She stumbles, but no one on the busy street takes much notice; just one or two darted glances in her direction, carrying only embarrassed, wary curiosity, not anything like concern.
Steadying herself against a store window, she peers ahead up the street and then behind her for any possible lurking cops. Heat from the window radiates in waves through the holes in her tattered lace gloves. When she sufficiently regains her balance, she pulls her hand from the glass and blows on it, eyes still warily watching her surroundings.
The incongruous gloves, the faded, bursting dress, too long, too hot for the baking summer air, cling sweatily to what had once been a greatly watched and desired figure.
She moves wearily on, her destination driving her, pulling her bulk toward it, inexorably.
She turned, the clinging sequined gown accenting her lavish figure. Taking a swift gulp of champagne in between giggles, she almost purred with delight.
"Ohhh God, I can’t WAIT to do the scene! Just so’s I can wear this GORgeous dress again! Rudy, you are a GENius! I get to KEEP it, don’t I?"
"Sure do, Princess."
"OOoo!" Another sip, squeal, whirl. "Where’re the OTHERS? God, I just LOVE wardrobe fittings!"
"Are you sure you want to do them all today, Princess?"
"Rudy, are you KIDDING? Bring ‘em ON! With these clothes, I’m gonna be TERRIFIC in this picture, you just wait. This part was MADE for me! MADE for me! EVERYbody says so!"
"Yup. It’s like that dress, absolutely YOU."
If only it wasn’t so hot, she thinks limply, trudging up the street, bowing under the sun’s pressure on her head and neck; a weight, a burning, grating weight, roughening her already alarmingly red skin, and parching her mouth.
No shade on either side of the street. No respite in any of the restaurants. Those places exist only for the Others. Not for wounded creatures like her. And They can sense, the way many other kinds of creatures can, that she is one of their own kind who is wounded. She shudders when she thinks of what might happen to her if the Others catch her blood scent. If she were to say or do something, no matter how slight, to tip Them off and confirm what They already suspect.
You could be hurt, she has learned. Badly. But you must never never let Them KNOW. Never let Them SEE the hurt. If They see, They will show no mercy.
At least, They had not shown any mercy up until now.
But soon all that will change. Soon...
She lovingly pats the paper bag clamped in her sweaty fist.
If only it wasn’t so hot.
The light. That bright, bright heat...
The brutes that washed the set in searing light caused a slight line of perspiration on her delicate and meticulously sculpted up brow. Immediately three makeup people bustled and swarmed over her to attend to the unforgivable lapse in her otherwise perfect appearance. She smiled beatifically and patiently as they daubed tenderly, respectfully, at the glistening drops.
A faceless assistant brought her a paper cup of cool water, for which she nodded with a pert smile, and from which she daintily sipped.
"Okay, okay, we’re ready for a take here!"
The harassed Director tried to make his voice carry with authority, but succeeded only in having it break like the voice of an adolescent. The crew good naturedly made the last minute coughs and rattles of equipment while she took her place near the ornate fountain, where sparkling blue water (dyed to be more perfect than nature’s own) sprayed up suddenly and danced downward, shimmering diamond-like under the bright, so bright lights.
"Quiet, please. Quiet on the set," the Assistant Director’s deep voice ordered crisply. This time silence followed.
The Director’s treble then piped out again.
"Readyyy... Camera." Another crack in the voice.
"Speed." The amused reply.
"AC-tion!"
She smiled. She dazzled the crew who watched her hungrily. She made love to the camera, her lines perfect, her face just so. Always aware of the eyes that watched her, drank her in like cool, blue water. Thirsty eyes.
That man.
He is looking... glancing... staring?
There is something in his eyes that makes her think he might be recognizing her.
She stops in front of a bookstore, pretending to be scanning a window display of film stars’ biographies. She adjusts her dress with a sharp tug that snags a cracked, dirty fingernail, making her wince slightly.
She pats daintily at what is left of her oily dark hair.
She smiles a coy smile at the man who seems to know who she is. Was. He gets a strange look on his face, and then is gone; just like that he vanishes into the pressing, pushing city crowds.
Disappointed, she wrings her lace-gloved hands, the limp paper bag butting against her stomach. Then, she presses it against her ample bosom like a wilted brown corsage. Perhaps he had not actually recognized her. It was possible. But at the last she rejects that idea. Of COURSE he’d recognized her. And recognizing, wanted her.
All men did.
He was just shy, that’s all.
But there is no time. She has to hurry. It is life or death now, so she has to force herself to walk faster.
The chafing of raw, oozing flesh between her legs makes her inhale sharply with a hiss of pain. She damns herself for the billionth time for letting herself gain that extra pound or two. Her thighs rub so much when she walks.
The sweat... and the heat... and the pain... and the rubbing... the rubbing...
He held her tightly with his left hand and with his right, he rubbed her breasts roughly, pulling at her clothes.
Then, she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing as the stocky, suited gentleman trying to mount her struggled with his zipper. There was some truth, she reflected, to the old cliche about the casting couch.
