MONDAY, JANUARY 10 . . . FIVE DAYS UNTIL THE WEDDING
The distance from Elysium to where Piper’s audition would take place was only eleven miles, but it took her almost an hour to get there. Cars and vans inched along Santa Monica Boulevard. From the rear seat of the car, Piper noted that virtually none of the other vehicles carried more than one passenger.
Piper had heard about the misery of Los Angeles traffic. After living in and commuting to Manhattan, she’d always dismissed the stories as West Coast whining. It had never occurred to her that anything was worse than the FDR at rush hour. Now she felt as if she should draft a letter of apology to all the residents of Los Angeles County. It truly was different here. Like the sunshine, traffic was a given.
While it was worse during rush hours, it rarely seemed to relent. Piper had taken her newfound understanding into account when she’d booked her driver. The thought of being late for an audition made her heart race. She was well aware that being stressed rarely led to a booking.
She wanted this one. Big-time. A national dog-food commercial had the potential of providing residuals checks for months and months to come. Piper still got an occasional check from the shampoo commercial she’d done a couple of years ago. At this point she would welcome any income.
More than the money, though, she just needed to book something. Except for the episodes of the soap A Little Rain Must Fall that she’d done in December, Piper had not worked in months. She knew that Gabe had faith in her, but some days it felt like she’d lost faith in herself. Gabe always tried to reassure her. “Doll, one day it’ll start to rain, and then it will pour,” he’d tell her. Piper laughed to herself at the irony of looking for career precipitation in arid Los Angeles.
“This shouldn’t take too long,” she said to the driver as she got out of the car. She walked up the path and entered the building, which had been converted from a house to a place of business, then signed in at the desk in the front hall.
She picked up a storyboard sheet as she took a seat in the waiting room. The sheet was divided into four squares. The first showed a man and a nervous woman standing at the front door of a house; the second showed the door being opened by an older man and woman; and the third showed the younger, nervous woman now smiling as she leaned over to pet a dog. In the final square, all four people and the dog seemed thrilled to be together.
Piper glanced around the waiting room. Two good-looking guys stood chatting just inside the door. Three other girls had gotten there before her. Just like Piper, all three were blondes. A few moments later, a brunette with a clipboard came into the room.
“Piper? Tom?” She didn’t even look up as she called their names. Piper and the taller of the two guys walked into the audition room. The girl with the clipboard settled behind a camera that had been set up on a tripod. Next to the camera was a foldout table with a man sitting on the other side of it. He looked to be about forty and had a deep tan that complemented his short, sandy blond hair. A phone book rested on a folding chair in front of the table.
“Piper, Tom, welcome,” said the casting director. “So here’s what we’ve got: An engaged couple goes to see the guy’s parents. The girl is nervous to be meeting her soon-to-be in-laws for the first time. The parents and their dog answer the door. The girl makes friends with the dog, causing the parents to like her immediately. Everyone’s happy. So what I’ll have you do is slate your name and height, and then we can go into a little improvisation of the scenario. You can use me as the parents, and, Piper, you use the phone book on the chair as the dog. Okay? Great.”
Piper looked at Tom, her new boyfriend. He smiled and wordlessly gestured, Ladies first. Piper looked into the camera lens and said, “Hi, I’m Piper Donovan, and I’m five-eight.”
Tom immediately followed with “And I’m Tom Glass, five-eleven.”
Piper turned to Tom and started to say something about how nervous she was to meet his parents when Tom grabbed her shoulders and started screaming in her face, “You can do this! They’re just my parents. Don’t let them break you!”
Piper instantly went with it. “I won’t! I won’t!” she cried as her face broke into the beginning of a sob. In unison, Piper and Tom whipped around to face the casting director.
“Mom! Dad!” Tom extended his arms for a big hug.
“Hi . . . uh, Mom? Dad?” Piper whimpered. Then she directed her attention to the phone book, and her eyes lit up. She breathed in and clapped her hands together as a smile spread across her face. “Oh, look, how cute you are! Hello there, little doggy. Why are you so cute?”
Piper picked up the phone book and cradled it in her arms. She brought the book with her as she made her way back to stand next to a now-grinning Tom. He wrapped his arm around her and beamed at the casting director. Piper matched his glow and with total confidence repeated the words of her initial greeting: “Hi, Mom. Dad.” She nuzzled the phone book as she heard the casting director burst out laughing.
“Wow, guys. That was really fun,” he said, still laughing.
Piper looked over at the girl behind the camera, and even she was giggling.
The casting director continued, “Okay, thank you so much for coming in, great meeting you guys, and we’ll be in touch.”
Piper and Tom thanked him for his time and walked from the room, through the waiting area, and out the door. As they were about to turn in separate directions, Tom extended his hand. Piper smiled as she took it.
“Well, I’ll see you at the callback, Piper Donovan,” he said.
“Hope so, Tom.”
As she turned toward her car, Piper hadn’t felt so good about an audition in at least a year. It was as if all the acting anxiety she’d had in New York had been melted by the California sunshine.