Sugar Valley (Hollywood's Darkest Secret) (64 page)

She looked up at him while still grasping
onto his hips, wanting his eyes to never leave her sight, but knew
that she had to go, for reasons of her own will. “In about ten
minutes.”

He turned around and looked at her eyes,
seeing out of his peripheral vision, Helen was approaching, and he
questioned, “What should I do about all the rest of your things at
the apartment? Do want me to send them to you?”

Helen stepped up to them. Still seeing them
staring at each other, she spoke in a happy fashion, “Hey, guys,
did you know that they have a candy machine in the bathroom?”

“Helen, could you excuse me and Damen for a
little bit?” Vivian asked in a nice manner, having Helen smiling at
her, knowing what she was thinking.

Helen walked away from them and sat down in
their terminal. Damen and Vivian still gawked at each other’s eyes,
with him saying in a whisper, “So, do you want me to send you the
rest of your things from the apartment?”

“Damen, I don’t even know if I’m getting the
role yet, I’m just going for the audition,” she responded with a
smirk.

“You know you’ll get the part, you’re
beautiful and talented.” Damen started to smile, a low one, but
still a smile, that was when tears began to shield Vivian’s eyes.
She knew right then and there that she truly loved Damen, but she
didn’t want her love for him to screw up her dream. A single tear
fell from the shield of her right eye, trying to catch it by
putting her hand on her face, she missed, and it fell in Damen’s
right hand, splashing and traveling into all the cracks and
wrinkles that his hand and his long lifeline made up. She turned
away from him and realized that she was making a big mistake, a
mistake that she would regret in the long run. But, craving her
dream more than Damen, she turned back to look at him and said, “I
tell you what, if I get the part, then you could just keep all of
my stuff.” She stopped, smiled and added, “You could even keep that
old couch.”

Damen gave a low laugh, but the sadness
caused his smile to only last for a second, coming back into the
situation that reality showed him—his love leaving. “Call me as
soon as you finish the audition.” Tears, and how they formed a
shield, broke from both eyes, and fell down Vivian’s face, after
hearing his words of tenderness, empathy, compassion, and love.

Vivian attempted, and tried desperately, to
catch the tears, but there were too many. So she gave up and spoke,
“Alright, it’s a deal.”

Helen got up from her seat, and spoke with a
laugh, before she walked over to them, “Hey, you could keep my
stuff also.”

“Helen, take good care of my girl out
there.”

“Don’t worry, Damen, I’ll guard her with my
life,” Helen said, penetrating Damen’s face with her soft hands,
caressing it like he was her own little, benevolent son.

A woman came over the intercom of the large
airport, and promulgated their flight, announcing it with blaring,
shrieking loudness. “That’s us, we better get going or else we’ll
miss our plane,” Vivian stated, grabbing her suitcases from Damen.
“Listen, Damen, I want you to go back to Chuck and apologize to
him.”

Damen started walking to the terminal with
them, explaining, “No, I don’t want to work there anymore, I want
something better than that. I didn’t come to California to work at
a coffee shop.”

“Listen, you need that job. You don’t have
enough money to afford the rent, and it’s due in two weeks. After
two weeks, you don’t have a place to live,” Vivian confirmed in a
serious fashion.

“I’ll be fine, I’ll just find a new job.”

“Damen, even if you did find a new job, you
still won’t be able to afford the rent. Chuck said you can live
with him, I already explained that to you. If I get this part, then
you...” Vivian explained, having Damen to cut off her words.

“I’ll be fine, baby. Listen, I survived out
here this long and I’ll survive out here longer. Trust me.”

They reached the terminal, and Vivian and
Helen handed the flight attendant their tickets.

Helen walked past the gates, and toward the
airplane, while Vivian spoke, “Alright.” She paused, for a brief
intermission of thoughts, and then yelled to Helen, “I’ll be right
there.”

Vivian turned to face Damen by the beginning
of the terminal, seeing a shield of tears forming in his eyes, and
hearing his choked voice saying, “Well, um, this is it.”

“Yeah, this is it, for now at least.”

