Negligence （n.） – Scarlett
NEGLIGENCE (N.):
FAILURE TO EXERCISE THE CARE TOWARD OTHERS WHICH A REASONABLE OR PRUDENT PERSON WOULD DO IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES, OR TAKING ACTION WHICH SUCH A REASONABLE PERSON WOULD NOT.
SCARLETT
Three Weeks Later
My heart is attempting to escape from my chest.
With its fingers gripping the bars of my ribcage, it’s knocking against my chest with a heaviness I’ve never felt before.
If it could speak, I’m sure it would tell me that this is my punishment for putting it through a week’s worth of auditions and for not giving in once to call Jameson.
As much as I’ve yearned to hear his voice or feel his lips pressed against mine, I refuse to relent first.
Taking a deep breath, I press a hand against my chest and lean back in my seat at Second Stage Theater.
“Actor 3451!” The director walks onto the stage. “Please join me up here for your cold reading, please.”
No one makes a move.
Only the sounds of flipping sheets and nervous footsteps echo off the walls.
“Can you all in the back hear me?” He glances at his clipboard. “Is actor 3451 in the house this morning?”
Still no answer.
“Okay, then.” He pulls a pen from his pocket and draws a line. “We will move onto Actor 3452. Are you here?”
“Yes.” I quickly stand to my feet. “I’m here.”
“Well, join me up here, please.” He snaps his fingers, and I rush down the aisle and up the side steps.
“Scarlett Winters?” he whispers.
“Yes.”
“Great.” He tears off a sheet with a small script and tiny character notes and hands it to me. “You have ten seconds to begin. Don’t keep everyone waiting.”
He gestures to the auditorium, leaving me to face four hundred other hopefuls who want this part.
Jeneva is sitting in the front row, mouthing, “You got this.”
I take a deep breath and glance at the script.
The lines are sparse, calling for dramatic looks and pauses instead of delivery. The character notes don’t offer anything more.
Young twenty-something female
Ambitious dreamer
Feels trapped under father’s thumb
Looking up, I spot the long row of judges who look like they’ve used all their energy on the two hundred actors they’ve watched before me.
“Five seconds…” the stagehand whispers. “Four, three…”
“I can’t keep living my life under your rules, Dad,” I start reading before he can finish the countdown. “I’m twenty-one years old, and I don’t have the same goals and dreams as you do.”
Pause eight seconds for stagehand to read father’s line…
No, screw that.
“I’m saving you from your fucking dreams,” I say the line just like my father would. “I used to have those too, and look where it got me.”
“I’m not you, Dad.” My voice cracks. “I’m nothing like you.”
“That’s always been your biggest weakness.” I switch back to him. “Your mother can’t run this farm on her own, and your siblings are far too young to chip in right now. Our family legacy depends on you.”
“Then I guess it ends here, huh?” I glare at him in a way I could never do in real life. “I’ve wasted enough years believing in your odd jobs, your shady finances that never turn for the better, and your lies about how well we’re doing when the only person happy here is you.”
“I suggest you remember who’s paying for the roof over your head before you say another goddamn word to me.” I glower just like he does.
“Thank you for all the nights you let me stay under it, Dad,” I pause on her line. “You’ll never have to worry about me staying for another one. You’ll never have to fucking worry about seeing me ever again.”
I crumple the script between my fingers and look out at the crowd.
Usually, there’s a soft round of applause from the audience and a bunch of polite nods from the judges, but everyone is staring at me in utter silence.
“Um…” I feel my cheeks heating. “Scene.”
Still, nothing.
I look over my shoulder for the director, hoping he’ll say something, but he’s just staring too.
Maybe my words came out worse than I thought they did…
“Thank you all for your time.” I take a small bow and exit the stage amidst silence.
Grabbing my purse from my seat, I hold back tears and don’t bother sitting to watch any more actors. I can’t bear to see them get an actual reaction.
Walking right through the rear doors, I rush to the lobby, right into something warm.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Jeneva wraps her arms around me.
“Home,” I say. “I don’t want to cry in public.”
“Huh?” She squeezes me hard before letting me go. “Cry about what?”
“I just bombed again,” I say. “I need to process it.”
“No, you fucking killed it.” She smiles. “So much so that I’m going to change my audition request to a minor role instead of a lead.”
“If I was so good, why was everyone so quiet?”
“Because you literally stole the oxygen out of the room,” she says. “With both parts. I think the judges chose you after two sentences.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“I’ll believe it for you.” She laughs. “See you back on campus later. Drinks on me, okay?”
She rushes back into the auditorium before I can answer.
I pull out my phone and scroll through my contacts, wanting to share the news with someone, but Jameson is the only person who comes to mind.
Ugh…
“Scarlett?” A familiar high-pitched voice calls out to me from behind. “Is that you?”
“Mom?” I turn around, and my stomach immediately drops to the floor. My heart resumes its breakout plan.
Looking like every bit of a wealthy woman with no worries, she’s picture perfect in a cream-colored pea coat and nude stilettos. Flipping her sleek brown hair over her shoulders, she strolls towards me with pursed lips.
