Skinnydipping (15 page)

“Yes sir to both,” I said, and reached out to shake his hand.

Was it really going to be that easy?

Finding a new job was exactly that easy. The next day, I began as a hostess at La Fenice, a pretty little Italian bistro that was currently
the hot spot for Hollywood to lunch and talk business. Nobody would have known I’d never been a hostess before. I took to the job immediately. I handled the lunch shift and was responsible for greeting and seating people, taking care of special requests, and supporting the waitstaff.

I got to know many of the regulars and where they liked to sit, who needed what accommodations, and how to juggle tables and customers so everybody ended up happy. It was like a complicated puzzle, fitting everyone in just right, taking care of everyone with perfect timing. I loved it.

After a week, I felt like I’d worked at La Fenice for years. It was great to be back in an environment that was comfortable and familiar. I was happy around food, and since my mother never cooked, I’d grown up eating in restaurants. Restaurants felt like home. I also loved the busy, intense work ethic of the restaurant environment. The money was OK but regular. I didn’t usually get tipped, but once in a while, someone would hand me a ten or even a twenty when I got them the table they wanted or otherwise accommodated them, and it was a very big deal to me. I loved meeting and greeting the Hollywood power elite and being the one to show the who’s who of Hollywood to their lunch tables. Movie and music producers, directors, entertainment lawyers, plastic surgeons—it seemed like everybody who was anybody in Hollywood came to La Fenice for lunch. It certainly was different from being a cocktail waitress in college, serving sex on the beach shots to hoards of drunk frat guys.

I was too busy to think about
Hollywood & Highland
, but I did think about Vince Beck, and I always hoped the next person through the door would be him. Why wouldn’t he come here for lunch? Our interactions hadn’t been that meaningful—not to disrespect dry-humping and toe-sucking—but more than anything I was addicted to the feeling I had when I was around him. I couldn’t resist our chemistry, and I missed our office banter. As much as I thought about him, however, I decided never to call him. I’d let him pursue me. I liked thinking that he was out there, somewhere, knowing exactly where I was.

Meanwhile, acting school wasn’t going so well. On the first day, Perry and I showed up clad in tights and legwarmers and big sweatshirts, our hair tied back, ready to work. Perry was so excited, but I was skeptical. Yes, I wanted to get better at acting, but was it something you could really learn in a school? I was having buyer’s remorse, but Perry said yes, I had to do it, so I agreed to give it a try, even though I couldn’t help being anxious about the money I’d spent. At least the banks still had faith in me, though I’d almost hoped they wouldn’t give me another card. Then I would have had an excuse to tell Perry no.

“Welcome, welcome, young actors!” bellowed Frances Crane, the distinguished acting teacher who would be revealing the mysteries of the craft to us over the next six weeks.

With fifteen other students, Perry and I sat on the wood floor in a big warehouse-type room that looked like it might once have been a dance studio. “I welcome you here to find what lies inside you—to find your own transformative power—to find your
character
!” She sent that last word off with a dramatic flourish of voice and hand, then eyed us all, suspiciously. “Do you
know
what character is?” she asked us.

Nobody said anything. I looked over at Perry. She was obviously buying this spiel. “Character is what fills you—you, the empty vessel. To be an actor, you must empty yourself of your own personality and fill it with your character.” Her voice rang out through the huge space. The old crone certainly could project. “When you become your character, with every ounce of your being, you will understand what acting is.”

The room was silent. I looked around to see if anybody else was taking this as seriously as Perry. Apparently, they all were. I tried not to roll my eyes. An empty vessel? Seriously? Why would I want to get rid of my own personality? That was just bizarre. I liked my personality. Wasn’t acting just
pretending
to be someone else? What was so hard about that?
Just listen, Faith. Keep an open mind.

Frances Crane went on, making the whole thing sound like a surgical
procedure, or some sci-fi personality transfer experiment. “Pour yourself out, and pour the character in. Infuse yourself with the character, and you will transform into someone else!” she crowed.

Maybe that’s why so many actors get divorced, I thought. You would never know who you were going to be married to, if personalities had to change with every role. I began to rethink my big ideas about dating actors. What if you couldn’t stand the person your spouse had to become for every movie? What if you couldn’t stand the person
you
had to become?

After telling us that she knew what she was talking about because she was on Broadway three decades earlier, had supporting roles in a few movies, and won an Emmy for her role in a major television drama, and after giving us a lengthy speech on why Ashley Judd (her former student) was the quintessential actor alive today, she had us get up and warm up our bodies with some strange stretches and some jumping around. I felt silly doing it, but I played along, trying to look serious and committed.

When we warmed up our voices by making vowel sounds at different pitches and saying tongue twisters, I had a hard time not laughing. After twenty minutes of OH-YE-OH-YEs and AH-ZAH-AH-ZAH-AH-ZAHs—we sounded like the teacher from those
Peanuts
cartoons—finally, the teacher had her assistants bring out chairs for everyone.

“Now, I want each of you to sit in a chair. Sit, sit, everyone.” We all scrambled to secure a chair. I settled into the molded plastic and tried to give Perry a “here we go” look, but she was clearly drinking the Kool-Aid. “Close your eyes, everyone. Now. First, I want you to breathe deeply. Breeeeeathe deeply …”

I tried to breathe deeply.

“Now, listen to my voice. Let my voice be the only thing you hear. Feel your body sitting in the chair. Feel it! Imagine you are a beautiful bowl, and imagine tipping, tipping, draining your contents.”

Whatever.

