“Oh, honey, what is it?” said Charlotte. “Is it a big new movie role?”
“Not exactly,” said Lee, looking upward at the wires above the Sunoco station, where hundreds of grackles roosted in a horrifying spectacle of urban proliferation.
“Is it a small new movie role?” ventured Charlotte.
“No,” said Lee. She decided that after this conversation, she’d treat herself to a Twix or a Snickers bar. Maybe both.
“Are you and Jason getting married?”
“Mom…” said Lee. She braced herself. The Perkins family didn’t talk about things, not really. They forged ahead, pretending everything was perfect. Anyone who made note of a problem or insecurity was a troublemaker and/or “dramatic.” Lee had learned long ago to coat her words, no matter how dire, in bulletproof cheer. It was only recently that she was beginning to admit to herself how much it hurt to have to be fine.
Lee was not fine. She hadn’t really slept in a long time, and her mind felt as it had when she’d snorted Adderall in college—buzzy, sped-up, full of brilliant ideas and insightful connections. She didn’t feel depressed—quite the opposite, in fact: she felt euphoric, driven by a weird, fabulous energy. When her La Quinta key card stopped working on the door to her West Hollywood motel room, she’d realized with a sunlit clarity that she needed a road trip. She wanted to see her mom. And so she gathered her mail (old credit card bills, new credit card offers, a bat mitzvah invitation), gassed up her Prius, and headed east.
“I’m coming home,” said Lee.
There was a momentary silence.
“That’s the surprise,” said Lee.
Charlotte regained herself. “Well, that’s thebest news ever!” she cried.
“It is,” said Lee. “It sure is.”
“We’re going to haveso much fun!” said Charlotte. “Is Jason with you?”
“No,” said Lee. She swallowed, and lied. “He’s busy with work. But sends all his love.”
“By the way,” said Charlotte, “I don’t want to get your hopes up, but I entered a contest and I think I might win. It’s an all-expenses-paid trip to Europe! A nine-day cruise from Athens, Greece, to Barcelona, Spain!”
“Wow, Mom,” said Lee. She worried about Charlotte’s fragility. Ever since Lee had found her father’s body, she’d felt as if she had to protect Charlotte. It was, quite simply, her job. She called Savannah so often that Jason had complained Lee’s “brain space” was so filled with Charlotte that there wasn’t enough “brain space” left for an adult romance with him. When Jason began to make money, Lee had used it to send Charlotte fresh flowers every week. Lee still had a credit card in Jason’s name, but was too proud to use it, now that he was living with Alexandria Fumillini.
“I can’t wait to all be together on the Mediterranean Sea,” said Charlotte dreamily.
Lee’s stomach clenched. She knew her mother wouldn’t win the contest—nobody won these things. But she couldn’t bear to see Charlotte disappointed. “Me neither,” said Lee weakly.
“Will you be here in time for dinner? I’ll make that shrimp stir-fry. The one fromMartha Stewart’s Quick Cook,” said Charlotte.
“That would be so great,” said Lee. She was overwhelmed with gratitude. No one had made her dinner in a long time.
Lee had subsisted on egg whites and cocaine for years, believing it was just a matter of time before she got the job that would change everything. She’d been so close—called in, called back, singled out, chosen for enough small roles that she could stay afloat—but as Lee grew older and the calls dwindled, she’d begun to recognize that it was entirely possible that everything was never going to change.
What had Lee even wanted in Los Angeles? She’d been told she was beautiful, more beautiful than other people, since she was four years old. (And maybe even before that, but her first memory is her father looking her dead in the eye and saying, “You think you’re more beautiful than everyone else, don’t you? Well, you’re right.”)
Throughout high school and college, Lee was cast as the lead in every amateur production fromGuys and DollstoThe Seagull. But was she even a good actress? Classes had always bored her: Lee wanted to be famous, not to delve into sad childhood memories. And sometimes beingtoo practicedan actress could work against you. You needed to be relatable, vulnerable. Appealing. You had to be what the casting agent “had in mind.” But Lee suspected that often the casting agent didn’t even know what this meant. It was a gut thing, like love. And you couldn’t train to be beloved. It just happened.
Or it did not.
When Lee’s agent, Francine, booked her an audition, Lee prepared by reading the sides, highlighting her lines, stapling her head shot to her résumé. She and Francine would strategize about how she should style her hair, what she should wear, heels or high-tops. The other women in the audition waiting room afforded clues about what the casting director “had in mind”: in Lee’s early days, the other chairs would be filled with buxom stunners. (This observation had led Lee to her first appointment with a well-respected plastic surgeon and her second line of credit.)
More recently, Lee had found herself in a room of middle-aged character actors. She was up for “MILF” roles for a while, then just regular, nonsexy moms or hot women gone awry. Slowly, calls to Francine stopped coming. Then callsfromFrancine stopped coming. Then Jason (a psychology major turned actor) threatened that if she wouldn’t go to a psychiatrist to delve into her “fear of long-term commitment, codependency issues, probable serotonin deficiency, and possible manic tendencies,” he would leave her. But Lee had been taught to soldier on, not to delve. Revisiting her father’s death was not going to happen—no fucking way.
And so, as promised, Jason left.
Lee had gone to Los Angeles because it was where you went to become rich and famous. For a while, she thought she wasn’t smart enough, that she should try harder, reallyreadthe hardcover Stanislavski she kept on her coffee table. But becoming a serious actor, studying how to change herself into another person, how to inhabit roles—this was not, in the end, very interesting to Lee. She’d curl up withAn Actor Preparesand a cup of coffee and her mind would just wander. She tried! But it didn’t matter how long she stared at the page; she just wasn’t into it. She hated it, in fact.
Jason had gotten the Big Job. It was the role of a robot on a sitcom calledMe & My Robot,but still. In short order, Jason bought a house in the hills, emailed Lee that he was “officially breaking free of my own codependency and moving on,” and began dating his costar, a woman in her twenties who was “stable” and “open to having a family.” (The new gal pal was “Me” to Jason’s sickeningly quirky “Robot.”) Her head spinning, Lee vacated their rental apartment at the last hour and checked into a motel.
In a matter of weeks she had used up every scrap of favor and was persona non grata at the hairdresser, gym, yoga studio, Pilates-yoga studio, Whole Foods, and Whole Earth. And her friends! When you moved into a La Quinta, Lee learned, no one wanted to come over for happy hour.