They gazed at each other once more,
recollecting, remembering all they had, and what they would still
have in the imminent future if their love was strong enough to see
its reality. “Um, I ah, I want you to promise me you and I will
never lose what we have. You promise?” he questioned.

Vivian grasped onto him, hugged him tightly,
constricting herself to his warm silhouette, and said into his ear
with a whisper, “I want you to promise me that first.”

“I promise.”

“Well then, I most definitely promise.”

She kissed Damen on the lips as he held onto
her hand, feeling the tender pressure of her scrumptious kiss,
never wanting it to end. “Goodbye, or so long,” he said with vigor,
still holding onto her hand, feeling her warmth that made him
comfortable through cold nights.

Damen’s tears broke, and fell from his eyes,
so he turned away from her, not wanting Vivian to see them and
acknowledge his pain.

“I’ll call you after the audition.”

Damen turned his face toward her, laughing
out, “You know, ever since I came to California, I have been crying
nonstop.”

Vivian smiled and spoke, “Well, you better
get used to it.” She then slowly walked away from him and entered
into the airplane, leaving him there to stand alone, not knowing if
they were ever going to see each other again.

He slowly walked away, turning around to see
her plane once more, he walked back up to the big window and
watched as it took off into the air. He watched the plane disappear
into the clouds, whispering, “I love you.”

Chapter Fifty-Two

Vivian walked out of a room that had four
people in it, promenading her body slowly through the door and into
a waiting room, she had a sad look on her face, giving out a silent
yawn to describe her mood. The waiting area was filled with girls
that resembled her, like a town of look-a-likes, sharing the same
feeling of nervousness as Vivian. All the girls were sitting next
to either older men or older women, showing Vivian’s eyes that they
were their agents, preparing them for the audition of a lifetime,
holding scripts in each of their shaky hands, revising and
practicing their words. She sat down next to Helen as Gloria, her
agent, asked, “How do you think you did?”

The room was uptight; everyone that sat in it
had one thing on their mind: winning this part. It was stuffy, and
extra hot, being that New York was still cold, they pumped up the
heat a lot, so much that Vivian’s California flesh felt like it was
outside on the beach. She looked at her agent, nervousness
embroidered on her face, and responded with her nerves showing
through her shaky teeth, “Well, I don’t know, I screwed up a lot on
my lines. Gloria, I didn’t know this audition was for a big part in
Lovers Leap, that’s a big-time soap opera.”

Gloria smiled at her, saying, “Don’t worry,
they probably loved you.”

“Yeah, you’re perfect for the part,” said
Helen, rubbing Vivian’s back and trying to calm her down.

Vivian started biting her nails, stating
toward Gloria, “You told me it was for a TV show; why did you lie
to me?”

“Listen, look at you now, you’re a nervous
wreck. That’s why I lied, I knew that any girl would be nervous to
try out for Lovers Leap. I mean, if I told you what the name of the
show was, you would have probably gone in there and vomited on the
casting directors,” Gloria explained with a smile still on her
face, pulling a long piece of black hair away from her mouth.
“Don’t worry so much.”

A woman with a clipboard stepped out of the
casting director’s room and entered into the waiting room,
announcing to everyone, “Um, excuse me, but would a Vivian Gryer
please step in here.”

Vivian turned to Gloria, grabbed her hand,
and questioned with excitement, but fear in her voice, “Oh my God,
what does that mean?”

“It means they like you. Now, go on,” Gloria
replied. Vivian slowly approached the woman. Putting her hands
together as she approached her, she prayed to God that she would
win this part in the soap opera. Passing each of the girls who also
were there to try out, she felt all of their stares, gawking at her
face, and body, pressing their jealous and angry sockets against
Vivian’s flesh. Before she came up to the woman, she stopped and
turned around to face Gloria and Helen, trying to block out the
other stares from the room. She crossed her fingers and proceeded
to turn her head to face the woman again, stepping up about three
feet away from her, that’s when she said, “Um, hi.”

“Go get ’em, Vivian,” Helen yelled out with
happiness.

Vivian turned around, telling Helen to be
quiet through her gaze toward her, and then turned back to face the
woman with the clipboard, uttering while she fidgeted, “Um, I’m
Vivian Gryer.”

