I Loved You Wednesday (8 page)

“So have I.”

“In French?”

“Got me there.”

“See! He’s smarter than anybody I’ve ever met.”

“Found yourself an oracle, huh?”

“You bet.”

“And that’s why he’s a bartender?”

“Don’t knock bartenders. I think I’ve slept with four of them in my time. They’re uncommonly sexy; standing up there in front of all those bottles. Bradley’s a bartender because he’s working his way through medical school, smarty. You know, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were jealous.”

“Jealous? Me? HA! You must be joking! I’m so even-keeled, I’m incapable of jealousy. . . . Wait a minute. . . . Jealous of what? Of whom? Who is this guy anyway? You meet someone who mixes martinis well, spend some time together at some dumpy bar, and you’re picking out the silver pattern for the dining room. So you’re in love with a smile and a matching set of dimples and maybe a brain and what am I supposed to do? Congratulate you and do cartwheels? Huh? Is that what you expect? Well, forget it, because if you want to know what I really think, I think the guy’s got a hell of a nerve being so presumptuous, that’s what I really think, because, yes, you’re goddamn right, I happen to be fucking well jealous of this turd whoever he is and just let me get a hold of him and I’ll break his nose.”

“My day is made. My two favorite men fighting over me. I can die a happy woman.”

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

“He asked me out for Monday.”

“I
am
going to be sick.”

“Come on. Stop. We’re spending the afternoon together because he works in the evening. I haven’t got a thing to wear. We’re meeting at the Museum of Modern Art at noon. Next to the Lipchitz. Isn’t that romantic?”

“
Yucch!”

“Come on, Steve. Try and get behind it. This is really the first time I’ve been happy in months. You know that. Give me a little smile, will ya?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Come on, Stevie-poo. Just an iddy-biddy one for Chrissie-poo.”

“Well....”

“Come on, open wide for a big smiley-wiley.”

“. . . All right. . . .”

“Are you smiling for me?”

“Lobe to lobe.”

“That’s my baby. All right. I have to get off and start preparing for my date.”

“Chris, your date isn’t for another fifty-four hours.”

“I know. But I’ve got a lot to do.”

I guess.

“It’s never a bad idea to be organized.”

“Never.”

“Well. ... I guess this is it!”

“What?”

“I’m getting off the phone.”

“You make it sound so final.”

“It is. We may not speak again until tomorrow evening.”

“That long?”

“Unless I have something new to report.” “Right.”

“Okay, Steve, good-bye. I love you.”

Click.

“Good-bye,” I say into the disconnected receiver. “I love you, too.”

Visions of sleeping late Monday morning are blown when Rhonda Olden, my other agent who represents me for commercials, wakes me at nine, telling me I’ve got an audition for Sure deodorant in two hours. So perhaps it was just as well we left Vermont ahead of schedule.

I get down to the casting office a little before eleven and walk in on this mob scene affectionately known in the biz as a cattle call.

Most commercial calls will bring thirty to fifty actors in for interviews, auditions and tapings. Some, like this biggie today, see practically anyone foolish enough to subject themselves, so as many as a hundred and fifty people may be screened.

Commercial auditions are a masochisms delight.

The personification of the Catch-22 philosophy. If you’re new to the game, they won’t hire you for lack of experience. And when, through some pact with the devil, you do get some work, you’re no longer what they’re looking for because you’re now overexposed.

I walk into the crowded office to register my presence, looking around at the sixty or so candidates hostilely staring back at me, sizing up my chances against theirs.

It’s mostly pure Americana. The girls look like ex-captains of the cheerleaders; the guys like former senior-class presidents.

The secretary I check in with hands me a copy of the copy being tested, and I begin to study it.

And it’s most enticing. Reads like a good mystery novel. In it I’m to compare some run-of-the-mill deodorant under my left armpit against Sure under my right side, until Ifind, to my great olfactoried satisfaction, that Sure is tops for the pits.

