Chapter Two
Lindsey – Monday
My face was ashen as I crashed back through the front door into the apartment I shared with Denise. When I’d stepped out of it at eight o clock this morning, I was higher than a kite, on top of the world, and now…
Well, now I felt like the world had crashed down around me.
“Woah, what is with you?” Denise chuckled with her hands on her hips. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”
I ran my eyes up and down my roommate’s body, wondering if my opinion would be different if I looked more like her. With her voluptuous curves, her bright red plump lips, and her shining almost black eyes that always appeared filled with mischief, Denise just screamed “sex goddess.” It oozed off of her in waves. She might have only been two years older than me at twenty three, but sometimes it felt like she had a good decade on me.
My figure was more petite, slimmer…less interesting in my eyes. My blonde hair fell down to my hips, and my face was heart shaped. People complimented me on my lips, but I just didn’t see it. When I looked in the mirror all I saw was the endless sadness behind my dark blue eyes.
“I… I…” I gasped while racing across to the kitchen area in our apartment. The living room and kitchen was all as one so I didn’t have to end our conversation. I turned on the tap and allowed the cold water to cascade into the first glass I could grab. “I don’t know what to think at all, it’s all so…”
I turned and leaned my back against the counter, gulping down the water like I’d been in the Sahara, rather than on the New York subway. I tried to allow the coolness to calm down my body, but it didn’t really work. I could still feel the hot mess I truly was inside.
“Audition didn’t go well, then?” Denise asked while screwing up her nose. As an aspiring actress, she truly got it. It was a hard, competitive world which crushed dreams more than it made. “That’s a shame. I thought it was a shoo-in.”
“It isn’t that,” I gasped while slamming the glass back down. “It went well. It was good, really. They offered me the part…”
Denise’s eyes lit up with glee. She got ahead of herself in excitement. “Oh wow, that’s amazing, that’s just… Wait.” Realization dawned on her. “If it went well then why are you standing there looking like you’ve just been told one of your breast implants has popped?”
I automatically grabbed onto my chest, small compared to Denise’s. “But I don’t have…” I shook my head, that wasn’t the point she was trying to make. “The reason I’m upset is because they want me to be nude in one of the scenes. Like, full nude, and of course I’m nowhere near famous enough to demand a body double. If I do it, I’ll have to have everything out for the world to see.”
When the director told me that, my elation had turned ice cold. I never wanted to show off my body; it was one of the things I’d felt determined about when I got into the acting world. I didn’t want to be an actress for that, even if it was done tastefully.
The reason I enjoyed acting was because it felt nice to be someone else for a while…especially when it seemed that it was something I was good at. I relished in stepping out of the Lindsey Marsh person I had to be every day of my life, and becoming someone else. That was what I wanted. I didn’t want the world to see every single part of me. That just wasn’t me and it never would be.
I’d told the director that I would think about it, but I knew he wouldn’t wait for long.
After a moment, Denise burst into laughter. She chuckled so hard that she actually bent over double, leaving me with my mouth hanging wide open. I knew Denise had a bit of a blunt way about her, I never minded that side of her, but this seemed downright cruel. I was going through the biggest crisis ever, and she was making a joke out of it?
I stepped backwards, ready to run from the room, when Denise caught a hold of herself. “I’m sorry, Lindsey; honestly, I am. I don’t mean to be a dick about it, but you should hear yourself.” She threw her hands above her head in a bemused gesture. “This is acting, this is New York. There just isn’t any way that you can make it without flashing some flesh. It’s the same in L.A…actually, it’s worse in L.A. There you’re expected to do a lot worse to get by, if you know what I mean.”
I gulped, not liking the sound of that – any of it. It didn’t have to be that way, did it? Some people must have made it on talent alone. Surely?
“I know it might not be something that you’re comfortable with, but you need to find a way to make it work.” She hopped down off her stool and followed me into the kitchen. “When I first learned about my original role would involve nudity, I spent the majority of a week naked in front of a mirror. I used that time to get used to my body and to also work out how to position it right. I knew how to do it in clothes, so I just had to relearn for that scene.
“Now look at me. I’m in three commercials, last month I was in an off-Broadway production, and next week, I have another walk on role in that CIA TV series. All of that came from that one role. It catapulted me.”