“Hi, my name is Jenny. Would you please
follow me?”

Jenny put her clipboard up to her big chest,
and started walking toward the Casting Director’s room, hearing
Vivian saying, “Sure.” She crossed her fingers again and hoped for
the best, and followed Jenny toward the door where every girl in
that waiting room wanted to be, but yet didn’t, because of their
nerves.

They both entered the casting room, seeing
all the casting directors gawking at Vivian as if she was a naked
statue, she became even more nervous, hoping that they liked what
they saw. “Okay, here she is,” Jenny announced.

One of the directors took off his glasses and
itched his long, white beard in a frantic frenzy, as if he had a
form of lice living and rooming in his enormously hairy face. The
room was dark, only having four lights over the four directors and
a single light in the middle of the room, over a chair where Vivian
started to walk to. She sat down on the chair, faced the directors,
as well as a camera that was directly lined up with her face, and
waited for instruction from anyone who was willing to give them to
her fast. She was scared, being that it was dark, and not an object
could be seen, except for the directors, and her own flesh; she was
timid toward the abstraction caused by this darkened, nervous room.
The director with the beard lit a cigarette, still itching
vigorously, and finally explained, “Alright, Vivian, what we want
you to do is read the last line of the script for us. Now, this is
a different line from the one before, but we just want to see if
you could handle it. A lot of the times, writers tend to change the
script momentarily, and the actors have to know how to remember the
new lines quick, and at the same time, act.”

Her face began to form sweat upon it. Feeling
a choking sensation in her throat from fear, she was able to
swallow loudly and squeeze out, “Sure.”

Three hours passed by, and the morning turned
to evening, as Helen and Gloria waited patiently in the waiting
room while watching girls of all ages leaving the room, one by
one.

It was now down to one girl, in this room,
with nerves of steel, staring at Gloria and Helen, thinking that
Helen was there for the audition. She stared at Helen, trying to
explain through her eyes that she was going to get the part, and
Helen was not, this silent gaze allowed her to turn to Gloria, and
stray away from the single actress. Helen looked at Gloria’s face
more, explaining, “Gloria, there’s only one more girl left for the
audition. The rest left, what does that mean?”

“It means that Vivian is about to get the
role. You see, for these past hours, while Vivian was in there,
that women with the clipboard came out and said something to each
girl. Do you want to know what she said to them?” she asked,
putting her black hair in a ponytail with a black rubber band.

“Yeah.”

“She said that the casting agents, or
directors, aren’t interested in them. As soon as this last girl
gets sent home by that woman, Vivian gets the role, or else a
callback in a month or so,” Gloria explained, seeing that the woman
with the clipboard came out and walked up to the last girl
auditioning for the show.

“You mean, that’s all? After this, Vivian
either has the role or not?”

Gloria watched as the last girl auditioning
ran out of the waiting room with tears in her eyes, explaining to
Helen, “Well, there’s a little more to it than that, but that’s the
main concept of it.”

Vivian ran out of the casting room and up to
Gloria and Helen, showing tears in her eyes and sweat on her face.
Helen thought for sure that Vivian didn’t get the role, but she was
wrong when Vivian’s frantic voice said, “They want me for this
role. They said something about a callback.”

Vivian’s face turned to a smile, listening to
Helen ask, “What’s a callback?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I think it means
they’re interested in me.”

“Well, it means just that, but you have to
wait for the callback; sometimes it takes awhile. Yet, as soon as
you get it, that means you got the role, almost positively,” Gloria
stated. Vivian began to weep rapidly from happiness, feeling a hug
from Helen, and hearing Gloria add, “Did you give them a number
they could reach you at when they decide to call you?”

“I told you they would love you,” hurrahed
Helen.

“Vivian, did you?” Gloria asked again.

“No, how could I? I mean, I just got here
this morning,” she responded, suddenly seeing Gloria getting up and
walking up to the woman with the clipboard.

Vivian and Helen noticed Gloria handing Jenny
a card; confusion came over them. Vivian turned to Helen and asked,
“What’s she doing?”