Chapter Seventeen Tessa
Chapter Seventeen
Tessa
“Regina was a film major in college,” Barb says to the palm trees that recede in our periphery. “Screenwriting. She never said anything about acting.”
“In Hollywood, I think you take what you can get,” I explain, which does nothing to appease Barb.
Online, I came across an article Regina had written entitled “My Mother’s Daughter.
” It was about her estrangement from Barb.
In it, Regina described how the longer she went without talking to her mother, the closer she felt to her.
Their relationship became primal, less corrupted by good intentions and hurt feelings.
The essay was five years old. I assumed that they’d repaired their relationship.
Judging from the way Barb stares out the window, they weren’t as close as either of them would’ve hoped.
From the back seat, Jasper narrates our drive, shouting at trucks and cranes, hooting at a pair of sneakers dangling on the wires above our car.
“Shoe!” he says for several minutes after he spots the sneakers. This snaps Barb out of her trance, and she echoes Jasper’s call, chanting “Shoe, shoe” a beat behind him.
“I hope it’s okay I brought Jasper,” I say as I exit the freeway onto Fletcher. “Normally, I’d leave him at my neighbor’s . . . there’s something I need to . . . I know how Regina had my earrings.”
I tell her about Ezra Linsky’s, the earrings that Dan Huntsman bought.
When she asks, “So, you think they were having an affair?” she sounds more doubtful than I’d expected.
“That’s the only reason I can think to buy someone $5,000 earrings.”
“And you’re sure he bought them for Regina?”
“I only made five pairs. I didn’t recognize the other names. That would be an awfully big coincidence.”
“I think we can both agree that nothing about this is a coincidence.”
Barb’s quiet for the rest of the drive. I give her the space to absorb what I’ve told her. Regina’s murderer has a name now. A face. A house along the canals where her daughter died.
We park on a residential street a few blocks from Contessa’s. Fortunately, between the dangling shoes, salty snacks, and Barb’s doting, Jasper didn’t fall asleep on the drive.
I turn off the car, then stay seated behind the wheel. “We don’t have to go. It’s probably got nothing to do with what happened to Regina. We can just go back to the Westside.”
Barb casts me a vacant smile and throws the door open. “Don’t be silly.”
Contessa’s is housed in a warehouse with art and music recording studios.
We take the elevator to the third floor and follow the signs to the rehearsal space.
Drum solos and guitar riffs waft down the hall, entangling with the mustiness of the raw space and the piquancy of oil paint, a particular ambience I haven’t experienced since my twenties in New York and an entirely unfamiliar universe to Jasper, who marvels as I push him down the hall.
I have a studio in Santa Monica, but it’s new, luxury.
This is raw and real in a way I miss. This is art.
The metal door to Contessa’s scratches the floor as Barb shoves it open.
The space is one large room with laminate floors and stark white walls.
We’re ten minutes early, but at least forty women are already here, some clustered, others intentionally distanced.
Their chatter quiets as we step inside. They’re all in their twenties, thin brunettes.
Barb, Jasper, and I are the only people here who don’t fit the type.
“Are you from Reggie Ray Casting?” one of the women asks Barb, who does a double take, the name clearly signifying something to her.
Reggie Ray Casting? Could this be Regina’s?
Was Barb mistaken—did she get into casting, not acting?
Like Barb, Jasper, and me, Regina doesn’t fit the type of the other women in the room either.
Reggie. It’s not so far off from Regina. From Gigi.
All eyes are on Barb, who studies the women as she stitches together the scene, so foreign to us yet so common to the actresses in the room.
“That’s right,” she finally says. “Give us a moment to set up.”
She motions me to follow her toward the sole table in the room, off in the far corner.
“Do you think she meant Regina?” I whisper to Barb.
“Her girlfriend called her Reggie,” she mutters back as we head toward the corner.
Jasper leans forward, bending around the side of his stroller to investigate the women across the room.
