Almost Famous, a Talent Novel (22 page)

And then, just when Coco thought it was not humanly possible to feel worse, she spotted Cardammon and her father. The horror on their super-tanned faces said it all. Coco had gone from fairy tale to cautionary tale in exactly two eight-counts.

Emily stood in the green room at 7:57 p.m., play ing with her long strands of hair while her legs trembled underneath her. She had raced here seconds after seeing Coco’s failed coup, and it had only made her more nervous that maybe the plan wouldn’t work as Mac had promised.

Emily had spent the past week shadowing the Pinkberry girl, whose real name was Suzie Dooley. She’d learned how to dye her hair that horrific color (cranberry juice or Kool-Aid), where to buy vests (Crossroads or Goodwill, never spend more than five dollars), and why the
Battlestar Galactica
pins all over the vests (they were conversation starters!).

She was seconds away from her Los Angeles acting debut, even if it was
Judgers & Haters.

Emily had started to walk with her shoulders more scrunched, like someone had just asked her a question about photosynthesis or something else she just couldn’t answer off the top of her head. Just holding her body that way made Emily feel like a more nervous person, as if an asteroid was going to crash to earth any second. She’d even started reading
National Geographic
before going to bed, just because Suzie said it was part of her nightly routine.

On the bright side: Emily knew that her acting was getting better, because everyone at BAMS thought she really was Spazmo. The downside, of course, was that everyone at BAMS thought she really was Spazmo.

Emily nervously tapped at her headgear, feeling the ping inside her mouth and head. About four rehearsals ago she’d gotten over the fact that she was wearing used (but sterilized) headgear. Now it almost made her laugh. Except that her palms were sweaty and her right leg was clattering nervously. Emily was anxious for that familiar
click
—that moment when her personality disappeared and the
character
took over.

The green room, where actors relaxed before performances, was really painted red, and it was lined with black velvet couches and ottomans. In the middle there was a flat table with bowls of mini Jolly Ranchers, M&M’s, and Jelly Bellies. Emily sat on a black couch and reached for a Mountain Dew. She steered the straw through the wire-trap maze of her headgear to take a sugar-boosting swig. Kimmie stood in the middle of the room, stretching herself up one vertebrae at a time, muttering, “The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain,” the last of her warm-ups for her body and voice. When she’d rolled her head to a standing-straight position, Kimmie walked over to Emily. “How’s my favorite Spazmo?”

The real answer was that Emily was thinking about how much she hated the play and looking so ugly, and just wanted to knock it out of the park so that Hank Myler would notice her—but of course she couldn’t say any of
that
, so she just shrugged.

Kimmie smiled and gave her a thumbs-up sign. “Break a leg, Spazzy!”

Before Emily could respond, the lights dimmed and the audience began clapping. And then, as if by magic, Emily clicked into Spazmode.

She barged onto the stage, totally oblivious to the crowd. “Knock, knock—who’s at my door? I’m Thpathmo and I want to know,” she said, slamming the door to her stage bedroom. And then, to her great surprise—because that wasn’t even the joke—the audience actually
laughed.
“I mean theriously!” Emily-as-Spazmo moaned. She didn’t feel self-conscious. In fact, her lines came louder and clearer, and she forgot to think about how stupid the play was. She was just thinking like Spazmo: Someone was at her door, and she wanted to know who it was.

Emily barely noticed one of Elliot Tachman’s assistants videotaping the performance in the front row next to Elliot himself. And she definitely didn’t see Adrienne or Becks or Mac smiling with her because she was so engrossed in responding to Kimmie’s character, who at that moment was standing in her stage doorway, looking lost.

The stage was set up to look like a girl’s bedroom, which in Kimmie’s mind meant pink everywhere. There was pink wallpaper, a pink futon, and a pink refrigerator. Emily slunk onto the futon while Kimmie’s character recited a monologue about why she had to get home to Bel-Air, which she loved so much. Emily-as-Spazmo was supposed to tell her why Bel-Air was lame and why everything was better in the mountains, where you could be alone. In the middle of this, Kimmie was supposed to cry, but Kimmie couldn’t fake tears on command, so she turned her head away from the audience and buried her face in her shoulder.