“Now. Breathe. And listen.” She cleared her throat. “You are eight years old,” she said. “Feel what it feels like to be eight years old. How do you see the world? What do you think about? Feel it.” She paused.

I flashed back to being eight and asking my mother if I could be an actress and go to acting school. I remembered her telling me not to bother trying, that it would be too hard, and the angry feeling I had when she said that, and the feeling of wanting to do it even more. Eight years old: the age of big dreams and the complete inability to achieve them. And now, here I was, ridiculing what I’d longed for so desperately.
Pay attention, Faith. Get your money’s worth. Stop being so cynical. Live your dream, stupid! And while you’re at it, could you please get the hell out of your head?

I felt preposterous. I opened my eyes again and looked around, and I was astounded to see people’s contorted expressions. One girl held her knee and wept. One guy rocked back and forth, cradling himself, and tears streamed down his cheeks. Perry’s whole face was scrunched tight with genuine pain. Give me a break.

I wasn’t getting this. I looked down at my hands. I really needed a manicure. I peered at my toes. A pedicure, too. I thought about when I could fit this into my schedule, and whether I could justify the expense. Actors need to be well groomed, right? So it could be a tax write-off. I thought about my bank balance.

“Goood!” said Frances Crane, then she looked directly at me, my eyes disobediently open. I forgot to close my eyes! We stared at each other for a moment, and then she slowly raised her clawed hand and pointed at me. “Feeeeel it,” she whispered. I closed my eyes and tried to look like the other students—like I was
feeling
it. “Good!” she repeated. She thought I was doing it.
I’m acting like I’m acting
, I thought.
Maybe I’ve found my calling.
I wondered if there was a market for that.

It was always such a
relief to get home after class. Perry liked to hang around and talk to the other students, while I tapped my foot impatiently.
I just wanted to fall onto the couch, or get into the kitchen and cook. These days, I was thinking more about food than about acting. I felt guilty about this, but it didn’t keep me from thumbing through my Sybil Hunter cookbooks for inspiration. I now owned all five of them. Pretty soon, I was adapting her recipes, and then creating dishes entirely based on my own ideas. Some weekends, I spent almost a whole day in the kitchen.

The savory smells from the kitchen upset Perry, who watched her diet so scrupulously that I wondered whether she’d ever actually enjoyed eating. That didn’t stop me. During the first month of acting classes, I perfected a roast chicken with crispy skin. I tweaked my scrambled egg recipe until it was no-fail. I baked muffins, cupcakes, and cookies, and I experimented with lowering the fat and sugar content, so Perry and I could eat them guilt-free.

At least when Perry was around, I exhibited great self-control, but sometimes, the food I cooked was so tasty, it was hard to eat just a little. Perry began to act nervous whenever I opened up a cookbook. When she got too tempted, she would go into her bedroom and practice the Meisenburg breathing technique we learned in class. When I got too tempted, usually by cookies or muffins, I’d stack them up on a paper plate, wrap them in foil, and take them immediately next door. Our neighbors loved us.

I understood Perry’s anxiety, but I had my own problems, and food was my therapy, my consolation, and my favorite routine. I’d cook, I’d eat, I’d feel guilty, I’d vow never to do it again, I’d starve myself, I’d lose a few pounds, and then I’d do it all over again, despite my vow. It was all a great excuse to avoid what wasn’t actually happening in my life, but I didn’t want to think about that. I would rather just cook.

chapter nine

F
aith. Get up!” Perry shook me awake. “Come on. I have the perfect audition for us. No one else knows about it yet.”

I was sleeping off a lasagna, garlic bread, and cookie dough binge. It was worse than a tequila hangover. The guilt combined with the bloat made me want to hide underneath the covers for a week. My eyes were swollen and I knew I had days of juicing and repentant starvation ahead of me. I vowed not to step on a scale today. I couldn’t take what I might see. It was going to be a baggy-sweatpants day. An audition was the last thing I could face.

But Perry was insistent. Ever since she had taken a part-time job at an agency, she was privy to the breakdowns from a service that listed all the good auditions regular people without agents never heard about. “It’s for a major studio, and Matt Dillon is the lead, and they’ve got most of the cast but they’re still looking for Matt Dillon’s love interest, and they want an unknown!” She composed herself. “At least, that’s what I heard. So get up! I want to talk about it!”

I opened my eyes, which was no easy feat, considering how puffy they were. Matt Dillon? I could see myself being Matt Dillon’s love interest. Why not? I might have the exact look they want. God knows
I had a ton of headshots left. I’d been using them as place mats. Wall paper. Toilet paper. I groaned.

“Let’s go for it!” Perry urged me.

“What’s the point?” I said, feeling fatalistic—and nauseated. As if a food hangover wasn’t humiliating enough, Perry wanted to subject me to the ultimate humiliation of another audition? Perry gave me her best pleading face.

“When is it? Because I’m definitely not leaving the apartment today.”

“It’s not for two days. Please! Say you’ll go with me! We both have a real chance. It’s not a cattle call!”

I sighed, deeply and cynically. But how could I say no to her? She looked so hopeful. “OK,” I relented. “But I’m juice-fasting until then.”

“Yay!” She jumped up and hugged me. I smiled weakly, still queasy and full of self-loathing. “I’ll get us the sides.”

Two days later, I was feeling debloated, confident, and mostly back to normal. The juice fast had definitely helped me feel in control of myself again, and my stomach was back to its preferred state: flat. And Perry was right—it wasn’t a cattle call. This was a more select group than usual, and I actually recognized a few of the girls, although I couldn’t say from where. Maybe television commercials or small parts in small movies.