Jane Austen Goes to Hollywood (9 page)

When she made it big, Hallie would show some restraint. A rambling Spanish estate up in the hills, maybe, or a small mansion somewhere. Something that showed a little class. . . . Hallie daydreamed, happily anticipating the change of fortune that was surely just around the corner. Some of her theater-class friends used to argue that to be a true disciple of your craft, you had to cast off material possessions, and devote yourself to your art — body and soul. Hallie thought that was being kind of hasty. There was no reason why she couldn’t become a serious actress
and
have pretty things. Jodie Foster. Halle Berry. Tilda Swinton. They played worthy, demanding roles, and still got to waltz down the red carpet in fabulous designer gowns.

It didn’t have to be
either/or,
Hallie would argue right back. They could pick
and.

That was when she finally saw the light and realized that Hollywood wasn’t the end of all her dreams: it could be the beginning of them. There were plenty of respected teachers in town, and what better way to learn her craft than to actually get out there and
act
! Theater groups, indie movies . . . Hallie could get more experience on stages and sets than she ever would cooped up in a classroom in college. She even felt sorry for her friends: they would be trapped by the chains of textbooks and term papers, while she would roam free to be her true creative self —

A car horn blasted, and Hallie leaped back just in time to avoid the low bronze sports car cruising past. “Hey!” she called after it. “That was my light!”

A slim arm slipped out of the tinted window, and the driver flipped Hallie off with a perfectly manicured hand. Charming.

Hallie looked around. She was out of the neighborhood now, onto Rodeo Drive with its spotless sidewalks and gleaming storefronts; the sheen of light reflecting off polished windows seemed to make everything look brighter, sharper. Sports cars rolled slowly down the street, and inside every boutique, a silent doorman waited so that customers wouldn’t even have to demean themselves by pushing inside. Hallie had seen wealth, of course — San Francisco was hardly some truck-stop backwater — but under the blazing bright sun, this still seemed like another world, of glamour, and success, and infinite sunshine.

A world where she belonged. Yes, this was exactly where Hallie was supposed to be, and she was going to prove it. Starting today.

Hallie checked the address on her printed map, then gazed up at the towering office building. As well as having designer stores and cute cafés, the neighborhood had five major talent agencies, home to the very best actors in town — and Hallie’s future. She took a deep breath and strode inside, across the plush lobby.

“Hi.” Hallie beamed at the receptionist. He was in his twenties, sharp-suited and marooned behind the desk in the middle of a vast marble lobby. “I have a delivery for Marshall Gates.”

The man barely looked at her. “No, he said the car would be here at noon.” He had a headset on, stabbing at buttons on the console in front of him with dizzying speed. “Please hold. No, you need the fifth floor. This is Dynamic, how can I direct your call?”

“Hello?” Hallie tried again. “If I can just leave this . . .”

The man held up one finger. “Noon. I don’t care, just get it here!” Finally, the receptionist flickered a gaze at Hallie. “Yes?”

“I have a package, for Marshall Gates.” She slid a manila envelope across the desk, neatly addressed and containing her headshot, résumé, and a DVD of her assorted acting highlights. Hallie had stayed up all night editing the best clips together. Her Desdemona — performed by her flash theater troupe in the parking lot during an Oakland Raiders game — was a personal best, she felt, with a death scene so convincing three passersby had called an ambulance.

The receptionist slid the envelope back. “We don’t accept unsolicited materials.” He tapped his headset again. “Dynamic, please hold.”

“You don’t understand,” Hallie tried again, making her smile even brighter. “I just want him to take a look. When he sees my test reel, he’ll thank you!”

“You and five thousand other girls.” He gave her a withering stare.

Hallie’s smile faded. “Can’t you make an exception, just this once? Just slip it in with his other mail.”

The man smirked. “Mail comes from the mail room. Does this look like the mail room?”