Endorsements like this really turn my stomach. Maybe freedom of speech isn’t such a good idea, after all. Fortunately for them, there’s a sufficient number of us whory and greedy enough to ply our crafts on such contrived trash.

There’s a rather attractive, bright-eyed girl standing next to me whom I recognize from a commercial I auditioned for last week.

“Excuse me.” I interrupt her studying of the copy. “Didn’t we read together last week on the Alpo call?”

“Right!” She flashes an enthusiastic smile. “You were the cocker spaniel!”

“And you were the French poodle!”

“Right!”

“Hi.”

“Nice to see you again.”

“Hey, listen,” she asks pointedly, holding up the copy. “This garbage is embarrassing. Are we supposed to be sincere about this or flip or what?”

“I’m not certain. It’s not easy getting worked up over deodorant, is it?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Last week I did a Charmin commercial and got sexually aroused squeezing toilet paper.”

“Flowered, colored or plain white?”

“Any of them.” She laughs aloud. A high-pitched, distinctive and, yes, strange laugh. “I could get excited about train schedules. That’s the trick. Make believe you’ve just discovered penicillin and then substitute that for whatever it is the sponsor’s selling.”

“Good advice.”

“Yeah. I got a million of ‘em. Heh-heh-heh.”

“Quite a laugh you’ve got there.”

“Yeah. Strange, huh?”

“Different.”

“I know. Most of my friends won’t go to comedies with me. I embarrass them.”

“Is that something you developed, or did it just come naturally?”

“Combination, I guess. Most unusual, huh?”

“Kind of.”

“A lot of it is nervousness, though. I laugh at funerals, and I know nothing’s funny.”

“What’s your name?”

“Wendy. Wendy Chartoff. Heh-heh.”

“Pretty funny name, huh? I’m Steve Butler.”

“Hi. Actually I’m pretty depressed most of the time. I think this must be a cover.”

“Could’ve fooled me. I’ve got a friend who’s depressed a lot of the time, too, but to look at her you’d think she was Julie Andrews.”

“Ha-ha.”

“Say, uh, after the audition, would you like to join me for a cup of coffee or something?”

“Sure.
Oops, that’s what I’m selling. I mean yeah, fine. I have over an hour till my next call.”

“Will you be able to keep a straight face during the audition?”

“Absolutely. When I’m acting, I find humor in nothing.”

“Really? How’s your comic style?”

“It needs work.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“What I’m best at is tear-your-hair-out drama. Deep-deep-deep. I find Chekhov light.”

“What a coincidence. I find Woody Allen heavy.”

“Ha-ha-haha-heh-heh.”

Wendy and I chat a while longer, she giggling a lot until someone opens the audition room door and announces her name. Wendy’s face drops to deadpan serious. Stiffening, she turns and walks into the room as though headed for a firing squad.

She comes out smiling again a few minutes later, and after waiting another fifteen minutes or so, while we continue talking and yucking it up, I’m called.

I walk into the room, am introduced to the casting lady, the various assistants and the director before sitting down on a stool in front of a small videotape machine.

The copy for the commercial is written on cue cards in bold block letters directly below the eye of the camera. After a moment or so, the videotape machine is switched on to record this performance and I begin my ultra-sincere sell, proclaiming the joy and happiness my left armpit has found since discovering Sure.

It’s not a bad reading, but neither is it cigarsville. I finish the audition, ending with a smile flashing all the enamel I can squeeze into the wide-angle lens.

There is a short pause. Nobody says anything. Nobody even breathes. All eyes go to the director, who finally issues his verdict. “Sweet,” he says.

Sweet! What’s a “sweet” reading?

“Thank you,” the director then says, followed by three other thank yous around the room.

I thank you them back and leave, offended, humiliated, repulsed and annoyed.

“How’d it go?” asks Wendy.

“They thought I was sweet,” I offer sourly.

“That’s okay, ha-ha. They told me I was very sober.”

“When I get home, I’m throwing away my can of Sure, and I don’t give a damn how upset my left armpit gets!”

