Carter
“MR. STONE, CAN I get you anything? Is there something you desire?”
The receptionist’s sultry voice pricks the bubble of self-pity surrounding me. C’mon, man, snap the hell out of it. Don’t let Tori’s rejection throw you off your A game. That was yesterday. Today you can change the course of your career.
I sit up in the chair and scan the waiting area of casting director Samantha Bell’s office. Unlike jobs I’ve pitched in the past, this audition doesn’t require that I sit among thirty other hopefuls sizing up the competition before we’re each called in. I’m alone with Bell’s receptionist, who lowered the neckline of her top when I walked in and who bent over to pick up several dropped items in the short time since I arrived.
“Water would be great,” I tell her.
She drops her shoulders and then hitches them up again. “Right.” She rises from her seat, sashays to the small fridge in the corner, and retrieves a bottled water. With a wink and a smile, she hands me an Evian. “There you go.”
I say thank you at the same moment the intercom buzzes.
“Hannah, let Mr. Stone know we’re going to need a little more time,” a raspy voice says.
“Sure,” she replies.
I nod at Hannah to let her know I’m aware of the delay.
Samantha Bell’s reputation precedes her like gym stench. A former actress herself, she delights in crushing people’s dreams. She’s making me wait on purpose. Because power games are very much a thing in the business.
I sigh and pull out the partial script for Swan Song. The story is layered and brutally honest about the flaws of each of its main characters. I would play Alex, a marine stationed in Al-Taqaddum, Iraq, who struggles to set aside his prejudices as he trains Iraqi soldiers for their continuing fight against militant groups. While there, he strikes up a friendship and ultimately falls in love with a widow who sends him letters as part of a military pen-pal program. But she never tells him that she’s twenty-five years his senior or that she’s battling cancer, and the latter half of the film explores their relationship after Alex returns to the United States and as they try to come to grips with their true selves. It’s not a feel-good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a meaty role that will help me escape the rom-com jail in which I’m imprisoned.
Minutes later, after a long buzz from the intercom, Hannah escorts me to the entrance of the audition room.
When I walk in, Samantha lowers her glasses to the bridge of her nose and scans my body. “Mr. Stone, it’s great to meet you. I’m a fan.”
Everyone’s a fan in this business. Just once I’d love for someone to tell me they hate my work and don’t understand why I get paid $50,000 an episode. That shit would be refreshing. “It’s good to meet you, too.”
I set my messenger bag on a chair by the door and wait in the center of the room, a drab gray curtain serving as my background.
Samantha’s sitting at a long steel table. To her left, a man is positioned behind a video camera, while a woman, presumably the casting director’s assistant, is standing next to the cameraman as she peers at the monitor that will display the audition feed. I don’t approach anyone for a handshake because Samantha’s already jotting down notes.
“Did you get the new sides?” she says with her eyes still on the papers on the table.
She changed the lines they expect me to read? Dammit. More games. “I didn’t.”
She turns to her assistant. “Jess, why don’t you get Mr. Stone a copy of the new sides?”
“Sure.” Jess lifts a set of stapled pages off the top of a stack and hands it to me.
“Take a minute to look that over, and then we’ll have Jess read with you,” Samantha says.
“Okay, great.”
Samantha picks up her phone and swipes left so quickly she reminds me of a character in The Matrix.
In the scene she’s selected, Alex, wearing civilian clothing, arrives at Pam’s doorstep after returning from Iraq. It captures the moment Alex meets Pam in person and discovers that she’s ill and that she failed to disclose this to him during their months of correspondence. An image of Tori during our final night together in Aruba flashes through my mind, but I force myself to read the words and get into my character’s head.
After a few minutes, I look up and tell Samantha I’m done reading.
“Do you have any questions about the role or the scene?” she asks.
I lick my lips and tamp down the urge to pace. “No, I think I’d prefer to just get to it.”
She nods, and Jess approaches with her copy of the lines. The advice my first acting coach gave me plays in a loop in my brain: “The papers in your hands should be your only prop. Use the sides to steady your nerves. Tighten your movement to account for the camera taping your audition. Don’t let the reader’s monotonous voice throw you.”
“Ready when you are,” Samantha says.