Knowing that Kimmie would be turning away from the audience, Emily waited until that exact moment to cry real tears, which she could fake on command. “It’s better to be alone!” she yelled, letting the tears stream down her face. As they trickled along her cheeks, the audience became so quiet and still, she could hear people breathing. They were listening to every word she said.

Emily had the strange feeling that the audience was
on her side
. It was as though everything that came out of her mouth was funny when it was supposed to be funny, even when she was just reacting to Kimmie (who wasn’t getting any of the laughs). And when she was serious and sad, it felt like the audience actually
cared.
By the time she had to do her monologue, Emily knew the audience was enjoying the show. And she felt proud that she’d elevated a mediocre script into something that was watchable. She walked to the center of the stage, the lights warm on her head, to begin her monologue. “You’re a judger or you’re a hater. But guess what? So am I! I judged my hometown and I hated it. I judged myself and I hated that. And I came to the mountains. And I’m still that girl I’m running away from! You can run away, but you can’t hide from yourself!”

Emily delivered her last line. “Don’t be like me, living alone in the mountains, judging and hating, waiting until the day a girl rings your doorbell and gives you something else to judge and hate. Go live in Bel-Air and meet people and hear their stories and love the life you’ve been given!” The red curtains fell and slowly slid together, blocking the audience from Emily’s sight.

And then, just when the edges of the curtains kissed, Emily breathed a huge sigh of relief. She was done! It was farewell to Spazmo and
Judgers & Haters
forever. And she had already clicked into another role: Networking Actress.

Emily didn’t want to waste any time before meeting Hank Myler and giving him the chance to realize that she was perfect for his upcoming film
If You Say So
. Still in her headgear and plaid woodsman-y flannel, she darted out the stage door into the courtyard, where the audience waited for cast members.

“Good job!” Becks said, hugging Emily. “I needed a good laugh after today.” Emily smiled gratefully: She knew Becks’s heart had been broken just a few hours ago, and she was so touched that Becks was there to support her. “Mac went to
el baño
. Too many Red Bulls,” Becks added.

“Mac’s not here?” Emily squeaked nervously. Emily glanced at the line for the bathroom, which was several girls long. She glanced at Kimmie, who was so close to Hank Myler. She couldn’t risk waiting for Mac and losing her shot at talking to Hank. She groaned inwardly, realizing she’d have to brave this without Mac’s guidance.

“She said good job and she’ll be out here in five,” Becks said easily, missing how
crew-shal
it was for Emily to have Mac around. Especially right now.

Kimmie was standing a few feet away, hugging her grandparents. “How sweet that you wrote a play for such a troubled classmate!” her grandmother cooed. Emily smiled, secretly pleased that she’d fooled even strangers with her performance. She truly was an actress.

Becks leaned in, as if to hug Emily, and then she grabbed her shoulders and whispered right into her ear, “Don’t look now, but Hank Myler is walking
righttowardyou
.”

Emily slowly tried to take off her headgear, since it made speaking difficult. She needed to be as different as possible from Spazmo when she met Hank Myler so that he would be impressed with her range.

“You didn’t tell me you went to school with the next Cate Blanchett! What chops that girl has,” Hank exclaimed to his daughter, who was standing next to him near a corner of the courtyard. They were just a few feet away from Becks and Emily. “Let’s go say hi!”

Emily’s heart soared.

“No, Daddy, she’s not my friend,” Minka Myler protested.

Emily froze. Becks stared at her, concerned.

“What do you mean?” Hank said. “She’s comedy gold.”

Minka leaned into her father and whispered, “She’s
really
Spazmo. She wasn’t acting.” Emily thought back to the time she’d winked at Minka in Spanish class. They hadn’t been sharing a moment. All this time, Minka had thought she had issues!

