Third Girl from the Left (2 page)

She leaned over her clipboard intently, as though filling it out correctly would get her the part. Name: Angela Edwards. Age: twenty. She had really just turned twenty-two, but nobody told the truth about that out here. It didn't take but a minute to figure that out once you started trying to get work. The younger the better.
Other parts
. Hmm. Her parts had been temping, working as a Playboy Bunny, and auditioning. Who would know if she said something that wasn't quite true? She gave herself small parts in
The Liberation of L. B. Jones
and in
Shaft
. Carefully, she attached her headshot to the form and gave it to the bored blonde seated at a flimsy card table in front of the room. She went back to her cracked plastic seat, a dirty orange instead of dirty yellow this time, and dug in her bag for a copy of
Jet
. She pulled it out to read, her left hand rapidly twisting the hair at the back of her head, the part her mother always called “the kitchen.”

She waited a long time, watching other young women come and go, some looking defeated, some with an air of grinning confidence. She concentrated on taking deep, slow breaths and reading the “Weddings” page in
Jet
. The articles, as always, were tiny, hardly enough words to fill a thimble. But she couldn't concentrate on them at all. She jumped when she heard her name.

A pale white guy with lank black hair took her into the audition room. His satiny pink shirt had a couple of dingy red spots down the front. Whether they were blood or ketchup was hard to say. In the room, three more white men were seated around another card table. It was always white men around the table. The top of the table was ripped, foam sticking up from the gash. The middle one (was he the producer or the director?) had white hair combed straight back from his forehead. He held his cigarette like Humphrey Bogart in those old movies. He squinted at Angela through a haze of bluish smoke.

A softly fat man with squinty light blue eyes sat next to him. He nodded slightly when she came in. Then there was a weasely, anxious-looking third man. Angela figured him for the usual mystery man. At every audition she'd been on there was always somebody's friend or somebody's brother there strictly to check out the merchandise. She stood, fighting the impulse to twist the back of her hair again, and waited for one of the men to speak.

“So, Miss Edwards, I'm Jon Solomon, the director. You want to read for the part of Tasha?” That came from the fat, squinty-looking guy.

“Yes, sir, I do.” Damn. She sounded so country.

“Well, why don't you read with Rafe here. Show us what you got.” Solomon smiled. His teeth were small and yellow. They gave her some script pages and gestured to a brown-eyed handsome man she hadn't noticed before standing in the corner. He looked like one of the boys she knew from back home in front of the five and dime—like he'd lick you as soon as talk to you. He walked over, a slow smile on his face. Angela's heart squirmed in her chest like a live animal. They began reading the scene.

“I can't let no white motherfucker treat my woman like that,” he said, staring at her chest.

“Yeah, well, I'm a woman who can take care of myself. I've got the gams and I've got the guns. You don't need to worry about me,” said Angela. Her voice shook. What did “gams” mean anyway?

“Baby, you need a man to take care of your business. I don't want you out there getting hurt.”

“Nobody hurts me. They better jump back, in fact. They're going to rue the day they messed with me.”

“That's enough, thank you,” said the white-haired man. Solomon looked startled but said nothing. “You can go. But please come here for a second? I need to ask you something.” She walked over and he pushed his business card across the table. “I think you have real potential, young lady. Please give me a call, would you?” he said. If Angela hadn't been staring at the card in front of her, she would have seen the other two men at the table give each other sardonic looks. But she just picked up the card and slid it into her tight jeans pocket, real slow. Then she looked at the producer levelly. “Sure, Mr. Kaufman. You'll hear from me tonight.”

When she was fifteen and she and her friend Louann took turns reading
The Best of Everything
and this kind of thing came up, the white girls in the book were always terrified, shocked, unwilling. She was scared, but not unwilling. She hadn't slept with a white man, but let's face it, they ran things, especially out here. She might as well get it over with. It might even be interesting. She had a brief vision of her mother's face. But she pushed it away. She knew what she had to do.

 

She pulled up to Kaufman's door about ten minutes late. His building was in West Hollywood, a mini-shopping strip that contained a dry cleaner, a convenience store, and a small suite of dingy offices. Angela checked her lipstick in the mirror. She ran her sweaty hands over her pant legs, and rang the bell, practicing her smile.

