Chapter 11 #2
I rejoined the scene when it was time, and played around with my line delivery a little, tried to be open to the possibility that I’d find something better.
I could feel Henry’s and, especially, Michael’s performances bending to reshape around mine, and a little thrill alit in my heart. This was why we did this.
“Yes,” Rebecca said when the scene ended. “Better, yeah? I’m liking this a lot. Kevin?”
He dashed around to her side, iPad poised for notes.
“Could you make sure I get a little time with Michael and Gardner on the books tomorrow? Separately? Thank you.”
Henry muttered softly behind us, though I wanted to shriek at him that he was obviously the only one giving Rebecca what she wanted. Also, time with Rebecca, separately. That also made me want to shriek.
“Let’s take a short break and then run that again,” Rebecca said, though she was already guiding Kevin toward the table where Stephanie and Hannah were sitting, each taking notes furiously, on the opposite side of the room from the journalist, who was doing the same thing.
I followed Michael and Henry back to the company’s territory, but before I could sit down, Kathleen got up and gave me a little nod.
“Let’s refill our water bottles,” she said, and I nodded and walked with her across the room. “Tess, could I ask a favor of you in the future?”
“Of course,” I said. “Literally anything.”
“You’ve got to give folks—and by folks I do mean me—a heads-up before a day like today,” she said. “You obviously know photographs matter, or you would have come in looking like you normally do and not like a team of professionals put you together this morning.”
“Right,” I said, nodding even though I could sense I’d messed something up.
“You could have done me the same kindness,” Kathleen said. “Someone like Michael, he’s fine. He looks a little old, it reads as rugged or some shit. If I look like an old hag—”
I gasped. “Kathleen.”
“Oh, my words and not yours, darlin’. Anyway, the wrong producer or director sees a photo like that? Maybe I’m losing my next gig. Or not getting called to begin with.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m just so focused on this whole image thing and—it’s not an excuse. I’m sorry. No excuses.”
“If you don’t think I understand that every single one of us is only thinking about ourselves, Tess, you know that I’ve been in this business longer than you’ve been alive.”
“I don’t think that math works out,” I said with a laugh. “And also I really don’t want to be that self-absorbed. I’ll handle it.”
“Just a little heads-up next time—”
“Erica?” I called out. “Could you make sure I have editorial approval on the photos?”
The journalist looked up from her notes, as the photographer kept shooting.
Michael, Henry, and Ashlee stared at me.
Even Rebecca and her team glanced over. I knew exactly how it had been read by everyone, but I was willing to come off as a diva to right this wrong.
A request via Erica was one thing; the words straight from my mouth would do the job.
“That was a bit beyond what I had in mind,” Kathleen said with a laugh. “But thank you. And I’ll settle for haglike. Just not full-on hag.”
“Kathleen, please stop saying hag in any form.”
She squeezed my arm and grinned. “Thank you, Tess.”
Kathleen headed back to the group, but I was still filling my water bottle when Erica appeared at my side.
“It’s a long story,” I said. “And I didn’t think you’d fight for it if I explained.”
“I don’t know what’s going on with you lately,” she said, “but a reminder that you have to do your part so I can do my job. My job, a reminder, is literally your career.”
“Just keep Kathleen out of the photos, OK?” I asked. “Anything else, do whatever you want.”
Erica walked off without a word. I turned back to the cast and did my best to seem like I was one of them, even though it was like I couldn’t stop finding ways not to be.
Kevin texted after rehearsal that I could plan on meeting with Rebecca first thing the next morning.
So as if I didn’t already have enough on my mind as I tried to sleep that night, now I could add Rebecca to the whole mess in my head.
Well, add implied she wasn’t already part of what was there.
Add implied I spent a lot of time not thinking about Rebecca Frisch.
Needless to say I tossed and turned so much that Rosie hopped down and slept in her dog bed instead.
Rebecca walked into the lobby as I passed through it the next morning, as if I’d conjured her. We both waved, and I couldn’t deny she looked happy to see me.
“Morning,” Rebecca said, holding a cardboard cup in my direction.
“Good morning,” I said, acting as if it was no big deal that she’d thought of me or that my fingertips slipped past hers when taking the tea from her hand. “Late night?”
No one wanted to hear late night? once one was in their thirties. It didn’t mean that you seemed like you had an exciting and daring social life; it meant you looked tired. Also I sure seemed eager for little crumbs of information about Rebecca’s personal life.
“Early morning,” she replied, though casually. “Interviewing on East Coast time for the next gig. Next maybe gig.”
“Ah,” I said, feeling with a jolt how soon she’d be gone and I wouldn’t have this anymore, the way she walked beside me with an effortless sense of calm and cool. The way I felt like myself. “Is good luck only bad for performers? Is it break a leg?”
“My group chat has this exact discussion every time I’m interviewing,” Rebecca said with a grin. “I think break a leg is correct. And it went fine. It wouldn’t be exciting but it’d pay some bills.”
“Oh,” I said, because the Gucci loafers and understated jewelry hadn’t led me to believe Rebecca Frisch was taking gigs for the money.
“Please don’t sound sad for me,” she said, leaning past me to hit the elevator button. Her bare forearm brushed mine and I held my breath, just for a moment. “I’m sure you’ve accepted roles for the exact same reason.”