I didn’t like to comment that it hadn’t catapulted her the whole way because that would have been a shitty thing to do, so I just nodded silently instead. I didn’t think I would ever be able to get used to the idea, however hard I tried. I just wasn’t the girl who found it easy to get naked in any situation. Never mind under studio lights with hundreds of crew members watching me, cameras pointing at me, and the knowledge that it would be for public consumption.
“I strongly suggest that you get in front of that mirror now,” Denise continued, seemingly oblivious to the inner turmoil cascading through my brain. “Or you’re going to have to find another way to pay the rent.” Her face twisted into a smirk which suggested that a joke was about to fly out of her mouth. “Either that or you’ll have to start selling your body on a street corner…at least that way only one person will have to see you naked.”
With that horrifying thought, she turned on her heels and stalked into her bedroom, leaving me even more confused than before. Maybe I could get used to my naked body, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, I thought. The movie was a period piece about a lady in the war falling for an enemy soldier. The nude scene was supposed to be very tasteful, but the thought of standing there with all eyes upon me filled me with dread.
I tugged my cell phone out of my pocket and typed out a message to the director.
‘I’m really sorry. I don’t think I can…’
But then I considered my inability to pay rent if I didn’t take on this job. I would have to find something really fast to make this month if I turned it down which was going to be really challenging. Maybe I just needed to suck it up and make myself do it.
I hit delete, then retyped:
‘Thank you for the opportunity. I would love to…’
But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t hit send. Instantly, despite my desperation to get back home only moments before, I knew that I needed to escape again. I needed a long walk, space and time to think, and a cup of coffee from Lorenzo’s. There was something about the java that came from that place that was like liquid gold. I needed it to help me make my decision because when I finally did make a choice, I wanted it to be the right one. After all, it was going to affect me a lot.
***
With a steaming cup between my fingers I took a much slower walk back to the apartment. I didn’t really want to get back home until I knew what I wanted to do for sure. It was hard to think with Denise pressuring me, even if she didn’t really mean to. I knew that she only wanted the best for me, and I appreciated her friendship, but on this point I didn’t think we would ever see eye to eye. Denise was happy to go with the flow and did not mind doing what needed to be done to make a success of herself, whereas I was much more content to stick to my morals.
Not that my morals were getting me anywhere.
As I passed a beautiful young woman playing her clarinet on the street corner, I wanted nothing more than to chuck some change into her instrument case. From one struggling artist to another, we needed to support one another, but I couldn’t. I had scrabbled around in the bottom of my bag to pay for this damn coffee. I could barely afford anything else.
I’d finally eaten through all my savings, leaving me at a desperate and hopeless place. I didn’t think this time would come so soon – I was supposed to be in a much better place. I had all these plans, but somehow they fell apart somewhere along the line.
My eyes were drawn, as if a magnet was pulling them, to a red dress hanging in the window of Barneys. It was long, it cinched in at the hips, and it had the perfect cut for someone with breasts on the slightly smaller side. I didn’t even need to try it on to know that it would look good on me, I could just tell. It was the sort of garment that in a naïve way I thought acting would help me to buy.
No such luck.
No, I could barely afford anything from market stalls, never mind something like this. With a deep sigh, I forced my pining body to move away and continued on my journey back home. I wanted to be able to do the nude scene, just because the rest of the movie was beautiful and would make my life easier by paying my rent, but I just knew that I couldn’t.
I was going to have to find some other way to make myself some money. If only there was another job somewhere out there in the world, for me to showcase my acting abilities. I needed some magic job to drop out of the sky that would let me act, allowing me to become someone else, while also keeping my morals.
Sadly, I was never going to get that lucky. I never had, and I never will.
‘To Ian,’ I typed out with regret on my cell phone screen. ‘Thank you for the opportunity, but I am afraid I will not be able to take on the role. Yours sincerely, Lindsey.’
I shoved my phone away, knowing I wouldn’t get an answer. It would get me shit from Denise, who was bound to be pissed off, but somehow I would make it work. I had to. I didn’t have any choice in the matter. It wasn’t exactly like I had anywhere else in the world to go.