PERFORMING ARTS COMPLEX
MASK ENTRANCE
MONDAY, OCTOBER 4TH
2:03 P.M.
Allie ran a shaking hand nervously across her blow-out, smoothing out flyaways and nerves. She was late for her first acting class. She hadn’t felt this anxious or intimidated since she’d had her first head shots taken at the Barbizon Modeling School in the Santa Ana mall. Her eyes widened as she stepped onto the plush red carpet that extended like a rectangular tongue from the giant gold façade of the Performing Arts complex. The entrance to the building was a depressingly tragic frown, which didn’t help Allie’s mood. Thankfully when the doors whooshed open, the frown curled into a laughing smile.
Inside, three gorgeous SITs (Stars In Training) walked toward her, each of them dressed like extras from Oliver Twist, their tweed vests and kneesocks smudged with soot. They reminded Allie of Mary-Kate Olsen on a bad day—homeless-looking, but beautiful.
“Wot’s she doin’ ’ere?” one of the girls snort-snickered, turning to her sooty pals.
Another one rolled her eyes, then quickly reassumed her street urchin character study, adjusting a straw hat that rode jauntily atop a mass of kinky black curls. “I ’aven’t a clue—must be an impostor convention!”
The three pseudo-British urchins laughed as Allie’s face turned the color of the carpet beneath her. It’s true. Identity theft doesn’t make me an actress. It makes me a criminal. She shame-stared straight ahead and stalked past them and through the entrance, Purelling even though (she hoped!) she hadn’t touched them.
Finally, she arrived at her class in the amphitheater. The huge room consisted of a giant round stage surrounded by rows of chairs—there were at least five hundred empty seats. Allie shivered at the thought of all of them being filled with a huge audience.
Her eyes scanned the scene, watching as holographic sets on the stage dissolved and re-appeared every few seconds. Quotes from great actors and directors and famous lines from movies and plays illuminated the walls like glowing neon caterpillars. The teacher of the class was a woman rounder than Humpty Dumpty with hair dyed a shade of red so bright it was nearly neon. She was dressed in head-to-toe black, and her lips were an even brighter shade of tomato red than her hair. But Big Red had it. It being that hard-to-define quality known as charisma, animal magnetism, star power. Her chubby chin jiggled as she walked and talked. Still, Allie was totally entranced by her.
Allie’s trance was so deep that she nearly screamed when a finger silently tapped her on the shoulder. Allie’s navy blue eyes made contact with Triple Threat’s catlike golden ones, which were narrowed quizzically.
“You’re in this class?” Allie whispered through clenched teeth, not wanting to unfreeze and incur the wrath of Big Red.
“Uh-huh,” smirked Triple, arching one perfectly plucked eyebrow. “I own this class.”
Two sharp hand-claps bounced their attention back to the acting teacher. “New York subway!” the teacher yelled. “Hear the rumbling along the track! Feel the stress of being sandwiched underground! Smell the unappetizing smells!”
Some of the girls refroze in new positions as subway riders, hanging on invisible poles or sitting on invisible subway seats, their faces contorting into masks of tension and their bodies jiggling as if being rocked by a moving train, while others took the opportunity to create characters. Sunita Sanchez, who Allie knew from French class, morphed into a homeless person and walked around asking for spare change, jingling an invisible cup of coins. Another girl rolled her eyes and pretended to block her out with a giant newspaper.
As Sunita approached her, Allie quickly stuck her nose into her shirt to block out her imaginary homeless-person germs and concentrated on not gagging on the imaginary smell of pee permeating their subway car. Before she knew it, she’d fished out her bottle of Purell and slathered both hands in it, instantly feeling more protected.
Big Red stopped her monologue and walked over to Allie. “Good improv for your first time. Nice germophobia! You must be the IT. I’m Careen.”
Allie smiled nervously, confused by Careen’s acronym. Is IT an acting term? Her mind groped at the possibilities: Improv Trainee? Interpreter of Theater? I Thespian? Careen stood a bit too close to Allie, her chunky arms folded. She seemed to want a response.