“Sure,” I said.
“I don’t mean Vindicators,” she said quickly. “I assumed you accepted that role because you get to fly around and fight bad guys, like a badass.”
“Don’t forget while literally sparkling,” I said.
She smiled right at me, until the elevator doors parted. “I could never.”
Kevin, Stephanie, and Hannah were hanging out in the rehearsal room, but Rebecca excused them and closed the door behind them. “I know I set this meeting, but would you kill me if we took five or so for the caffeine to hit?”
“That’s fine,” I said, sitting down at the table. “No coffee at your ex-wife’s?”
I regretted it the moment it was out of my mouth, but a laugh burst out of Rebecca as she headed to her usual spot and took a seat.
“Fuck, Gardner, you should see me, just trying to stay out of the way there. This morning, me restaging the setup for that Zoom meeting about fifty times so Lincoln Center couldn’t tell I was sitting on a futon in my ex’s spare room. ”
It didn’t slip my notice that the ex-wife arrangement hardly seemed to be—well, whatever I’d feared it might be. Though it was silly to care. Rebecca’s relationship status had nothing to do with me. “Why didn’t you just come here early?”
Rebecca laughed harder. “Honestly that hadn’t even crossed my mind. Wow. You were always better at logistics, though.”
“You’re a director,” I said instead of I can’t believe that’s how you saw me, and then we were both laughing.
“Yeah, you see how Kevin’s keeping everything together, right?” Rebecca grinned and sat up a little straighter. Less my ex-girlfriend, more the person leading all of us. “So how did you feel about yesterday’s scene work?”
I shrugged, politely. “I know you want us to try new things and risk messing up as we go, but I hate messing up so—sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have said that. I believe in the process, and I hope I don’t sound like I’m pushing back in some way.”
I’d made it over a decade in Hollywood by controlling my own image, not letting anyone slide past my guard. And then Rebecca Frisch showed up and it was like the post had been abandoned.
“It’s a vulnerable act,” Rebecca said. “I want to make sure the room feels safe to you to take those risks.”
“I … think it’ll be easier without the Times here today,” I said, and she laughed.
“Fair enough. Though I’m not only talking about yesterday. I love what you’re bringing to Casey; you have a sharp eye for small moments, and there’s a quality in your performance that, combined with the text, will really make an audience root for you.”
“Thank you,” I said, even though I figured she wouldn’t spend the rest of this time giving me compliments. A but was lurking.
“Vulnerability, though, that’s what I’d like to see more of. And when I say see—” She stood up. “Your posture’s very controlled. You see?”
Rebecca walked toward the taped-off stage and stood centerstage, and as her posture shifted, I realized that she was being me.
“Yikes,” I said.
“Well, I’m too tall, I can’t pull it off like you can,” she said with a laugh. “You’re very in your head. And I like that, I love cerebral performers, it’s a great mix with this cast to have you onstage next to a performer like Henry, he’s so in his body, you know?”
I sighed and resisted explaining how much yoga I did and how I’d think that would be more apparent.
“I like a level of control from Casey.” She was still standing like me. “But you—the performer you, not the character—can let us see some less-measured moments slip in there. Connect more with your body, let us see what that looks like.”
She popped back up while I mulled over getting that note from someone I’d had sex with. A million years ago, no one needed to tell me to connect with my body. A million years ago my body and I had been one and the same.
“Come here,” she said. “Bring your script. Read with me.”
I pulled my script out of my bag and joined her on the stage.
“We’re going to run this moment with Casey and her dad five times in a row, OK? No one’s here but me. Move yourself across the stage differently every time. Really live in your body. There’s no wrong answer here. It’s just us.”
As if just us was lower stakes than the alternative.
“Is there something you’re looking for specifically, or—”
“Gardner,” she said, a little sharp at its edges, like she was just talking, like we could have been anywhere. Like maybe I’d annoyed her but also, perhaps, like I was someone she’d known a long time. “I just said that there’s no wrong answer.”
I nodded quickly. “Sorry, no, got it, I—”
“I’m looking for more,” she said gently. “Let me see what that means to you. OK? I don’t want to micromanage you here.”
I nodded again.
“Every time I’m watching a show and I see a performance—even a movement—that doesn’t look motivated, it’s clear it was a director’s call and not something organic to the actor,” she continued.
“This time is for you to try what feels right to you. I mean, who knows. Maybe we’ll find something together. ”
And so we began, with Rebecca reading Michael’s lines.
By the third time through, I could tell I wasn’t changing anything up enough for Rebecca’s wishes, so I got right up in her face to finish the scene.
The cast had gotten comfortable with invading each other’s space, but Rebecca and I hadn’t been this close since Applewoods.
I felt her breath on my face, smelled the spiced notes of her perfume.
We have to talk about this, I said to her, as Casey, raising my voice and pushing myself even closer.
It wasn’t a fight—those didn’t come until midway through the second act—but I decided to treat it like one anyway.
And Rebecca took it, reminding me of running lines with her late at night, squaring off against me with her casually confidant sensibility, old and new Rebecca all rolled into one.
“Good,” Rebecca said when we’d finished the scene. My heart pounded like I’d just climbed off a treadmill. “Gardner, seriously, really fucking good. Go again?”
“Give me a second?” I asked, and she nodded.
“Take all the time you need.”