Sisterhood Everlasting - Ann Brashares [116]
One other thing I wanted to say. As I think of you—and I do more often than you could imagine—I think of your many beautiful traits, but also your fitfulness. I’ve watched you go through dozens of jobs, apartments, phones, plants, and obsessions. You would think that such a voracious girl as yourself would have gone through dozens of boyfriends, dozens of lovers, but it occurred to me the other day that you haven’t. You’ve only had one. You told me once that Eric was your touchstone, and I’ve thought of it many times.
It’s natural to overlook and even sacrifice the things that belong to us most easily, most gracefully. So here’s me asking you to please not make that mistake.
Really, Carmen couldn’t say exactly what happened at the audition—er, meeting. She couldn’t honestly say if it was a complete failure or a weird kind of success.
She knew she walked into the meeting room in a snazzy mansion in the Garden District. She recognized Grantley Arden from his picture. There were several producers and a couple of executives, about half of whom she’d met at various industry functions, usually on the arm of Jones, who would wear socks with sandals before he’d forget any of their names. Carmen couldn’t remember one of them. Arden was wearing a baseball cap and jeans while the rest wore suits. There were airy clasps and kisses all around.
She vaguely recalled sitting down. She didn’t have the script, so somebody handed her one. She’d made a mad dash through it that morning but hadn’t learned any of the lines.
The producers talked for a while about the concept of the film, the vision and so forth. There was a lot of hyperbole thrown around—“stunning,” “groundbreaking,” “astonishing”—but none of it really sank in. Nobody expected it to, she realized.
Then they asked her to read a character, the floozy named Fiona. Carmen surprised herself by not skittering right over the top of the lines with all the obvious moves, as she expected to do, but walking down into them.
Fiona was a mess, really. Carmen knew she was supposed to do it funny, but as she read the lines, one struck her as more tragic than the next. When she looked up, there were tears in her eyes. She was very emotional lately.
There was a bit of silence. “Carmen, can you come over here for a minute?” Arden asked her. He drew her into the corner and walked her close, almost like they were in a huddle.
“Honey, I can see your veins,” Arden said in a low voice.
“You can?”
“Yes, I think all of them.”
Carmen’s hands felt a certain fluttering responsibility, but how could you cover up every vein?
“I’m sorry,” she said. She was sure it was a breech to show up with all your veins sticking out to the “most important meeting of your life.”
“No, don’t be sorry.”
“Why not?” Even as she said it, she felt that what few veins perhaps weren’t showing before were probably popping out now.
“Because that’s how it is. Unfortunately, this role is comedy. The rest of the big roles are cast. I brought you here for comedy, but the comedy I’m getting from you could tear us all to pieces. This particular audience is not ready for it, I regret to say.”
“Okay,” she said. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s all right.”
“So I guess I go, then.”
“Yeah. I’ll call you when I’m back in New York.”
She gave him a steady, honest look. “Why?” She was not in the mood for bullshit, it turned out.
“Because I’ve got to do something with you,” he said. He gave her a kiss, not a fake air one but a real hard one on the side of her head, and sent her on her way. “Make sure Wanda has your cell.”
“I don’t have a cell,” she lied.
He stood in