Chapter 6

Samantha

I was so excited I could hardly stand it. Barry had come home with the news that he’d found a part for me.

“What? Are you jerking me around again?”

“No, luv, I’m not, I swear. Got the word from one of my many, well-placed sources that they were looking for a clean-cut, innocent young girl. They mentioned seeing you at another reading and remembered your big green eyes. ‘Course, didn’t take me but a moment to realize they meant you, luv. You’ve got the fairest eyes I’ve ever seen.”

“Barry, seriously. If this turns out to be like the last one, you can forget about staying in the U.S. I’ll spread the word and you’ll be out on the next pontoon boat for the UK.”

“Luv, I swear,” he said, holding up his hand. “Here, take this. It’s the card of the gent looking for you. Seemed quite anxious to find you and I knew your break had finally come.”

I was giddy. “Barry, do you really think so? Geez, I never thought someone would be hunting me down. What kind of role is it?”

“Don’t know, exactly, luv. But I’m sure they think you’re perfect because it’s you they’ve been scouting for. Now, off with you. Go talk to that man and for Christ’s sake, this time wear something that belongs to you! I had a devil of a time with Lydia when she found you’d lifted her jacket.”

“You told me she lent it to me!”

“Yeah, well, she did, in a way. We all have to play nice together, don’t you see? Can’t make it if it’s every bloke for himself, you see?”

“Whatever. Barry, if this turns out to be legit, I’ll buy her a whole suit.”

“That would be good, my gal. Yes, Lydia is ripe for me and that would go a long way to my good if you get my drift.”

“I get your drift. Now, hush and let me call this man.”

* * *

For once in his miserable life, Barry hadn’t been lying. I called the Mr. James Johnson on the card he asked me to come down to a small theatre in Soho. He must have recognized me from another reading because when I walked in, he waved and I met him at a small table set up in front of the stage.

He shook my hand. “You’ve no idea how glad I am to find you,” he said enthusiastically, his pale white face perspiring. He was wearing a tan suit, wrinkled as if he’d stepped off a jungle trail. His voice was pinched, effeminate and high.

“Have we met before?” I didn’t recognize him, and he was the sort of person you’d remember.

“No, no, well, not directly. Doesn’t matter, but the role is yours if you can get through it.”

“I don’t understand. Why me?”

“The producer asked for you specifically. I guess he probably saw you at another audition.”

I nodded. “That’s possible. I go to so many. Where’s the script?”

“Right here.” He handed me a single sheet of paper. Dang, not many lines.

“That’s page one. Just read through it and then do it on stage.”

I scanned them quickly and then spotted the stairs at the edge of the stage. Once I took my place, a spotlight switched on and the theatre went dark. I was bathed in light but couldn’t see a thing in the audience. It made my stomach turn over, but I’d better get used to it since that was how it worked.

“Johnny, tell me you didn’t kill her. When I said, ‘get rid of her,’ I didn’t mean really get rid of her. They’ll catch you, Johnny and you’ll go to prison. We can never be together!”

I read the line and wondered if the play was a comedy. Surely no one was producing anything that bad.

I was wrong. “Great! Great!” Johnson shouted from below the spotlight. “You’ve got the role. Report backstage and they’ll fit you with a wardrobe and you can sign the contract. Hurry now, we need to begin rehearsals.”

That’s it?

I turned and looked for the break in the curtains to go backstage and soon found myself outside the dressing rooms standing before a door marked, “Business Office.” I knocked and at the voice, went in. Ten minutes later I had a signed contract in my hand and was headed to be measured for my wardrobe. By the time I stumbled back to the apartment that afternoon, I was beside myself. I’d brought champagne and pizza for everyone and we drank until there was a line for the bathroom.

Rehearsals began the next day. The play was unconscionably poorly written. I would have walked, except that the pay was so good. I convinced myself it was a vanity work – someone whose daddy had a lot of money and was just playing around. To make it worse, we were only getting two weeks’ rehearsal time and then it was opening night. I wasn’t prepared, and I wasn’t the only one. Everyone’s lines were awful. The props were cheap, the backdrops poorly painted and the theatre itself needed new seats that didn’t smell like men jacking off. I had to ask myself what I was doing there, but it was a start and every famous actress had to pay her dues. Right?

Shit. I don’t even believe that one myself.

But, there I was on opening night. Someone had given me a private dressing room and while that was an honor, I would have rather had some other women in there to keep my attention diverted. I was scared to holy sweet Jesus death!

A delivery man came to the door and handed me this ginormous bouquet of red roses—so many that I couldn’t count them. They came in a glass vase and I was trying to figure out how to get water into them and then looked for the card. There was none. Who is sending me flowers? I realized then it was probably customary for the company to send the leading lady roses. I decided I’d carry them out as a bouquet at my curtain call and throw them one at a time to the audience. That might help curb the booing—I hoped.