“IT?” Allie finally squeaked.
“Identity Thief.”
“Oh.” Tears instantly sprang to Allie’s deep blue eyes and her nervous smile vanished. Allie wished she could vanish along with it.
But then Careen’s high-pitched laugh filled Allie’s ears, sounding like the yapping of two tiny dogs stuffed into a purse. She smacked Allie on the back with a meaty, ring-covered hand, hard enough that Allie bumped into Triple. “In this class, IT is a compliment! I heard all about the scandal,” Careen paused, taking a wheezing breath, “and I’m elated to work with someone with such enormous ambition. What a brilliant way to get into the Academy!”
Careen gushed. Allie blushed.
The redhead circled Allie like a bargain hunter eyeing the clearance rack. “That kind of hunger cannot be taught.”
Careen bulldozed her way through the imaginary subway car. “Check out the bios of these fame-seekers on your aPod later. You’ll see they’ve all gone to great lengths to be here. You’re no different than they are; you just took a different path. You are home now, my future ingénue. Welcome!”
Careen came charging back toward Allie, her arms outstretched. Allie took a breath as Careen grabbed her shoulders and pressed her face to her ample bosom in a suffocating-yet-nurturing hug.
Lost in the black fabric of Careen’s chest, Allie’s emotions took her by surprise. Finally, someone was being nice to Allie! Someone thought she belonged. Hot tears prickled at her eyes.
When Careen finally let her go, Allie noticed she’d left a big wet spot on her teacher’s left boob.
“Remember this feeling, Allie. Use it in your craft.” Careen’s lipsticky teeth flashed Allie another smile. “Now, let’s get you up to speed.”
Careen explained that this was an acting warm-up exercise. The idea was to mime whatever she called out. “Don’t think!” Careen screeched. “React! Leave yourself and your thoughts behind and become.”
A surge of hopeful relief coursed through Allie’s veins. She wanted nothing more than to leave herself behind forever. She joined the girls on their invisible subway, some of whom peered at her over their invisible newspapers in a disinterested way, just like real commuters.
Allie grabbed on to an invisible pole and started the ride. Then Careen clapped her hands again. “Electric shock!”
The actors-in-training began shaking spastically, their limbs flying as if they’d been hurled against an electric fence. But the word shock meant one thing and one thing only to Allie. Shock was finding her ex-boyfriend Fletcher kissing her ex-best friend Trina on the Finding Nemo ride at Disneyland. So she channeled that shock. Her eyes bulged. Her mouth hung open, forming a horrified black hole. Tears began to fall from her eyes again, this time because she had just been betrayed by the two people she loved most. No electricity required.
Careen clapped again, but this time the applause was for Allie. “Nice, Allie. Subtle, elegant work. Class, please follow Allie’s lead. Shock isn’t just something we get from hair dryers.”
Allie’s memory of Fletcher and Trina was replaced by elation. She pushed her shoulders back and stuck out her B-cups, reveling in an emotion she’d nearly forgotten existed: pride. She gloat-grinned at Triple, who had stopped writhing on the floor to stare at Allie, naked jealousy radiating from her golden irises.
Careen clapped again, pulling Allie back to the stage and her acting ambitions. “Revenge!”
Allie imagined sitting at the Oscars in a Zac Posen off-the-shoulder gown, her earlobes dripping with diamonds and emeralds. She looked over and smiled at Darwin sitting next to her, handsome in a tux, squeezing her hand as Natalie Portman announced the winner for Best Actress. “Allie A. Abbott!”
Allie pictured her tearful acceptance speech and zoomed out in her imagination to include Fletcher sitting in his parents’ basement rec room, in the dark, alone, watching her on TV. A single tear rolled down Fletcher’s cheek.
Maybe, just maybe, acting would give Allie back everything Fletcher had taken away—starting with her self-respect.