Just North of Whoville Read online

  A huge hunk of my job involved calling models for fake auditions. That morning, I’d been instructed to call models without teleprompter or ear prompter experience for a spokesmodel job. Then they wouldn’t get the job because they didn’t have teleprompter or earprompter experience.

  A week after the fake audition, they would get an email informing them that while they came very close to securing the job, it was their lack of teleprompter and earprompter experience that held them back. However, for the low cost of two hundred dollars, they could gain the skills they need to get the job. One night only. Hurry! Class will fill up soon.

  We’d recently signed a lot of new suckers. It was time to call the new marks in for an “audition”. I felt sick to my stomach that morning as I started writing out the list of names. My latest victims. I repeated a mantra over and over in my head as I poured over their prompter-lacking resumes, “I have to quit this job. As god is my witness, I will get out of this shithole.”

  My desk, in the receptionist area, was testament to another of my duties---that of receptionist. Most aspiring models knew the industry rule---“No Drop-Ins”. It was rare that anyone besides building management or the bottled water guy dropped by unannounced. However, if you spent enough money on classes, photos, training and career consultation with ABC You Shine, the courtesy of being allowed to drop-in was extended. One of the chosen few was Timmy Daly.

  “Hi! Just wondering if Deb was in today?” Timmy’s voice practically sang as he popped his head in the door.

  Little Timmy Daly was probably the most unlikely candidate for a fashion model ever. The only model-like quality he had was the big head. But while most wanna-be models came in appearing either shy or cultivated blasé, Timmy came to modeling with a level of enthusiasm only matched by the amount of his acne, which he worked very hard at concealing.

  He freely admitted to being a dreamer, but showed his realistic side by acknowledging in his interview with Deb that at five-foot six-inches tall, he most likely wouldn’t get called in for a lot of runway work. Most likely. But that was okay because his heart was really in print work. This skinny, pasty-pale, blond, spiky-haired little boy of nineteen had left West Virginia and moved to New York City to pursue his dream. And neither his acne, his height, nor the fact that he looked like a cross between E.T. and an albino pixie would stop him.

  But his charm made up for his lack of photogenic qualities. For Halloween, he’d dropped off a plastic pumpkin full of candy and a card wishing us all a “Boo-tiful Halloween!” And any audition he was sent on, fake or otherwise, was quickly responded to by a Thank You Card for “the opportunity to ABC ME Shine!!!”

  He’d also spent more than seven thousand dollars on photos, comp cards, classes and private career counseling sessions. In almost eight months, he hadn’t gotten a single job, but didn’t seem deterred in the slightest.

  “It’s an emergency,” he explained that morning. “I just came from the salon. So…” he scrunched up his face and ran his fingers thru his neatly trimmed hair, “what do you think?”

  “Your hair? It looks fine,” I replied honestly.

  “Oh my god, it’s SO much shorter than in my photos. Do you think I need new photos?”

  I didn’t. But I was sure Deb would.

  “It’s just a trim,” I replied. “I don’t see the difference.”

  “Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod,” he mumbled to himself. “I knew I shouldn’t have gone to a stylist with a coupon. I just lost my job. I can’t afford new photos right now. And you’ve got to look like your photos, right?”

  “Really,” I was almost losing it. “You can’t tell. It looks exactly the same. It’s a trim. You don’t need new photos for a trim.”

  Just then Jamie appeared beside my desk.

  “Dorrie, can I see you in my office.”

  “You know, you’re probably right,” Timmy continued talking to himself as Jamie practically dragged me by the hair. “Maybe I should take myself off the market till after the holidays…”

  Jamie shut the door to her office and tore into my like a hyena ripping into a carcass.

  “Never tell a model they don’t need new photos. That’s what we fucking do here, Dorrie!”

  “I’m sorry. But it’s just a trim. And he just lost his job…”

  “Dorrie, that young man out there is chasing his dream. He wants to be a model. And if he wants it badly enough, he’ll get the money.”

  She began to pace a bit, like a shady lawyer trying to sway the jury.

  “Do you have a dream, Dorrie?”

  “Yeah. To be a director. Remember?”

  “Oh right. Your resume,” she remembered as she rolled her eyes a bit and sighed. “But you’d do anything to make that dream come true, wouldn’t you?”