Emily wanted to go talk to Hank but she couldn’t get her headgear off. She spun around frantically, remembering Mac’s words to her on the first day of school:
People believe whatever you tell them
. She desperately had to do her own PR. She yanked at her headgear in one panicky attempt to shake herself from its grip.

When she looked up, she realized: Hank Myler was staring at her sadly. The way he was looking at her reminded Emily of how she had felt when she read about a two-headed snake in Spain: just amazed and creeped out that it actually existed. Emily wished she could slither away.

She knew that if Hank Myler had a
conversation
with her, and saw how
surprisingly not-Spazmo
she was, he’d be once again impressed with her “chops.” She yanked the headgear off her face, forgetting that it was clasped behind her head, too. Frantic to look normal before she lost her window of opportunity, she waved at Hank with her left hand while she fiddled with her headgear with her right hand.

Hank held up his hand, almost like he was saying,
Stop.

First impressions are everything
—Emily could hear Mac’s first-day-of-school warning. Between the greeting and the one-handed headgear removal, Emily realized she’d gone too far down the freak-show path.

“Hey, where’s your friend Kimmie?” Hank leaned over to Minka. They seemed to have no idea their voices carried in the closed courtyard. Emily’s eyed widened like a mother bear’s realizing someone was after her cub.
That role was hers!
She put both hands to her headgear and snapped it off. And then, Hulk Hogan style, she ripped off her flannel clothes, dressing down to her Rock & Republic jeans and James Perse tee. When she looked up to chase after the Mylers, she realized it was too late: Hank was already shaking hands with Kimmie.

“So I’m working on this film called
If You Say So
,” Hank was saying, but Emily couldn’t bear to listen to the rest. She turned around and buried her head in Becks’s shoulder, knowing she was never going to work in this town again.

ExtravaBAMSa could not end soon enough, Mac decided, as she popped a portobello mushroom quesadilla into her mouth. Standing by the buffet table, she surveyed the Tachman Center, the formal room used only for super-red-carpet events. The ExtravBAMSa closing ceremonies always featured a catered dinner and a speech by the newly elected social chair.

It was bad enough that Mac had to wear her Loomstate organic gingham dress to a formal affair, thanks to Ruby’s no-dupes rules. The dress was the only not-yet-debuted piece in her closet. But because it was so casual and unassuming looking, no one would ask about it. And no one would know that it was 100 percent cotton, grown free of pesticides, or that it had been designed by Bono’s wife. So Mac just looked plain for no reason, and got no props for her environmentally friendly choices. And on top of
that
, she knew she would have to witness Ruby being the star. Ugh. It was enough to make her want to barf all over her organic dress.

That night the Tachman Center, which had wall-to-wall windows overlooking Benedict Canyon, had been decorated with hundreds of circular tables, covered in white tablecloths, with white tulips in the center. The walls were plastered with maps of Africa and SAVE DARFUR banners. Photographs of Sudan, donated to the event by
National Geographic
, hung from the ceiling, and a slide show about Africa played on the back wall. A musical group, flown in from Darfur, played drums while the crowd mingled.

Mac bitterly surveyed the scene: It was classy, international, and appropriate.

Mac had considered not going to the finale, but then decided she’d just look bitter, like when Leonardo DiCaprio skipped the Oscars when he got snubbed for a nomination. Of course, Mac
was
bitter. She just didn’t want to show it. But thankfully, it would be over soon.

Mac scoured the crowd, spotting her mother and father, who were mingling with Kimmie’s parents, Elliot and Tina Tachman, who had long blond hair that was clearly courtesy of extensions. They were laughing so loud that Mac could hear them from across the room. Clutch Becks and his buddies from his TV show
That Was Clutch
were at another table. Even Barry Goldman, wearing Ray-Ban sunglasses despite the fact that it was (a) indoors and (b) nighttime, made a cameo.