Jess pretends to open a door. “May I help you?”
I pretend to remove a cap from my head. “Yes, ma’am. I’m looking for Pam Larsen.”
“That’s me,” Jess says with hesitation in her voice.
The rest of the scene takes another three minutes to complete. Samantha asks me to read a few lines at various spots in the script. When I’m done, she writes furiously and ends her note taking by underlining something in hard strokes.
“Thank you, Carter. Let me ask you this. You’ve done pretty well for yourself as a situation comedy actor. Why the switch?”
I retrieve an image of my former agent, Simon Cage, from my mental file drawers. He can be found in the file marked “J for Jackass.” Cage tried to convince me that my best assets were my abs and a wicked sense of comedic timing. He’s wrong on both counts—my ass is killer when I’m properly conditioned, and I can handle more challenging roles just as well as the so-called serious actors in film. I just need the right vehicle to show it, and Swan Song could be it.
“I don’t think of it as a switch, so much as a progression. All actors need to grow. It improves their craft. A role like this has the potential to take my career to the next level, and most importantly, I think I can handle it.”
Samantha angles her head and again scans me from head to toe. “Let’s dispense with the formalities. You’re in the running for the part, and we’d like you to read with Gwen Styles. But there’s a catch.”
There always is.
“I appreciate the effort you made to meet the physical demands of your latest role, but we’re interested in casting the Carter Stone who’s amassed a following among women. Swan Song is a drama, but that doesn’t mean we’re not going to include several strategic body shots. Think Alex running on the base in the morning. A bare-chested Alex in bed reading one of Pam’s letters. So we’ll need you to come here with the right look. Think you can regain the weight in a month?”
“Probably not. It took me three months to lose it.”
“I can give you six weeks to show us you’re on the right track.”
“All right. I’ll do what I can.”
Samantha nods, a small smile playing across a face that’s been expressionless so far. “I’m not asking for too much, am I?”
She is, and she knows it. “My only option is to try.”
“Great. I’ll be in touch with your agent about the details. Thanks for coming.”
I’m stunned by her relatively cordial behavior. Although she gave me a semihard time, she’s not the barracuda I expected her to be. Other actors have shared stories of dismal auditions in which Samantha made them cry. I roll up the sides and slap the pages against my thigh. “Thanks for the opportunity.”
With my shoulders high and a smidge of swagger in my step, I stride out of the audition room. I grab another bottle of water from the reception desk and guzzle it.
“How’d it go?” Hannah whispers, leaning forward so there’s no way I miss her impressive cleavage.
“I think I did all right. We’ll see.”
Something’s missing, though. I spin around, hoping to jog my brain. Shit. I left my messenger bag. Careful not to make too much noise, I walk down the hall and approach the door to the audition room—and stumble on the conversation inside.
“I wouldn’t have cared if he’d read the phone book,” Samantha says. “That man is so fucking sexy.”
“But he really needs to add on weight,” Jess says.
“Nothing a few hamburgers couldn’t fix. But that monologue about progression and bettering his craft was pitiful.”
The ensuing laughter hits me like barbs. Who the fuck cares what they think? If I get the part, I’ll show them how wrong they are. Before I re-enter the room, I knock on the door and peek in. “Hey, sorry about this. Forgot my bag.”
Samantha’s gaze darts to her assistant, and then she straightens. “Not a problem at all.”
I grab my bag and get the hell out of dodge, dismissing their petty conversation because that’s just how the industry is. The important part is that they’re still considering me for the role. But hell, they’re giving me only six weeks to bulk up.
Tori and her gym immediately come to mind as a potential solution. In Philadelphia, I’ll be less susceptible to distractions. Plus, I have no doubt Tori would take the assignment seriously. And maybe we could start over, with no lies between us. It’s a brilliant idea.
Now all I need to do is convince her to train me.
AFTER A QUICK call with Julian about the audition, I slip into a booth at a random diner in midtown Manhattan and order a cup of coffee and a slab of blueberry pie. I hum in approval when I take my first bite, the crumbs of the buttery, flaky crust spilling onto my shirt. I’m impersonating a toddler, and I don’t care. The rest I consume like it’s my last dessert ever. After today, there’ll be no more sweets for me for the next six weeks.