  “Well, not…anything,” I tried to explain. “But I work really hard…”

  She wasn’t listening. She already had me figured out. “You’re not married. No kids. You live in a crappy apartment. You’ve given up all potential happiness in life and are living like a bum just so you can do…whatever it is that you do. And you’re how old now?”

  “Thirty-four.”

  She whistled at my extreme age. Then she leaned in close and confidential-like, “The older you get, the less willing people are to give you an opportunity. Trust me, I know. I think you have a future here, Dorrie. You’re organized, you show up on time, and you have a nice phone voice. Some of the girls we had in here sounded so ghetto. But you sound professional. That instills confidence in the buyer. That’s what we need at ABC. So I want you to go back out there and tell what’s-his-name to talk to Deb. She’ll take it from there.”

  “Okay. Sure. No problem,” I said casually, just trying to get out of there as quickly as possible.

  “And Dorrie, I’m sorry I came down so hard on you. But I think you’ve got potential in this business. How does that grab you?”

  “Um…okay. Sure.”

  I didn’t want anything in that office to grab me. And then she looked at my shirt.

  “Is that cat hair?”

  Back in the reception area, Deb was surveying Timmy with a hawk’s eye.

  “Timmy! What have you done?”

  “Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod… I knew it!”

  “Don’t you worry. Deb’s going to make it all better,” she soothed, as she put her arm around him and led him off for the kill.

  I had to get out of this job. Was I being groomed to become part of the ABC Team? I was sick thinking I might have to resort to fully participating in their chicanery. What dark, hidden traits had she detected in my personality that would lead her believe I could be her partner in crime?

  As I sat there at my desk, panic set in. I couldn’t breathe. Like lead weights were nailed to my chest. Was this a panic attack? I’d heard about those. Or maybe a heart attack? Whatever it was, it wasn’t good. I’d better call 911. No. They’re busy people there. Maybe I should just call Mom. Or anybody. Just somebody who cared. I pulled out my cell phone and saw I had a text. It was from my friend Steve. For some reason, just getting a text message allowed me to breathe. There was someone out there who cared about me. At least sort of.

  Steve O’Brien was an actor I’d worked with a few years ago on an off-off-off Broadway play. He had an Irish father and a Korean mother---this guaranteed that he was stopped by Homeland Security on a regular basis.

  “R we still meeting 4 lunch?” the text read.

  Steve and I weren’t dating. God no. We weren’t even really friends. Not in that close friendship sense. We were theatre pals. After the short run of the show, we’d run into each other at different plays and theatre gatherings. But he was born and raised in New York, so his request to meet for lunch probably meant he wanted something. Steve could be a bit self-involved. But without a huge social life, I agreed to meet him at the halal lunch cart down the street after one of his auditions.

  At the very least, it gave me the opportunity to vent. And it didn’t help
that workmen all around us were stringing up Christmas lights in almost eighty degree weather.

  Oh---I was on fire.

  “Apparently I should be putting prompt, organized and Caucasian on my resume because those seem to be the only skills I have that anyone values.”

  “Okay, your boss is an idiot,” Steve offered, “and that place is one anonymous tip to the Better Business Bureau away from shutting down. Call your temp agency.”

  “I don’t have an agency. I just answered an ad for a temp. I’ve been in New York for four years and this is the best I can do?”

  “I’ve got a job for you.”

  I knew it. He wanted something. Everyone in New York wants something.

  “Does it pay?” I asked. After four years, I’d learned to be a bit sassy, too.

  “It’s an opportunity.”

  I audibly sighed. I’d had it up to here with “opportunities”.

  “Will you direct my show at The Albatross Theatre?”

  The Albatross was at least a halfway decent theatre, so I gave “opportunity” a chance.

  “What is it?”

  “A stage version of It’s a Wonderful Life.”

  “A Christmas show? Oh, just kill me now.”

  “Come on,” Steve pleaded as sauce from his gyro dripped down his shirt. “You have to do it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because…” and then he fessed up. “Everyone else is going home for Christmas.”

  “I might be going home.”

  “Do you have your ticket?”

  “What are you, my mother? It’s only the day after Halloween. And look what they’re doing!” I began to wail as I waved my arms in the general direction of the workmen. “Christmas lights! I swear it starts earlier every year!”

  Steve looked confused, but just kept going.

  “I’m playing George Bailey.”

  “So…it’s an Arab It’s a Wonderful Life?” I teased.

  “Oh you’re funny.”