Wendy and I go to a coffee shop across the street, where we have a bite and chat about the acting scene, comparing: New York to Hollywood, theater to television, Stanislavsky to Strasberg, lines at casting calls to lines at unemployment offices.

I take her number, suggesting we might get together soon. She thinks it’s a fine idea, giggles again and rushes off to her next audition. I go home to prepare for Chris’ call, which I know is coming later this afternoon, most anxious to learn how her date with Mr. Right has gone.

Just before five thirty, the phone rings.

“Hello?” I answer, feigning nonchalance.

But all I hear on the other end is heavy breathing. At first I think perhaps it’s not Chris, after all, and I may be gettingan obscene phone call. Eventually, however, Chris interrupts her breathing to say, “I can’t catch my breath!”

“Slow down.”

“I’m trying.”

“How’d it go?”

“I can’t speak yet.”

“All right.
I’ll
talk.”

“Good.”

“I met a girl at the Sure call today. Wendy Chartoff. We really hit it off well and went out afterward. ...”

“Steve, this is definitely it!”

“You think so?”

“Absolutely.”

“You think it’s love, Chris?”

“I’m convinced.”

“But I just met her.”

“Who?”

“Wendy!”

“Who’s Wendy?”

“The girl I was just talking about.”

“When?”

“Not Wen. Wendy!”

“When were you talking about Wen-Dee?”

“Just now.”

“We weren’t talking about Wendy anybody just now. We were waiting for me to catch my breath so I could tell you about my day but I don’t think I ever will I’m so winded I ran up all three flights skipping every other step mind you and then by the time I unlocked all four locks took off my coat threw off my shoes said hello to all my plants went to my refrigerator and gobbled down six very delicious cherry tomatoes I was so hungry I couldn’t wait to call you so here I am and wait until you hear what happened!”

Chris pauses for three quick breaths before continuing. “It was only the most fabulous day of my life that’s all I don’t know where to begin well at the beginning I suppose we met at the museum and strolled around between the Picassos and the Matisses, hand in hand, like a couple of high school sophomores discovering love for the first time. And Steve,he is so smart he knows why everything exhibited there is whatever contribution it is to the art movement and his insights into paintings are so astute I never would’ve dreamed anyone that gorgeous could be so deep I’m so glad I took that Understanding of Modern Art course at Indiana or I really would’ve been lost talk about dividends, huh? We went window shopping along Fifth Avenue and the Christmas displays are
so
beautiful we walked all the way to the Plaza where we lunched at a teddibly chic hot dog stand on a couple of wieners, mustard/sauerkraut, hold the onions and a bottle of Hires root beer and walked into the park as we ate and dribbled all over ourselves laughing laughing laughing until we got to the zoo which was empty I guess because it was so chilly that most of the animals stayed inside except of course the seals who were having the most exciting game of tag around the pool. Steve, he held my hand as we walked into the lion house. Can you imagine? He put his arm around me when we visited the elephants and then a little later on when I complained of an itchy back he stood behind me and massaged my shoulders and I practically had an orgasm right there in the monkey house standing between a gorilla and an orangutang and oh my God the best is yet to come we took a taxi home and he kissed me good-bye and let me tell you it was a good thing I was sitting down because my knees buckled isn’t that incredible and I invited him up for a quick drink or anything else he could squeeze into the forty-five minutes he had before getting to work but he said no, he’d rather come back when he has more time oh Steve I’m so excited he didn’t want to just slam-bam-thank-you-ma’am me like everyone else he really paid attention to what I was saying and HE DOESN’T JUST THINK OF ME AS AN OBJECT AND HE’S THE FIRST MAN IN YEARS WHO LIKES ME FOR ME AND NOT JUST MY BODY and you don’t suppose there’s something wrong with him do you oh I’m driving myself crazy I know he’s got to be the best thing that’s ever happened I wonder when he’ll call again he’s from Minnesota isn’t that a wonderful place to be from I’m sure his family will love me when we go home every year for