“She thinks you’re gay.” Carissra shrieked with laughter. When she finally caught her breath, she said, “That’s hysterical. Trust me, Erika, he’s pathetically straight. Me, I’m bisexual. I love everyone. Much easier that way.”
“Well, now that I’ve firmly put my foot in my mouth, I really have an audition I need to get to.” I turned and started walking toward the elevator. Figures, the first hot straight guy I have met in a long time, and I shove my foot right in my mouth.
“Hey, don’t forget an umbrella,” Kirk yelled after me.
“Got one in my bag,” I said, turning around and motioning to my bag. “I was a Girl Scout. I’m always prepared.”
I clicked the button and was greeted seconds later by the chiming sound as the elevator hit the floor and opened its doors. The ride to the lobby was smooth. And Kirk was right. The rain had started coming down. One joy of fall in New York City was how quickly the weather could go from summer to fall, back to summer, then to winter, all in twenty-four hours.
I slipped out of my heels and put on the tennis shoes in my bag. In the city, it’s always essential to have a pair of tennis shoes in your bag because you don’t want to walk around the city in heels when it’s raining or snowing. Oh, and never wear open-toed sandals or heels on the streets. You’ll have grime all over your toes at the end of the day. And you won’t know what the grime came from. That’s just nasty.
I nodded to the security guard before heading out into the rain. Fun fact about Manhattan Plaza: Samuel L. Jackson was a security guard there in the 1970s before he got his big break. I loved my apartment building because it had so much history.
Outside, I rummaged through my bag and opened my umbrella. Thankful that I always had one in the bag for just these occasions. I headed off to the Actors’ Equity Building. From the Manhattan Plaza, it was maybe a ten-minute walk if the tourists weren’t gawking and slowing down the sidewalks.
I crossed 9thand continued to walk down 43rdStreet until I hit 7th. I stood waiting for the light to change. A few tourists were about, and one almost poked me in the eye with her umbrella. Dodging umbrellas when it was raining was a full-contact sport. I moved to the edge of the curb to get ahead of the mass of people. I was looking in the other direction when a bus turned the corner. Suddenly, the wall of a hurricane hit me square in the chest, and I was drenched from head to toe. People behind me gasped as they watched it happen. I reached up and wiped the water from my face. I may have outwardly groaned, but the string of profanity that ran through my head would have made my mother in Iowa blush.
Chapter 4
IwalkedintoActors’Equity looking like a disheveled, soaked rat dragged up from the subway. I had stared at myself in the glass outside the building, so I wasn’t fooling myself into thinking I looked great anymore.Guess this is one way to get out of getting the part. After going in, I searched for the ground-floor bathroom and did my best to make myself look at least somewhat presentable. My perfectly coiffed hair now hung limply next to my face, like the main character out of theGrudgemovie franchise. My makeup, which had been perfect, now looked like rivers of red and black streaming down my face.
I grabbed a paper towel and wiped off any trace of makeup. Thankfully, I had lip gloss and a comb in my bag, which I pulled out. I let out an exasperated breath. I’d never re-zipped my bag after pulling out my umbrella. Everything inside was soaked. My shoes, my sheet music…I stood there in stunned silence. I didn’t hear the bag as it dropped from my arms and hit the ground with a clatter as all the soggy contents scattered over the floor.
In the middle of the bathroom, I slid down right in front of the bathroom sink and cried. And I’m not talking about the single, controlled tear during an emotional scene type of crying. No, I’m talking about the full-on, uncontrolled waterworks of a madwoman. I reached into my coat pocket where my phone was and pulled it out. Thankfully, the coat had saved the phone because I sure wasn’t in the position right now to buy another one…after I’d bought my new pair of expensive shoes last week. I called the only person I could think of. When a chipper voice sounded, I got out, “Mom,” before I burst into another round of hysterics.
My mom let me get the latest round of crying out before she said, “Okay, dear, tell me everything.” So, I did. I spent the next twenty minutes describing my mortification in every detail. “You’re telling me you’re sitting on a bathroom floor right now?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And you have an audition you’re supposed to be at?”
I glanced down at my watch. “I’m supposed to be there in like two minutes.”
“Then pull yourself together and go to that audition.”
“But, Mom…” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I sounded like a petulant, whiny teenager. I might as well have thrown a stamping of my foot in for good measure.
“Erika Lynsay Saunders, your father and I did not raise a quitter. You pull yourself together and march right upstairs—“
“They have elevators—“
“Don’t sass me, young woman.”
“Yes, Mom,” I said, feeling thoroughly chastised.
“Go!” The forcefulness in my mom’s voice was exactly what I needed.
“Yes, Mom. Thanks, Mom.”
“Any time, dear.” She hung up the phone.
With the reinvigoration I needed from my mother, I grabbed my comb and drew it through my wet hair to at least make it look less like a bad Halloween wig right out of the bag and more Wednesday Addams-ish, albeit blonde.
I pushed myself off the floor and didn’t bother looking in the mirror. If the casting team didn’t like my new look, oh well. It’s not like I wanted this job. I left the bathroom, walked over to the elevator bank and hit the button for the sixteenth floor. I rode in silence, putting my thoughts together. By the time I exited, I laughed and shook my head at its absurdity.
“Erika?” I heard a voice say.
One of my longest-running friends slash rivals in the business, Kathrine Kloeten, walked toward me.Great, I so don’t need this.
