Everything changed when Raina was discovered.
And I know what you’re thinking: Is anyone really “discovered” anymore? Is that still a thing? Short answer: yes. But it didn’t happen in Minnesota.
Raina had begged her mom for years to take her to New York to see some Broadway musicals. At some point, Trinity finally relented. So Raina was standing outside a theater, wearing a dress with cats on it, when a nondescript middle-aged man walked up to her and gave her a card. Her mom was inside at the will-call window, trying to get them last- minute seats to Cabaret, and so Raina was all alone.
The way she described it to me was that it should have been really creepy. She was in eighth grade. She was a late-bloomer, and not necessarily a knockout by most people’s standards. But there she was, her dark blond hair in two long braids, wearing her mom’s oversize sunglasses and a cat dress. And the man stopped in front of her and smiled.
“I never do this,” he said.
And Raina, who had seen her beautiful mother harassed by strange men on too many occasions said, “Then don’t do it.”
Instead of walking away, though, the guy just laughed.
“Where did you get that dress?” he asked.
Again, he was talking to an eighth grader. Which is definitely kind of skeevy. But it was broad daylight, and he wasn’t leering at her. He just seemed curious. So Raina took a chance and told the truth.
“Walmart,” she said.
She looked down at herself. The dress was yellow and sleeveless with a print of cats wearing glasses on it. She had worn it because they were supposed to see Cats today, which she knew was a little corny and childish, but it also struck her as kind of perfect. How often do you get to wear cats to Cats? Her mom, however, had messed something up online and there were no seats for them. So, it was to be Cabaret instead. Still, she wasn’t going to change her clothes at that point. She was committed to the cat dress.
“Have you ever done any modeling?” he asked.
Now it was Raina’s turn to laugh.
“Yeah, man. Didn’t you see me in Teen Vogue last week? I was wearing Gucci slippers.”
She was still giggling when her mom came out of the theater and took a protective step in front of her daughter. She put a hand inside her purse where Raina knew she kept her enormous canister of pepper spray.
“What’s going on here? Who are you?”
The man put his hands up in the air as if he were being mugged. Then, slowly, he reached into the front pocket of his very expensive Oxford shirt and produced a business card.
“Paul Houston,” he said. “I’m a casting director. And I’d like to introduce your daughter to a director.”
He waited patiently for Raina and her mom to Google his agency on their phones, find a matching picture, and see his client list. It was an impressive list.
“How long are you in town?” he asked as they finished their detective work.
“Two more days,” said Trinity, softened a little by what she’d found.
“Any chance you can extend that?” he asked. “At my expense, of course.”
Trinity looked at Raina. Raina looked back at her mother.
A week later, she had an agent, and she was preparing to audition for a teen blockbuster about a nerdy girl who has to save the world from a time-traveling evil cat. She beat out every young actress you’ve ever heard of for the role.
How did she do it?
By thinking that it was never going to happen. Instead of preparing, she just went in and played herself. She ad-libbed a few bad jokes. She asked a few questions about her character. Then she realistically mimed hanging from a cliff while trying to keep a rescued, magical kitten in the pocket of a sweatshirt.
A year after that, she was famous.
For a while we stayed in touch. I still had her phone number, which became a well-kept secret, and I knew which social media accounts were the real ones. She lived in California now, and when we spoke, she’d mostly ask me about details from home. The polenta fries at Muddy Waters. The art installations on the ice at Lake Harriet. What play they were doing at the Community Playhouse. She seemed genuinely interested. Like maybe she really missed being a regular person in Minnesota with a cheap haircut and a gym locker. Though I couldn’t imagine why that would be true.
I tried not to ask about her new celebrity status too much, but it was hard to resist. I’d never met anyone famous before, unless you counted the washed-up celebrities who turned up at the mall once in a while to launch their shoe lines.
I’d write:
When you go on a talk show, do they really have baskets of free stuff back there? Can you take anything you want? Is it considered unprofessional to eat the whole muffin basket, or to take it home like a doggie bag?
I’d get a reply a few days later.
Swag Bags are real! I don’t care if it’s unprofessional. When a muffin is free, I eat the muffin. Are you still working at the Green Street?
Every once in a while, we’d talk on the phone, but hearing her voice was a little too much for me. In the end, I was stuck in the position of being genuinely happy for her, while simultaneously mourning the loss of my only real friend. You can see why I could fake it better in texts. On the phone, it was hard to keep my voice from quavering. And I was always on the verge of saying “Come home. Come home. Come home.”
Then my dad died.
And she didn’t come home.
In her defense, it would have been nearly impossible. She was shooting in Greenland. But she could have come later. It still would have helped. She didn’t do that, either. She never came back to see me. In fact, she didn’t even contact me. The worst thing imaginable had happened, and my best friend wasn’t there for me. It was beyond my understanding.
After that, I stopped texting. And I tried to move on. A year passed. Then another. I was put in charge of the Green Street. And, aside from the occasional Google alert, I tried not to think about her. In fact, I had almost successfully transformed her from best friend/unrequited love to pop-culture trivia when my mom told me she was back in town and that I should reach out because she was in trouble.
But who wasn’t in trouble? That’s what I wanted to know.
Life, it seemed to me, was mostly trouble. Sacred movie theaters got eviction notices from guys with tight shirts. Friendships ended as quickly as they began. People died when you didn’t want them to die. It was, so often, a lowdown, disappointing business as far as I could tell. Which is why I spent most of my time watching movies.
A text came through on my phone now. It was from a number I didn’t recognize. But I hadn’t made any new friends lately, so there was really only one person it could be.
Ethan, it read. Are you there?