I sip the coffee while I look up Tori’s gym on my phone.
The home page displays a semitranslucent image of the gym and a generic welcome message. A daily motivational tip sits in its own box on the right side of the page.
Aha, Tori recently posted an entry. Coincidently enough, it discusses celebrities—in less than flattering terms. I’m not so egotistical as to assume I’m the reason she’s down on Hollywood types, but meeting me couldn’t have helped. There are no comments, and a quick scroll through the other blog entries shows they’re not shared often.
I click the icon to share the link with my followers. To ensure I have Tori’s attention, I find her Twitter handle and tag her:
Check out this motivational tip from @torialvarezTR of @HardCoreFitness. So simple even a celebrity could handle it. ;)
Despite Tori’s initial impression of me, I’m not a creeper. If she doesn’t respond, I’ll abandon my plan to hire her as my trainer.
Dozens of my devoted fans immediately retweet my post. A few fans reply, too.
Replying to @cwstone: Is that how you got your fantastic body?
Replying to @cwstone: I’d work out with you anytime!
Replying to @cwstone: Sounds like she doesn’t like celebrities!?!
Replying to @cwstone: I guess you two won’t be friends, huh?
Wanting to shut down the conversation before it goes sideways, I send another tweet.
Re: last RT: A little harsh on celebrities but advice is good just the same. Running and weights for me.
Then I swipe through the camera roll on my phone and stop at the only photo I took my last morning there: a pic of the divi-divi tree on the beach near our hotel. My fans would appreciate this photo, so I share it on Twitter with a few hashtags: #Aruba #dividivi #fascinating. This, too, gets dozens of likes and retweets.
Twitter can be a mind suck, so I exit the app and call Jewel.
“Hi, Carter,” she says in a professional tone I’ve never heard before. “What can I do for you?”
Something’s wrong. Jewel doesn’t ever answer my calls politely. “What happened, Jewel? Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine, Carter. Were your travel arrangements to New York acceptable?”
“Okay, Jewel, now you’re scaring me.”
She sighs on the other end. “I’m trying to do my job, Carter. I don’t always do it well.”
I flip through my mental Rolodex, trying to figure out what’s provoked her sullen mood. Oh, I know what this is about. She’s still feeling guilty about confirming my whereabouts to the paparazzo in Aruba. “Jewel, am I perfect?”
She chuckles. “Hardly.”
“So why would I expect you to be perfect, huh? The guy was underhanded, and you inadvertently confirmed that I was still on the island.”
“It’s my job to handle those types of calls, but my conniving-jackass radar wasn’t working properly. I’m so, so, sorry.”
“It’s fine, Jewel. Please. As much of a pain as you sometimes are, I need you to be you. Just like I need Julian to be Julian, as cantankerous as he can be most times. Be real, okay? I need that in my life. You have no idea how much I appreciate the hard time you take so much pleasure in giving me. And don’t blame yourself.”
“Okay,” she whispers. Then she clears her throat. “What can I do for you, Your Majesty?”
I’m grinning like an idiot. “That’s more like it. I called because I’m thinking about staying in Philadelphia for the summer. Can we talk about arrangements?”
The click-clack of her nails tells me we’re back on track. “An entire summer without my boss afoot? This should be good.”
Twenty minutes later, Jewel and I have mapped out a plan for the major commitments I’ve made in the next two months.
“Good to hear your voice, Jewel.”
“You too, Carter.”
After hanging up, I glance at my phone’s home screen and see that I missed more than a dozen Twitter notifications. Well, well. The Hard Core account responded to my tweet. It says:
Glad you liked our tip. Doubt you could handle Hard Core, though. #notready
This is progress. At least she’s willing to engage with me. And then I focus on the opportunity presented by her tweet. Ah, Tori-not-short-for-Victoria, didn’t anyone tell you it’s not wise to issue a challenge when it can’t be retracted? My response is swift and succinct:
Challenge accepted. #bringit
My Twitter mentions blow up within seconds.
Whoa. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.
Remember when I said my biggest mistake yet was not telling Tori who I really was? My Spidey sense tells me this mistake might rival that one.