tried to do research before I came out here but, surprisingly, Google didn’t have a lot of answers when I typed in, I sold my book to a movie studio for a whole bunch of money; now what?

My agents are thrilled this film wasn’t only green-lighted but also fast-tracked, which is fancy movie talk for “going a bit too quickly for my liking.” Two and a half weeks ago I was staring into a hole in the bathroom floor, and now I’m in meetings with a bunch of suits estimating opening-weekend box-office sales. It’s surreal.

On the one hand, the more swiftly this process moves, the sooner I can go home to my husband and pets and albatross of a house. On the other, I fear we’re rushing and getting sloppy. Can’t we all have a minute to get our bearings?

Also, and more important, I thought my job out here would be, you know, writing. I penned the initial screenplay for Buggies Are the New Black years ago between books, because I was told that everyone in Hollywood is lazy and that no one would want to convert my writing from a novel to a screenplay.

Actually, I enjoyed the challenge, because it was fun to dabble in such a different medium. At first I was all, How different could it be? Words are words, but that’s not the case. When you adapt a book, all you have to work with is dialogue. You can’t really set the scene other than a line noting where the scene takes place. Plus, you’re not supposed to provide too much background in scene headings or include many parentheticals,¹⁶² because that’s for a director to interpret.

I was worried that someone would get hold of my story and change it too drastically, so I wrote the screenplay myself to avoid all of that. Yet here I am in a casting session while some writer I never met gives my screenplay a “polish.” I’m told he’s going to be listed as one of the cowriters in the credits. Somehow this feels wrong.

But in terms of wrong, nothing’s been more wrong than the parade of bimbos who have tottered through here today. Seriously, can we talk about Miriam for a second? She’s supposed to be a quiet, reserved, gentle Amish girl who inadvertently gets turned into a zombie. (Although, really, does anyone go zombie advertently?) But Miriam’s propensity for goodness is such that she keeps all her undead flesh eating to a minimum, and that’s how she earns Amos’s trust and love.

Yes, I know her story sounds a tad Twilight-y.

Yes, more than a little.

I know.

I know.

I’ll thank you all to quit pointing it out, and did you ever consider that MAYBE I HAD THE DAMN IDEA FIRST AND THAT ASSHAT STEPHENIE—

Ahem. Moving on.

Anyway, when I picture my Miriam, I envision someone slight and darkly lovely, with luminous skin the color of fresh milk and enormous, soulful, haunted eyes — kind of like a young Winona Ryder before all the bat- shittery.

Miriam might appear weak and unassuming, but she’s got a well of hidden strength. She should dwell in that netherworld somewhere between childhood and adulthood, maybe sixteen or seventeen years old. I’m looking for an actress who possesses a certain innocence, someone who can portray the kind of child/woman who knows of disappointment and adult problems but hasn’t yet been jaded by the world. Every time she curls her delicate lip or raises her eyebrow, I want her to be able to telegraph the emotion she’s expressing all the way to the back row of the theater.

When I explained this to the casting coordinator, he was all, “Oh, yeah, like Kristen Stewart?”

NO, NOT LIKE KRISTEN STEWART.

But I’d take K-Stew in a second over these ridiculously implanted Rock of Love girl wannabes.

Ladies?

For the record?

The Amish don’t have hair extensions, and that I know for a fact.

The woman auditioning now claims to be twenty-two, but she’s as close to twenty-two as I am. In what I imagine is her nod to the Amish, she’s plaited her blond hair (with pink highlights) into two braids and tied her completely unbuttoned shirt under where her bra would hit, were she wearing one. She’s clad in shorty-short cutoff jeans, and the charm hanging out of her belly-button piercing is a cowboy boot. If she were auditioning for the porn version of The Beverly Hillbillies, yeah, I could see her being appropriate, but otherwise? Blech.

“That was great, Amberleigh, just great, thanks! Hope to see you back again,” says Seth. He’s running the show here and was brought in by the studio executives to head up my film. I keep trying to defer to him, because he’s the one with all the experience, but damn.

As soon as she steps out of the room, I whip around to face him. “You were joking, right?”

He’s the very picture of innocence. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I mean she was thirty years old and probably spends her weekends in the grotto at Hef’s pool.”

Seth seems genuinely puzzled. “You didn’t think she had a certain farm-fresh innocence about her?”

“She’s as fresh as Bea Arthur¹⁶³ and innocent as Paris Hilton.”

“Hey, that’s an idea! We ought to talk to Paris about playing Rebecca! What a twist, huh?”

Words escape me, so I simply shake my head in mute frustration.

When the next actress enters, I get an overwhelming feeling of deja vu. She seems so familiar. I lean in and whisper, “Hey, what’s she been in? How do I know her?”

“That’s America’s sweetheart.”

“Who?”

Seth’s whole face lights up at the mention of her name. “That’s Lolly. Everyone knows Lolly.”

I’ve been trying to sound cheery and upbeat and not utterly and completely frustrated at everything that comes out of this man’s mouth. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was screwing this up on purpose. One of my author friends got to sit in during the casting session for her movie, and she said every actress was more perfect than the next, and all of them were better than she could have ever imagined. But here, unless I imagine Miriam as