The lobby of the office had greenish carpet and smelled slightly of cat pee. There was a coffee table with some magazines on it and a receptionist's desk with a typewriter in the corner, but no one else was there. Kaufman greeted her, standing in the doorway of an inner office, smiling at her. “Ah, Miss Edwards, so glad you could come.” He stuck out his hand. Angela took it, careful to hold it a little longer than necessary, and said, “You can call me Angela.”

“You may call me Howard,” he said. “And may I say that you're looking very lovely this evening?” Angela smiled again. It was kind of funny to have someone staring at her breasts without even pretending to look at her face. But it excited her too. He ushered her into his office, his hand on the small of her back.

Laid out on a table in front of a grayish, formerly cream-colored leather couch was a plate with Ritz crackers and light orange cheese on them and next to that, a straw-covered bottle of wine, two wine glasses, and a joint. Angela had never smoked pot before. She hadn't expected to have to do that too. She swallowed quickly and turned to look at him.

“Do you smoke?”

“I haven't, but I been wanting to try.”
Where'd that come from
? she wondered. She had not been wanting to try. He looked pleased. “Good,” he said. He led her to the sofa, picked up the joint, and lit it, smiling in a slightly threatening way as he handed it to her. “You know, it's a cliché, but you're really very talented,” he said, his voice constricted as he tried not to exhale. “Here, you've got to hold it in your lungs or it won't work. Don't let it out. Yeah. That's it.”

Angela felt as if someone had lit a fire in her chest. She'd had cigarettes before but never anything like this. She held the smoke for a second, then, coughing madly, gestured for a drink. Kaufman got it for her, laughing. “Everybody has a little trouble the first time. Here, don't give up. This is really good stuff.”

She took the joint again, holding it the way he did, between his fingers, and inhaled. Easier this time. She passed it back and took a sip of her wine. She could taste each grape in it. Howard hit the joint again and then said, “So, where are you from, Angela?”

“Oklahoma. Tulsa. Hope I don't never go back there again.” Oh my God. She'd said “don't never” in front of a Hollywood producer. She busied herself taking another hit, then noticed that he wasn't shocked at all. In fact, he was looking at her gently, a small smile on his face. She bit her lip.

“Tulsa, Oklahoma,” he said consideringly. “Tell me, Angela. What did you do there in Tulsa?”

“Be bored mostly. I went to a lot of movies.”

“Ah, yes. The movies.” He was sitting very close to her now, tracing small circles on her thigh with his finger. She could hardly sit still. She licked her lips. They were very dry. “Well. You'll go far in the movies, Angela. I can see that already.” He was slowly unbuttoning her blouse. “And I'll be proud”—now he was reaching around her back, undoing her bra—“to be the one who gave you your start.” He lowered his head to her breasts and she moaned. He smelled like the wine they'd been drinking and something else, something a little bitter. He paused for a minute, lifted his head, his lips wet, his gaze unfocused. “I can see that you'll do what needs to be done. An actress's most important job.” He slid her onto her knees in front of him, then took her hands and guided them to his pants, still smiling. She unzipped them and reached up to touch him. His penis was a kind of rosy pink. The color startled her. She moved her hand slightly, but then he pushed his hips forward a little and said, “In your mouth.”

“What?”

“In your mouth. Haven't you ever done that?”

She gulped. He was a white man and a movie producer. It was what he wanted. “No.” Her voice was small. She hoped it sounded sexy, not scared.

His voice was soft and insinuating. “You'll like it. It's OK. Go ahead.”

She opened her mouth, just a little at first, then wider. Would it fit? It did. It didn't feel good, but it wasn't so bad. It was OK. She had the part.

 

Afterward, there were Ritz cracker crumbs on her knees. Some had made their way onto the floor. She reached down to brush them off, laughing a little, trying to act like she did this all the time. She was still stoned, so it was easier not to feel strange. Nothing mattered anyway. Kaufman helped her. Now that they were done, she felt how rough his hands were. If she hadn't been so high, she might have noticed that he didn't look at her. She ran her tongue around her teeth; not knowing what else to do, she swallowed when he came and now she was a little nauseated. They dressed in silence until she spoke.