  “Look, I don’t know. I’ll think about it. I’m just not in the Christmas Spirit. And you kind of need it for that show.”

  “Maybe it will help put you in the Christmas Spirit.”

  “Nice try. Although it would give me something to tell Celia tonight. I’m supposed to meet her and her boyfriend Alex for dinner. It’s a free dinner so I can’t turn that down right now. But I feel like I’d rather sit home and eat instant mashed potatoes or something. I just feel like such a failure every time we get together.”

  “She’s your friend. She doesn’t care if you’re doing a show on Broadway or in a basement in Brooklyn. She just wants to see you.”

  He was right. I still thought he was a self-involved actor, but he was right.

  “I know. But every time I see her I’m congratulating her on something. ‘Congratulations on your new account! Congratulations on your write-up in The Times! Congratulations on your new apartment!’ I don’t think her life could get any more perfect.”

  That evening, as Celia, Alex and I sat over dinner; he pulled out a huge diamond ring and proposed.

  Once again, congratulations were in order.

  3

  “Yes! Yes!” Celia leaned over the table to kiss Alex as she accepted his proposal. Right on cue, a waiter appeared with a bottle of champagne and two glasses.

  “Oh,” Alex looked at me like the third wheel, and then turned to the waiter. “Can you bring another glass? I didn’t know we’d have a guest tonight.”

  “Very good, sir,” the waiter shuffled off as Celia admired her new ring.

  “Well…I wasn’t expecting this, either,” I said as nicely as I could. “Sorry I’m intruding on…all this.”

  “Oh, sweetie, don’t be silly!” Celia beamed. “I’m so happy you’re here! Yay!”

  “Yay,” I chimed in. “Well….congratulations!”

  And there was some kind of group hug thing going on till Alex’s phone rang.

  “Shit. Sorry, ladies,” Alex apologized. “The Japanese market just opened. I gotta take this.” But he let it ring one more time while he kissed her again and spoke from his gut, “God, you’re gorgeous.”

  Celia smiled shyly at the floor. Then he picked up the phone and got to business.

  “Hey! Sukiyaki George! Yesterday was fucking Hiroshima so please give me some good news…” he began his business call as he stepped outside.

  I looked at Celia. She really was happy. Even with all the wonderful things that had happened for her, I’d never seen her glow like this. It was a really special moment in her life. And all my silly little problems just went out the window. Strangely, we’d never been particular friends in school. But over the past two years, we’d practically become sisters. I couldn’t help it; I just started to cry. And then she cried. And then we both laughed that we were crying. During our teary giggles, the waiter showed up with another glass.

  “Oh. No…no. I should go,” I smiled. “Tonight is for you guys.”

  “Oh, please stay,” she begged. “Have some champagne. Besides, you have to tell Alex about that leak.”

  “You just got engaged. A leaky roof isn’t very romantic.”

  “Everything’s romantic when you’re engaged,” Celia giggled. “I’m engaged! I’m engaged! I can’t believe I’m engaged!”

  She was giddy. It was a sweet, child-like side of Celia she rarely let out. She wiped the tears from her eyes and checked her face in the silver champagne chiller.

  “Do I look okay?” she smiled.

  I think it was the first time I’d ever heard Celia concerned about her appearance. She always looked effortlessly perfect. Damn her.

  “You look beautiful,” I answered. The woman was blessed. You want to hate her, but you just can’t. I guess if you have it all, you have no reason to be mean. Nice came naturally. She wouldn’t know how to be anything else.

  “I predict you’re going to be next,” she hinted with a smile.

  “No. I don’t think so. A hundred things need to happen in my life before that rolls around.”

  “Okay then---Thing Number One. Fix Dorrie’s Roof.”

  “Sorry I had to dash away from my lovely lady,” Alex apologized as he sat back down.

  “Honey,” Celia sweetly smiled, “Dorrie’s got a leak.”

  “In the apartment, I hope,” he laughed.

  “Silly! Yes. In the apartment.”

  “It’s not that big a deal…” I demurred.

  “Dorrie,” Celia stepped up, “you shouldn’t have to empty buckets every time it rains.”

  “That bad, huh?” Alex asked.

  “Well….it’s getting there. Oh,” I added as I rummaged thru my purse. “I have a rent check for you.”

  As an illegal sublease, I paid my rent directly to Alex. He, in turn, paid the landlord with a check of his own. No one the wiser.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Celia asked as I searched the depths of my bag for the check.