“No.” Hallie swallowed. “Can’t you say it’s a delivery? Or even let me take it up myself? I won’t say anything, I promise!”

“Let you in here?” he snorted. “It’s company policy, there’s nothing I can do. No. Unsolicited. Materials.” The man used his index finger to push the envelope back, a few inches with every word.

Hallie decided it was time to change tactics. “If those are the rules, then how do I get solicited?”

He smirked.

“I didn’t mean . . .” Hallie blushed, realizing her double entendre. Her confidence was crumbling in the face of such disdain. “Just, tell me, please. What does it take for them to take a look?”

“Have your manager submit it.” He looked bored, already stabbing at the console again. “Get scouted by a casting agent. Perform in a showcase. Jesus, did you just step off the bus today?”

“A few weeks ago.” Hallie’s voice was small.

“Welcome to Hollywood, sweetie.” His voice was scathing. “Now, are you going to leave me alone, or do I need to call security?”

It was the same at all the other agencies. Hallie tried her best smiles, her most charming tone — even buying a bouquet of balloons and trying to masquerade as a PR girl with a special gift delivery — but it made no difference. The receptionists barely looked up long enough to sneer at her with polished condescension, before pushing her portfolio back across the desk, or — worse even — sliding it straight into the trash.

She stood in line at the Coffee Bean, seething with frustration. It wasn’t as if she’d expected Hollywood to welcome her with open arms, but this was impossible! To have an agent even take a look at her photo, Hallie would have to have a manager submit it, but to get a manager, she had to have interest from an agent. What was she supposed to do?

“Can I help you?”

“I’ll have a large vanilla ice-blended with extra espresso.” Hallie eyed the blond barista’s perfectly toned arms. Maybe she should take Amber up on that gym recommendation. “Can I get that light?” she added.

“Sure. That’ll be five twelve.”

Hallie opened her wallet. Two lone dollar bills stared back. Her heart sank. Her bank account was empty, and her credit card was maxed out from that spree last week to buy all her “moving to L.A.” essentials. (New wardrobe, audition monologue books, a fabulous new bathing suit with a genuine 1950s vintage cover-up . . . )

“It’s OK. I can, uh, get that.”

A guy in line behind her moved to the register, his wallet already out. He was in his early twenties, maybe, with a burnished-copper tan and stubble. His clothes were scruffy — a rumpled navy shirt, jeans that were clearly not designer — and when he turned back from the cashier toward her, Hallie saw an ugly scar snaking up from the neckline of his shirt, the red puckered skin cutting up the side of his neck.

“No, thanks,” she told him, edging away.

“It’s fine.” He shrugged, looking awkwardly at the floor. “I mean, I was already —”

Hallie turned back to the barista. “You know what? I’m detoxing. An iced green tea would be great.”

She peeled off the dollar bills and then took her place waiting by the counter. The scarred guy loitered nearby, so Hallie pretended to click through her cell phone. You couldn’t give them any encouragement, that’s what they’d learned in fifth-period Women’s Empowerment classes: firm declarative statements, and, at last resort, a quick blast of pepper spray. Hallie had left her travel-size canister in her other purse, but she wouldn’t let it get that far; the minute her tea was ready, she hurried out, despairing over her bad luck.

Couldn’t it have been some gorgeous actor looking to save her, instead of some drugged-out surfer dude? They would have struck up a conversation over the condiment station, and by the time their drinks were ready (espresso for him: strong, bold, masculine), he would have been begging her to star opposite him in his new indie film — something harrowing that would make the perfect entrée to the Hollywood elite. Long hours on set together, their overwhelming natural chemistry . . . Hallie would have an A-list boyfriend
and
an Oscar nomination all sewn up by the end of the year — without needing her material solicited by anyone!

But no, instead she had Mr. Crazypants back there with his creepy serial-killer stubble. Hallie ducked into the nearest store, and then peered out the front window, just to be safe.