“I enjoyed that, Mr. . . . I mean, Howard.” She paused. “I hope you don't think I do this kind of thing all the time. In fact . . . I've never done that before. I mean . . . that was really good.” She looked up, from under her eyelashes; a look she'd long practiced in the mirror at home. She didn't feel as if she were lying. She was just saying what the man wanted to hear. He smiled at her wolfishly and said, “Well, I'm glad. You handled yourself like an old pro.” He reached out, hand under her chin. Squeezed just a little too hard. “You'll hear from me tomorrow. I'm sure we can find something for you.” Angela could hear her heart pounding in her ears. Though she didn't really want to, she turned her head slightly to kiss Kaufman's hand. Then finished dressing and left without another word, making sure to switch a little from side to side so he'd think about her butt as she left. It was like Sheila said: it wasn't that hard to do what you needed to do to get what you wanted. You just had to close your eyes. She didn't think about anything but the road ahead as she drove home. It was already very late.

 

Midmorning the next day, the script for
Street Fighting Man
arrived at her apartment with a note attached and some sections underlined—not Tasha, the big part, the part she wanted. But a secondary girl who was in the movie for about ten minutes. On the front was a note. “I had a lovely time, Angela. We've decided to go a different way for Tasha, but I'm pleased to offer you the part of Sandy. It will require some nudity. Remember, there are no small parts. Only small actors.”

Well. She ran her hands over the script, thinking about Mr. Kaufman's wet tongue moving over her breasts, the way she felt as he slid into her mouth. She took another sip of her coffee. Cold now. It wasn't the worst place to start, she supposed. The next part would be bigger. Sheila came into the kitchen, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. Like Angela, she worked at the Playboy Club and rarely got to bed before 4:00
A.M.
They often had the same shift, but Angela had traded with someone to make her date with Kaufman. “Mornin'. What's that?” she said, gesturing toward the script.

“A part,” Angela said, just beginning to smile.

“Are you kidding?” Sheila's voice went up in a squeak.

“Nope. Says so right here.”

“You mean you're going to be the lead?”

Angela's face got hot. “Naw. I got a smaller part. But the producer says it's a good one. And hey”—here she lifted her chin a little—“there are no small parts. Only small actors.” Sheila raised her eyebrows, then opened the small refrigerator for a pitcher of orange juice. “Did he say that to you?”

“Yeah.”

“Mmm. Figures,” said Sheila. “It's a part, though.” She walked over to the table where Angela sat, put the pitcher down, and placed her hands on Angela's shoulders, rubbing slowly. “So when do you start shooting?”

Angela stretched her neck, rolled her head a little as Sheila's hands moved over her shoulders and down her back. She looked at the cover letter. “Day after tomorrow. Holy cow, they don't waste no time out here, do they?”

Sheila, who had lived in Los Angeles for five years to Angela's one and a half, stilled her hands but didn't remove them. She looked over Angela's head at the yellowish wall in front of her. “No, they don't. The sooner you learn that, the better off you'll be.”

“You know, Sheil, I think I'm getting the hang of it.” She thought of the look on Mr. Kaufman's face as he unbuttoned her blouse. “I think I'm getting the hang of it.”

 

Angela's scene was set at night but was being shot during the day in an old gin mill in West Hollywood to save money. It smelled like hundreds of years of piss and beer and smoke. Every single surface in the place was chipped. The paint flaking off the walls, the neon sign flickering behind the bar, about to sputter out, the edge of the bar rubbed smooth by years of tired, drunk elbows. The crew was knocking even more paint off of every surface, trying to get each shot as fast as possible. The windows were covered with garbage bags to block out the light.

Angela had been prepped, her breasts and belly powdered down by a make-up woman who smelled of vodka and perfume and blew smoke in a steady stream as she smoothed on the powder. Now Angela stood in a corner, uncertain what to do. This morning she had learned that her part had been further reduced, to just this wordless dance on the bar. She'd had to swallow hard to keep from crying after the script supervisor told her. The script supervisor, who had long ago stopped asking herself why they always believed the producers after they fucked them, looked tactfully past Angela to a spot on the ceiling. So now Angela stood wearing a thin robe, just beginning to feel cold. No one had told her where to go or what to do. No one rushing by even noticed her. It was, it seemed, unremarkable to have a half-naked girl standing around the set. Her fingers inched to the back of her hair. Suddenly she heard a deep voice saying, “Where are those goddamn girls? We need them on the set now!” And then an announcement through a bullhorn, not so angry: “All ladies for the bar scene. All ladies to the bar, please.” She saw another girl in a purple robe rushing toward the bar and she joined her, stepping carefully over the cables that snaked everywhere. She was freezing and sweating. Her nipples hardened under her robe.