“And her dad and I called her Regina Ray when she was little. Regina Ray of Light. She was our sunshine.” Barb beams at a distant memory.
There’s so much I want to ask her, so much that’s none of my business, so much we don’t have time for now.
“What’s the plan?” I ask as I situate Jasper’s stroller beside my chair. He’s still staring at the women, giggling when he makes eye contact with one of the bolder ones. We’ll see how long his curiosity keeps him pliant.
Barb shrugs, then shouts across the room, “Who was here first?”
The women all raise their hands, fanning their headshots like goods in a market. Barb points to one at random, then leans against the table as she uses her index finger to motion the actress toward us.
“I’m going to need everyone else to stay back.”
I study Barb in awe, instantly ten years younger, commanding in a way I haven’t seen her before. There’s so much I don’t know about Barb.
The actress stands a few feet away from the table, primping her hair and staring at Jasper. “Do you want me to play opposite him in a scene?”
Barb’s attention shifts between the woman and Jasper. “No, he’s not—we don’t want you to read anything. We just want to ask you a few questions.”
“Okay.” The woman tucks her hair behind her ears, clearly uncomfortable. This isn’t what she was expecting. I don’t know what she was expecting. I’ve never been to an audition before.
“Tell me what you know about the part,” Barb says.
“Only what I read on the audition call.” She slips her hands into her armpits, and I want to tell her to stand up, be proud. She’s beautiful. Every woman in this room is beautiful. “About a mom who deals oxy to get her son lifesaving medicine.”
Barb studies her, and the actress does her best to puff out her chest and present confidence.
Finally, Barb thanks her for coming and says we’ll be in touch.
The woman is about to protest, confused at how abruptly Barb has dismissed her.
Instead, she hands Barb her résumé and headshot before despondently ambling away.
Her name is Astrid Mailer. I repeat it several times, hoping to one day see it across a marquee.
As Barb calls over another actress, Jasper’s interest quickly fades.
He kicks his legs, shouting, “Ow, ow.” He can’t pronounce the t at the end of out, so it sounds like he’s in physical agony instead of everyday toddler distress.
He rubs his eyes, eager for a nap, but he’ll settle for a meltdown instead.
“I’m going to take Jasper for air,” I tell Barb.
For her part, Barb is thriving. She says she’ll talk to a few more of the women, then meet me outside.
Everyone watches me as I push Jasper toward the door.
One of the actresses holds it open for me.
There’s something about her, her large doe eyes, her luminescent skin, a magnetism that these other beautiful women don’t quite have.
I’m certain she’s the one, even if I know nothing about casting, about this movie Regina must have been involved in.
As I push Jasper down that dingy hall, my mind drifts to the artist’s eternal dilemma.
Who paid for all this? Of course. Dan Huntsman.
He’s a producer. He must be funding the movie, must have hired Regina.
Rather, Claire did. Oh, that asshole. First earrings, now a casting job.
He was using his wife’s money to keep his mistress happy—until she wanted too much, money or attention or both, and he killed her.
It’s so mind-bogglingly perverse, I know it’s true.
The elevator door starts to close as we approach, then judders open.
As soon as I step inside, I wish I’d lingered longer, not giving her a chance to hold it for me.
Astrid is inside, disappointment wafting from her in waves.
She focuses on the numbers above the door as the elevator descends.
I want to tell her this isn’t a rejection; we have no authority.
There’s something freeing about living in LA outside of Hollywood.
Although I’ve designed for several actresses, crafted the occasional piece for a period film, and Gabe has had plenty of famous patients, we could do our work anywhere.
I don’t know what it’s like to come here for a purpose, one you may never fulfill.
Jasper and I wait outside for Barb. Two more actresses wander out, one remarking, “Well, that was a total waste of time.” I wonder if they know each other from auditioning, from constantly competing for the same roles.
My phone buzzes. A text from Gabe. Stuck in the office. Can’t make it today. Don’t hate me? Let me know how it goes.