union rep. She's never had to deal with this situation before, so she's not sure what the procedure is. As she understands it, if I want to get paid the session rate, I may have to stay on call. In any case, I'll at least have to wait until she hears back. If I want to wait in the dressing room, that's fine. Everything in her demeanor suggests that I have pulled a fast one, that I may have conned the rest of them, but she for one is not buying.
It is only now that I remember I have an agent. This is what he gets paid for. I beg some change off Sheila and retreat down the hall to the pay phone.
'Good afternoon – Shepard, Pape, and Associates.'
I recognize the voice of one of the associates. No one is a receptionist anymore; they are all associate agents. So theoretically this guy, Patrick, represents me, but neither he nor I see it quite that way.
I ask to speak to Zak, and he deflects me.
'He's on another line. Can I take a message and have him ring you back?'
'No, I need to talk to him.'
Patrick repeats woodenly, 'He's on another line.'
'No shit. I need to talk to him now.' I speak slowly, in case he's an idiot. 'Not later. Now.'
Patrick has no easy reply for this. I have violated the carefully honed rules of his universe: actors with status give orders; actors without status plead and grovel. I hear a click, and for a split second, I figure he's hung up on me, but then the tinny strains of salsa pipe through the phone.
If I were going to start worrying about my career at this late date, I could mull over the fact that I have just alienated one of the people whose job it is to make sure my resumes get submitted to the casting people, a person who will probably never again let me speak to my agent.
'Dan.' Zak's mouth is full and I hear him chewing something, chew, chew, swallow. 'So what's this big emergency?'
'Zak, I'm sorry to bother you.' Now that I've got him on the phone, I'm not sure where to go from here.
'Patrick tells me you ripped him a new asshole.'
'Tell him I'm sorry.'
'Yeah, yeah. Between you and me.' He chuckles. 'Ah, never mind.'
'It's this commercial thing.'
Zak takes another bite. 'What's that? Oh, yeah, the Dobbins national. Aren't you shooting that today?'
'Zak, I fucked up.'
'What do you mean you fucked up?' I now have his complete attention.
'There's a head. The costume has a big headpiece, and I couldn't wear it.'
'I'm not following you.'
'I couldn't put the head on. I get claustrophobic. No one ever said anything about a big head, or I would have told them.'
There is a pause while Zak attempts to make sense of this.
'So you're at the studios, yes? And what are they do-ing?
'They're rehearsing the stand-in.'
'And no one ever mentioned this headpiece to you? Not during one of the auditions, maybe?'
'No. I mean maybe I should have assumed.'
Zak jumps in. 'Fuck that. That's not your job. That's their job.' I can hear him working out his strategy. 'Someone should have informed us if the costume required special skills.'
I could weep with gratitude.
'Forget about it. Go home. Make sure you sign the paperwork.'
'I'm sorry, Zak.'
'What are you apologizing to me for? Go home, get drunk, whatever. There'll be other jobs.'
Yes. Other jobs. Of course. A tiny bright light winks in the blackness, like the eyeholes in the rat's head, far away but bright. This time, though, I may make it. I take a deep breath.
'Speaking of which,' I say, 'you haven't heard anything from Tribeca yet, have you? I know it's early, but I had a really good feeling about that one.'
Zak clears his throat. 'They went with someone else, Dan.'
There is a fly on the wall, right at eye level. I could move to the desert like Robin wants. To hell with these people. This life. My chest feels heavy like it's covered with a lead X-ray apron.
'But Helen said they loved you, that you read like a house afire. They just decided to go a different way. You know Kyle McCann? He's one of ours. Maybe you met him at the Christmas party.' I gotta go.
'Okay, kiddo. Sign the papers.'
It's three in the morning and I'm driving up I-95, headed to Maine. Just past Boston, the jazz station I've been listening to dims and sputters out. A little farther north, Puck, too, grows quiet, finally exhausted after hours of lurching around the interior of Stuart's car, whining and stress-shedding on the immaculate upholstery. He is asleep now on the seat beside me, dreaming who knows what, his paws lightly beating the air. There is only the occasional car. The night is quiet and dark and empty. Living without a car for the past fourteen years, I had forgotten how intoxicating it is to drive alone at night. Cocooned in Stuart's snug little Honda, I might go anywhere. The world becomes a series of possible destinations, the road signs lit up like invitations. And behind me, New York recedes like a weirdly distorted dream, a dream peopled with outsized rats' heads and boys with baggy pants and enormous running shoes, boys who are running from me. I need to catch up, to explain something, but no matter how hard I push myself, I don't seem to be any closer. I am running and running, and then suddenly I am on a wheel and my feet have become paws and I am running, still running. And Judy Garland is dancing, her knees and elbows pumping, her smile game, her eyes wide with fear.
That was hours ago, years ago, a lifetime ago. If it weren't for the hollow ache in my gut, I could almost pretend that none of it had ever happened.
I roll down the window, just in case I'm sleepier than I think. The air is cool and smells like seawater. I haven't yet figured out what I'll say to Robin. She doesn't even know I'm coming. I should probably pull over and sleep, but I'm afraid that if I did, when I woke up I wouldn't have the courage to do whatever it is I'm about to do. A little sleep might put this all in the flat, reasonable perspective of daylight.
I remember the first night I went on stage in New York. I didn't come on until near the end of the first act, but I was too antsy to wait in the empty dressing room, so I came upstairs early. I stood in the dusty dark behind the back set wall and listened to the spill of familiar lines, mixed now with the laughter of an audience, a stray titter, a cough. The play was zipping along, and as my entrance drew closer, I started nervously running my lines in my head. A few lines in, I blanked. Suddenly, I couldn't remember what came next. Nothing, not what Rob said, not what I said, not a single line of the play from that point forward. Nothing but sheer blank terror. The bottom fell out of my stomach. I had a fleeting notion that I could run downstairs and grab the script off my makeup table, check the lines, find my place. But on stage, they were maybe six lines from my cue. Five. Four. I moved stolidly toward the stage right wing, to the edge of the light, and before I could think any further, there was my cue. I took a deep breath and walked into the blinding light, like stepping out of a plane and into the sky, trusting the chute will open.
Of course, it did. No problem. Once on stage, I was home. I knew what to do as if I'd been doing it all my life. The lines appeared as they were needed, as though I had just thought of them. And it was exhilarating, living in that moment, knowing only peripherally what might come next.
The moon, sweeping in and out of clouds, follows at a distance. The engine hums, the dog snores, pavement unrolls beneath the headlights. If some miracle were to occur and I was able to sleep again, this is what I would miss.
About the Author
Debra Dean was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. The daughter of a builder and a homemaker and artist, she was a bookworm but never imagined becoming a writer. 'Growing up, I read Louisa May Alcott and Laura Ingalls Wilder, Jane Austen and the Brontes,' she said. 'Until I left college, I rarely read anyone who hadn't
