6. Anna
ANNA
Idon't go home.
I just drive.
No destination. No plan. Windows down, check engine light on, the folder sitting on the passenger seat like it's waiting for me to make a decision it already knows I'm going to make.
Hollywood Boulevard is loud and bright.
Tourists on the Walk of Fame. A guy in a Jack Sparrow costume taking photos for tips.
I turn up toward the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and find a spot on a side street.
I get out and walk.
The boulevard smells like exhaust and funnel cake and something else underneath it, something older, like the street remembers being important.
The movie posters are everywhere. New releases. Coming soon. Big faces on bigger banners.
I stop.
Luke Wolfe in Final Mission.
It's a massive vertical billboard plastered on the side of the building, six stories tall. Luke in a space suit, helmet under his arm, staring off into space. Below him the tagline: Some distances can't be measured in miles.
He plays an astronaut trying to get back to the woman he loves.
I stand there looking at it for a long time.
The man in the poster is a movie star. Jaw and shoulders and the particular kind of handsome that photographs like a painting. He looks heroic. Certain. Like someone who always knows exactly what he wants and exactly how to get it.
Not the guy I remember from NYU.
Late to class. Half-prepared. Charm covering panic.
The professors wanted to sleep with him or kick him out of the program.
Now his face is six stories tall above Hollywood Boulevard.
I text Chloe.
I need you.
She texts back immediately.
When? Where?
The bar on Franklin is quiet on a weeknight.
Chloe is already there when I arrive, which means my text was bad enough she didn't make me wait.
I sit down. She pushes a drink toward me.
"How'd it go?" she says.
I swear her to secrecy and tell her everything.
The conference room. The laptops. Luke sitting there like he was braced for impact. The team. The contract, the clauses, Delia's face when I started rewriting it. The elevator. You'll wake up every day wondering what if?
When I finish she's quiet for a second.
"She says you got the role," she says.
We laugh.
"Anna." Chloe sets her glass down. "That Delia Parks is right. You owe it to yourself."
"It feels like a hard decision."
"Because you're scared. That's different."
"I'd be lying. Publicly. For six months."
"You're an actress."
"I'm a waitress who acts sometimes."
"You'll be in the game. I looked up that Delia Parks, she's a badass, she'll get you auditions. What are you getting now?"
"One audition every four months."
"At least one a week." She leans forward. "You get to live in his house, go to the parties, get in the rooms. You get to be seen. Anna, do you know how many people in this town would sell an organ for six months of that kind of access?"
"It's fake."
"So is half of Hollywood. At least you're getting paid for it."
I turn my glass slowly.
"And the best part is he needs you."
"It's a good deal, right?"
"Hell yeah. You can always move back home and marry some schmuck in Montana?" She says it gently, not cruel. "You were already leaving. This is just a detour. A paid, career-changing, seventy-five-thousand-dollar detour."
I nod.
"In six months you'll have no more excuses. You'll know if you really have what it takes. Most actors never find out because they never got a shot."
"I have to kiss him. For social media."
"It's acting. You do it all the time. And there are worse things in the world than kissing Luke Wolfe."
"You have to do it," she says. "You know you have to do it."
I finish my drink.
Coming upstairs in my building. Jade is coming in at the same time with a guy who isn't her boyfriend. She ignores me completely.
I grab a pizza from the refrigerator.
I get a text from Delia.
Check your email. See you tomorrow.
I read the revised agreement.
Then it starts, this isn't the first time. Jade in the throes of passion. Moaning. Screaming his name. Him screaming her name. This is how I know her name.
I know she's an actress because she told me in the elevator once and then immediately asked if I knew anyone at CAA.
There it is in black and white. Everything I asked for in the agreement.
I'm on page four when it gets louder next door.
Page six. The morality clause. Mutual, as requested.
The thumping intensifies. If I wasn't used to this from her, I would call the police.
The headboard — I assume it's a headboard — finds the wall and stays there.
The guy says something. I can't make out the words.
She can. She responds with great enthusiasm.
It builds. And builds. The whole wall seems to vibrate with the effort of it.
I cannot call my mother right now.
I sit back down with the contract and read page seven twice without retaining a single word.
Then she finishes. Loudly. Operatically.
Then silence.
Complete, beautiful silence.
I wait thirty more seconds just to be sure.
Now that I can concentrate I think about what to tell my mother. Then I call her.
The phone rings twice before she answers.
"Hey honey."
"I have some great news."
A pause. "What?"
"I got a part."
Silence.
"A part?"
"Yes. I can't go into the details, there's an NDA, but it's a six-month job and it pays seventy-five thousand dollars."
The silence this time lasts longer.
I can practically hear her trying to figure out what kind of acting job comes with an NDA and that much money.
"Seventy-five thousand dollars."
"Yes."
"For acting?"
"For a role. Yes."
"Can I see the NDA?"
"I looked at it. It's pretty boilerplate."
I hear the careful exhale my mother makes when she's worried and trying not to sound worried.
"Mom?"
"I'm here."
"It's amazing, right?"
"It is. I'm thrilled for you."
"And if nothing comes of it after, I come home. I promise."
"Six months," she says quietly. More to herself than to me.
"No nudity?" she says.
"No. God, no."
"I don't need the office seeing that."
"Nobody needs to see that."
That finally gets a small laugh out of her.
"Be careful," she says. "Whatever this is."
"I will."
"I love you. So happy for you."
"I love you too."
She hangs up.
I sit there for another minute staring at the contract.
I open DocuSign.
The cursor hovers over the signature line.
One click and my life changes.
I sign and send.
I just pulled the pin on the safe version of my future.
There's no taking it back now.
Next door, fighting starts.
Apparently the sex was great. The relationship needs work.