Read Online Show Business Kills by Iris Rainer Dart - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Iris Rainer Dart
Ads: Link
campaign?” the girl asked her
.
“
Great,” she said. “Home phones and addresses, too, Dee Dee. And I’ll get right on the case. But I’m out of town, so if you
don’t mind, I’ll give you a local fax number where you can reach me
.”
“
No problem,” said Dee Dee
.
She gave her the fax number of a drugstore outside of town, and by the time she got there, the pages were waiting for her.
Names and phone numbers and home addresses of the big-time West Coast drama department alums. Yes! That night she sat and
read the fawning cover letter that came from the alumni office to Rose Schiffman. Then she went overand over the list of names and home addresses, trying to picture the houses that went with those addresses
.
She circled the names of the people who would remember her and who would be nice to her. Trying to decide which of them might
have a job for her. Then next to their names she wrote ideas for what the jobs might be. That way when she went to see them,
she wouldn’t be wasting their time. She could go right in and ask for what she wanted. That night in bed she copied all the
addresses into her own little address book by hand. Put them in their alphabetical locations, as if they’d been in there all
these years. They should have been. She could have stayed in touch. That’s what she’d tell them when she saw them
.
Early in the morning, she packed a few things in her little duffel bag, the only piece of luggage she owned. Then she called
in to her boss and told him, in a voice she knew would be convincing, that she was deathly ill. “You sound awful,” he said.
Hah! She thought, at least all those years of acting training didn’t go totally to waste
,
When she was ready to leave, she checked her purse to be sure she had the little remote control for her answering machine
with her in case she needed to call home for messages from LA. Then she went into the kitchen to turn on the answering machine
she’d had for a million years. When she caught sight of her face in the oven door of her murky little kitchen, she laughed
a pained laugh
.
It was the face of Marterio looking back at her, the character she played in
The House of Bernardo Alba
at Tech. She had coveted the part of the beautiful young Adela, the starring role, but when the casting went up on the call
board,the part of Adela had gone to Jan O’Malley. And instead she had been cast as Marterio, the dried up, jealous sister
.
Poor Marterio, she thought, looking critically at herself, and poor me. She remembered sitting in the dressing room in 1966,
putting mauve shadows under her eyes and lines across her forehead, drawing more lines from her nose to her mouth. Then pulling
her long orange silky hair back and spraying it with a black-colored spray, except for the temples, which she powered gray.
And when she heard her cue, she’d charged out on that stage and given the best performance the school had ever seen
.
The little theater shook when Marterio said to Adela, “I have a heart full of a force so evil that, without my wanting to
be, I’m drowned by it.” Now the not-so-funny joke was that she looked like Marterio without the makeup. The lines and bags
and gray hair were there on their own. Pushing fifty. How did it all go by so fast
?
Of course, not one of the others probably looked this bad. In fact on the rare days when she was home from work, she watched
Jan on “My Brightest Day” and couldn’t get over how gorgeous she still looked. Once when she was still married to Lou, he
came home for lunch one day while she was watching Jan in a scene and said, “You went to school with that woman? She looks
twenty years younger than you do.” Even though she thought so, too, it hurt to hear the derision in his voice when he said
it
.
She should have told him, “Of course she does. Because she never had the pleasure of being married to you.” And the truth
was that the good life made
.
“
Great,” she said. “Home phones and addresses, too, Dee Dee. And I’ll get right on the case. But I’m out of town, so if you
don’t mind, I’ll give you a local fax number where you can reach me
.”
“
No problem,” said Dee Dee
.
She gave her the fax number of a drugstore outside of town, and by the time she got there, the pages were waiting for her.
Names and phone numbers and home addresses of the big-time West Coast drama department alums. Yes! That night she sat and
read the fawning cover letter that came from the alumni office to Rose Schiffman. Then she went overand over the list of names and home addresses, trying to picture the houses that went with those addresses
.
She circled the names of the people who would remember her and who would be nice to her. Trying to decide which of them might
have a job for her. Then next to their names she wrote ideas for what the jobs might be. That way when she went to see them,
she wouldn’t be wasting their time. She could go right in and ask for what she wanted. That night in bed she copied all the
addresses into her own little address book by hand. Put them in their alphabetical locations, as if they’d been in there all
these years. They should have been. She could have stayed in touch. That’s what she’d tell them when she saw them
.
Early in the morning, she packed a few things in her little duffel bag, the only piece of luggage she owned. Then she called
in to her boss and told him, in a voice she knew would be convincing, that she was deathly ill. “You sound awful,” he said.
Hah! She thought, at least all those years of acting training didn’t go totally to waste
,
When she was ready to leave, she checked her purse to be sure she had the little remote control for her answering machine
with her in case she needed to call home for messages from LA. Then she went into the kitchen to turn on the answering machine
she’d had for a million years. When she caught sight of her face in the oven door of her murky little kitchen, she laughed
a pained laugh
.
It was the face of Marterio looking back at her, the character she played in
The House of Bernardo Alba
at Tech. She had coveted the part of the beautiful young Adela, the starring role, but when the casting went up on the call
board,the part of Adela had gone to Jan O’Malley. And instead she had been cast as Marterio, the dried up, jealous sister
.
Poor Marterio, she thought, looking critically at herself, and poor me. She remembered sitting in the dressing room in 1966,
putting mauve shadows under her eyes and lines across her forehead, drawing more lines from her nose to her mouth. Then pulling
her long orange silky hair back and spraying it with a black-colored spray, except for the temples, which she powered gray.
And when she heard her cue, she’d charged out on that stage and given the best performance the school had ever seen
.
The little theater shook when Marterio said to Adela, “I have a heart full of a force so evil that, without my wanting to
be, I’m drowned by it.” Now the not-so-funny joke was that she looked like Marterio without the makeup. The lines and bags
and gray hair were there on their own. Pushing fifty. How did it all go by so fast
?
Of course, not one of the others probably looked this bad. In fact on the rare days when she was home from work, she watched
Jan on “My Brightest Day” and couldn’t get over how gorgeous she still looked. Once when she was still married to Lou, he
came home for lunch one day while she was watching Jan in a scene and said, “You went to school with that woman? She looks
twenty years younger than you do.” Even though she thought so, too, it hurt to hear the derision in his voice when he said
it
.
She should have told him, “Of course she does. Because she never had the pleasure of being married to you.” And the truth
was that the good life made
Similar Books