“Um, hi.” I stammer. “What are you doing here?”
“I should be asking you the same thing.” She looks me up and down. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m just supporting a friend,” I say. “It’s audition day for her.”
“For her?” She narrows her eyes. “I could’ve sworn it was you stepping off that stage minutes ago.”
I swallow.
I don’t have a rebuttal for that; I don’t have any cards to play for when my house of lies collapses.
But it’s not supposed to be this soon…
“So?” She tilts her head. “Do you think you’ll get this part?”
“No, I…” I refuse to believe this is happening. “I was just supporting a friend. They let strangers audition as well, and I was just up there for fun, and—”
“Cut the shit, Scarlett.” She cuts me off. “How stupid do you think I am?”
Silence.
“I called your dorm at Harvard this morning to confirm that you’d received a birthday care package,” she says.
“So imagine my surprise when they said you’d dropped out months ago and chose to pursue a different path elsewhere—a path that has nothing to do with the business major that you’ve been telling your father about. ”
“And not only that—” She leans forward and presses a finger against my chest. “But you left behind a friend in the library who reroutes your phone calls whenever your father and I call your room phone.”
“I can explain.”
“I doubt it.” Her face is red. “You can’t even admit to the real reason why you’re here in New York, in this very theater.”
“Good job in there, Scarlett!” “Yeah, you killed it today!” Two actors pass us by, smiling and waving, but I don’t dare to move a muscle.
“I guess you did very well today then.” My mother glares at me. “Should I be proud of something like that?”
I wish you were…
I struggle to suck in a slow, unsteady breath—to prevent myself from passing out.
Then again, maybe that’s not a terrible idea.
“Do you have any idea what your father would do if he found out about what you’ve been doing?” Her eyes are locked on mine. “Any fucking clue?”
“You haven’t told him?”
“Of course not.” She scoffs. “And I’m never going to, because it’s already been fixed.”
“What do you mean?”
“I called in a favor,” she says, her tone ice cold.
“You will return to Harvard in January for the spring semester, and you will finish the degree. You will spend the final weeks of this year, packing up your things and enjoying the last bit of freedom you will ever have before I’m forced to visit you twice a week on campus. ”
“Mom—”
“Don’t interrupt me when I’m talking.” She glares at me. “Should your father catch wind of you being away from campus, Harvard has agreed to play along about you being here on an extended field study.”
“What?”
“Yes, you’re welcome,” she says. “All it took was a very generous donation and me pre-paying the remainder of your tuition in full. Now, say thank you, mother.”
“I don’t want to go back to Harvard,” is all I can say.
“Did you hear me ask what you wanted to do?” She shrugs. “I’ve made the plan, you’ll follow it, and you’ll also follow me out of here and to the car.”
“Now that I know how much time you’ve been wasting, you can come to The Hamptons early and help me prepare for your father’s party.”
“I’m not going back to Harvard.” I try to keep my voice firm, but polite. “There’s nothing for me there.”
“There’s plenty there.” She serves me a fake smile. “You don’t have to like it. You just have to pass the classes and commit to doing what’s best for you.”
“If you really want what’s best for me, you’ll let me find my own way,” I say. “You and my brothers might like what he has planned for your lives, but—”
“How fucking dare you.” She strikes the left side of my face with a blow so hard I stumble backward.
“Do you know how many women would kill for the lifestyle you and I have?” She draws her hand back again.
I groan in pain, but she doesn’t retreat.
“Can you guess how many of them would be willing to die just to get a taste of what you and I have access to?”
She strikes my right side, and I cry out at the feeling of her rings scratching my skin.
“Millions, Scarlett,” she says. “And I’m one of them.”
My head is ringing and everything ahead of me is a blur.
I reach out with my left hand, bracing my body against the wall.
“If you want to frolic onstage like a homeless dreamer during your free time, be my guest,” she says. “But you’re not allowed to make decisions about the things that have already been decided on, and you know that. Don’t you?”
“Yes…” I’m in too much pain to nod. “I do know that.”
“Good,” she says, glancing at her nails. “Looks like I might’ve smudged a couple. Do you want to go with me to the spa before we hit The Hamptons?”
She doesn’t give me a chance to answer.
“We should,” she says, rummaging through her purse. “It’ll make you feel better.” She pulls out a pair of oversized sunglasses and slides them over my face.
“We’ll get you a few new pairs of those on the way as well.” She steps back. “Let’s go. The car is waiting.”
I wait for her to help me, but she doesn’t.
She didn’t last time either…
I lift my purse and step forward, biting my lip as my face throbs in pain.
Outside, Francis is holding the back door open.
My mother slides in first and pulls out her phone, quickly calling one of her friends as if nothing has happened.
“I tried to warn you,” Francis whispers.
As if he knows I can’t talk right now, he helps me into the car and buckles the seatbelt for me.
He presses something cold into my hand before shutting the door.
When he pulls onto the street, I don’t dare look at my reflection in the rearview mirror. The redness and swelling won’t heal anytime soon, and perhaps I need them as a reminder to stay in my place anyway.