He was hurting her, and his saliva was dribbling in a thin line down her cheek.
As his bulk forced her down further, she looked over his shoulder, grimly, staring at her future.
The blaring horn makes her gasp and flop back onto the curb. She hadn’t noticed the red light.
As the cab speeds past her, she gestures obscenely and hurls a barrage of curses after it. Passersby give her a wide berth. She does not care, being used to that sort of response.
She wipes at her sweaty neck, the lace gloves scratching between the folds of her chins. It is so hot.
She does not see the new dark smears of dirt on the already stained gloves. All she knows is she is late.
And this is such a very important appointment.
Absently, she pats the paper bag she is holding so tightly. The mouth of the bag is crumbly from the wetness of her hand.
It won’t last much longer.
Doesn’t matter. She can think only of the life and death appointment ahead. Everything depends on her.
"Baby, you are GORGEOUS! This part was MADE for you! It IS you!"
She blushed prettily and raised her daintily lace-gloved hand as if physically trying to defend herself from so grave an exaggeration.
When the last scene of her first and greatest film was in the can, and the director had yelped "Print! That’s a wrap!" the crew had applauded her. And applauded her.
For a full five minutes, they had applauded.
******
She preens for a moment before her ghostly reflection in the glass of the doorway to the office building. Her matted hair lays flat against her head, and it clings to her blackhead-pocked ears with grease and accumulated city dirt. All she sees is that it is trimmed shorter than it had been years before; quite a bit shorter, in fact.
In vain efforts to remove lice.
The air conditioning in the sterile lobby makes her sweat-soaked dress cling frigidly against her bulk, but the irritated skin on her inner thighs refuses to cool or stop burning.
She heads for the sixteenth floor.
Sixteen floors. She is going to be close to the stars again, that’s for sure. As she was always meant to be.
The UP elevator contains one tired-looking secretary who involuntarily draws back at the foul smell emanating from the dirty woman with the paper bag clasped between unspeakably filthy gloves.
The secretary cannot imagine what this huge, repellent thing is doing in the elevator with her. Even though she needs to go to the eleventh floor, the secretary gets off the elevator on the third.
Alone again, she pats at her hair once more, and without thinking, she crumples up the edges of the paper she was carrying.
Crumples and uncrumples.
Crumples and uncrumples.
******
Newspapers, practically all the important ones, getting all crumpled under her and Val’s lovemaking, getting all crumpled; crinkling loudly, rhythmically. They all contained reviews of the film and her performance in it.
All of them agreed that the part was absolutely MADE for her.
Some said that it was SO made for her that she would never get a part like that again.
They turned out to be right.
******
When the elevator door opens, she is confronted by the sight of twenty or so young women of various types, seated and standing, reading scripts, or VARIETY, or Gothic Romances.
And waiting.
The harried receptionist looks up from her package/ photo/ resume crowded desk and blinks heavily made up eyes in the direction of the elevator doors.
What she sees is a filthy, grossly fat old woman, gaping around as if she’d lost something, or is lost herself.
The young women exchange amused, disgusted glances, some stifling their giggles, others wrinkling noses made pert by nature or surgery, and others nudging yet others to look up quick from their want ads and Gothics.
Before the receptionist can resume her official composure again and clear her throat and ask the old woman imperiously what COULD she DO for her, Mr Mearer pokes his head out of his office on the far side of the waiting area, and becomes the immediate focal point of all interest; more interesting by far than the remnant of humanity at the end of the office, a million miles and as many street-worn nights away from them all.
"Okay, ladies. Those of you who gave my secretary your resumes will be called in that order for your interviews. Our callbacks will be held—"
Mr Mearer’s gaze catches for the first time the grime-caked woman near the elevator doors. His mouth drops open as she grins a grin showing browning stumps where teeth had once been.
She pulls a sweat-soaked VARIETY out of a messily shredding paper bag and starts waving it around. And starts to yell. "You don’t NEED to have auditions NOW... I’M here!" she crows ecstatically. She is so excited she can even hear the applause again. She had just known it would be like this.
Oh, to hear that applause again!
"Wha—?" Mr Mearer gasps. "Wha—?"
"That’s RIGHT!" she exults, waving enormous arms as though throwing embraces outward like bouquets. Tears of jubilation well up in her eyes. "This part was MADE for me! EVERYbody said so! And now I’m ready to do it AGAIN! I’m makin’ my COMEBACK!!"
Oh, the applause! LOUDER!
Gasps.
Liner’ed eyes darting, meeting, glancing away with nowhere to look except back again and again at the hideous wreck of a person grimacing, eyes rolling in exaggerated modesty, receiving gales of unheard cheers and skeleton-silent applause.
She, of course, would treasure this moment always.
The echoing, ghostly applause lasts and lasts.
For her, it lasts even LONGER than a full five minutes.
A LOT longer.
copyright: Gene-Michael Higney 1999