The first act went fine—the audience was either stunned or had left, I couldn’t tell which because the lights were all in my face. I struggled with my lines, having only had two weeks to learn them and because they were so bad, they were illogical. It was almost a situation where you had to memorize the sounds, like a puzzle because if you relied on cues from the action, you were lost. If this was what acting was all about, I wanted out. It wasn’t for me.

But, I was a trooper and if I was going back to my hometown, it would be with roses dried in a program that had my name as the leading lady.

The second act ran into trouble. Someone had forgotten to swap out the backdrop and we did the whole setting geared for a living room while standing in front of a pair of his and her outhouses. The audience loved it—they thought everything was a spoof and that encouraged me and kept me from running off stage.

The last act called for me to die in my lover’s arms. My lover was in real life a gay guy with extremely bad breath who kept muttering that the scene would be so much easier if he were holding a man in his arms. “Pretend, can’t you? Aren’t you an actor?” I whispered back furiously as I spoke my lines.

While the script never defined what I would die from, I feigned a growing illness, growing weaker and weaker as the play drew closer to its end. Finally, I collapsed on the bed, closed my eyes and tried to breathe shallow enough to be convincing. The curtain closed, and the applause was scattered but reassuring. I climbed off the bed and headed to my dressing room to get the roses.

Inside, someone was waiting for me. It was Dom.

“Dom! What are you doing here?”

“Get your stuff. We’re getting out of here.”

“What? Why? I can’t. I have a curtain call. I just came back for the roses.” I drew them from the vase and then remembered. “Anyway, I’m mad at you. Did you forget?”

I pulled the roses into a bouquet and turned toward the door. He jerked my shoulder, turning me around and brushing the roses to the floor. “Hey! What’s wrong with you?” I cried out, astonished that he’d behave this way.

“I hate to tell you, sweetheart, but this is all a set-up. You need to leave with me…now.”

“A set-up? Oh, you’d like to think that because just maybe I did something on my own for once and you can’t take credit for pulling the strings! Huh? Sound about right?”

Dom was quiet, watching me. “You need to believe me.”

“You sure do like to shoot a girl down.”

He stood up. “Okay, I can see I’m going to have to do this my way.”

“What do you mean, your way?”

Dom crossed the distance between us and picked me up, laying me over his shoulder and grabbing a coat to throw over my costume.

“Put me down! What’s the matter with you? Have you gone crazy? Dom!” I started kicking.

His big hand came up and soundly slapped me on the ass. “Be quiet. Let’s just get out of here!”

He flung open the door and there, just like in the movies, was Slattery. “Satisfied?” Dom muttered and shoved Slattery out of the way into the crowded hallway. He strode in the direction of the backstage door and kicked it open. I lay over his shoulder, holding on for dear life and trying to figure out what the hell was going on. The coat was over my face and I couldn’t see a thing.

“Put me down,” I begged.

“In a second,” was his response and I felt myself being rolled over his head. I landed hard on something soft and recognized the limo seat.

Dom slid in beside me, the door slammed, and I heard the locks click. The driver hit the gas and a stream of icy water flew out and into the face of the fat man standing on the curb behind us, stomping his foot on the ground with his hands waving in the air. I was on my knees, looking out the back window at Slattery. Dom pulled me by the hips down onto the seat. “Sit down. He might have a gun.”

I hit the floor as the limo rounded out the alley and turned into traffic. Dom tapped me on the shoulder. “You can get up now,” he said, and I rose from the floor and sat on the opposite end of the seat from him.

“Would you mind telling me what’s going on?” I asked in a disgusted voice.

“You’re welcome.”

“What?”

“For rescuing you…again.”

“You ass, Dom! What did you have to do with this?”

He held up both hands. “Nothing, I swear.”

“Really? I mean, really? How is that I get a role just handed to me, a nice paycheck and a shitty script meant to die in one night and you just happen to show up and rescue me? And you brought Slattery?”

“You think I brought him to you? Do you?” Dom shouted. His face was angry, but I wasn’t afraid. I flew into his face and with barely two inches between us, I took him on.

“How would you explain it?” I asked, my words slow and carefully articulated.

“We’ll talk about this later.” He turned to look out the window and didn’t look back at me until we arrived at The Avalon. The door opened, and the driver was standing there. “Go inside. George will let you up to the apartment. Go straight there and stay there,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Where are you going?”

“I’ll be there after I’ve taken care of some business. Don’t argue with me, now. Stay there and don’t leave. For God’s sake, do what I tell you this once, will you?”

“Hey, I’ve got a life and an apartment of my own, you know.”

Dom was angry. Very angry. “Damn it, Samantha. Go up and stay there!”

I swallowed hard and nodded. “Okay. I’ll stay put.”