“Can I help you?” A polished clerk who reminded Hallie of Portia — all severe haircut and pencil skirt — hovered nearby.

“Just browsing,” Hallie replied, but the woman stared at her with suspicion until Hallie drifted deeper into the store. It was an upscale boutique, full of gauzy dresses and perfect slouchy tanks hung casually from empty rails as if they were works of art. Hallie checked the price tag of a cute dress and winced. Three hundred dollars!

God, she missed having money.

It wasn’t that they’d been rich exactly . . . Well, no, Hallie had to admit: they had been. She’d had a clothing allowance, and money to go out with her friends, and had never once even considered an after-school job — not when she had so many acting commitments to fill her time. Even after their father had left, she’d never worried about money, not when he was lavishing them with guilty gifts, and slipping fifty-dollar bills into her purse every time they had coffee.

But now . . .

Now she couldn’t even afford the basic necessities, like ice-blended coffees, let alone a cute new dress.

“Oh, my God, that is so fierce.”

A voice from the back of the store made Hallie look up. A girl had emerged from the dressing room and was assessing herself in the mirrors; her blond friend sprawled on the couch, tapping at her phone.

“You think?” The girl turned slowly, examining her reflection. She had glossy dark hair that fell in a perfect cascade over the skintight black minidress. “Maybe it’s too classy. I mean, he’s into rock-chick girls — tattoos and leather and stuff.”

“So what?” Another girl looked up from the jewelry she was browsing; beachy and boho in a long patchwork skirt and cropped tank. “Are you going to go pierce something for him?”

“No way.” The dark-haired girl grinned. “We all know how that turned out. Brie.”

The blonde looked up from her phone. “Hey! That was one little tongue stud, and I took it right out!”

“Only after an infection and antibiotic shots!” The girls laughed together, piling onto the couch in a tangle of limbs and necklaces and glossy leather bags.

Hallie watched, struck with a sudden pang. All her friends were back in San Francisco, and although she’d tried to keep up with the latest news — texting, calling, and checking in via Skype — she could feel the distance between them grow: a gaping canyon that used to be filled with after-school hangouts, and nights sharing dim sum in Chinatown, but that now only had voice-mail messages and the occasional afterthought of a chat. Part of the reason Hallie had been so glued to that pool lounger these past weeks was that she didn’t have the first clue how to make friends here in L.A. Was she supposed to join a club? Take classes? Grace didn’t seem to mind her solitude, but to Hallie, the empty space was loneliness: a hollow ache in her chest.

One of the girls saw her staring at them, and raised an eyebrow. Hallie quickly turned and hurried out of the store. For all her talk of belonging, the sad truth was she didn’t.

Not yet.

The sting of rejection still fresh, Hallie regressed to poolside lounging for the rest of the week. She needed a vacation, she told herself, restlessly flipping through plays she knew by heart. She was in recovery, recharging her batteries before her next grand assault on Hollywood. But for all her reasoning, Hallie knew the truth: she didn’t really know
what
to do next. Plan A had crashed and burned, and she was suddenly completely adrift in her own life, with no schedule or school or social plans to fill her days. Instead of seeming like a marvelous vacation, it felt, to her shame, like failure.

This was why people went to college, she thought mournfully. Not for knowledge, or partying, but four more blissful years of structure and routine.

Hallie wandered into the main house, and found Amber idling in the vast marble wonderland of the kitchen: flipping through magazines with one of the dogs cradled in her arms. Now, there was a woman who didn’t mind a life of utter leisure.

“Hey, sweetie!” She lit up. “How are your mysterious plans working out?”

“They’re not.” Hallie slumped, too dejected even to muster horror at Amber’s matching pink velour sweats. “I can’t get anyone to even look at my headshots.”

“Awww, you poor thing!” Amber put down the dog and enveloped her in a lavender-scented hug. “I know exactly what you’re going through. Trying to get that first break is just a nightmare, but you can’t give up.”