Alice in La La Land (9 page)

Susan giggled delightedly. Alice noticed a grey hair on Susan's top lip and felt comforted that some people in the industry had hairs sprouting in the wrong places from time to time.

'Uh-huh, it is a great town,' she agreed. 'Now, I noticed that you were in
Cornucopia
. When is that being released?'

'As far as I know, it premiered at the Venice Film Festival at the end of last year, but it hasn't got a release date yet,' Alice replied, holding her breath. She hoped Susan had not heard about the noisy boos at the screening. Still, it was the closest Alice had come to a big Hollywood movie thus far. 'I'm sure it should be on here any day now.'

Susan stood up and began fiddling with the camera that was set up beside the partition wall. She lifted the tripod and hauled the equipment into the centre of the office.

'Now,' she said, 'I know it's a little crazy doing this scene in the helicopter with no props. I do understand that it's gonna feel a little cuckoo doing all those moves, okay, but just go for it! Have fun!' she enthused, looking through the camera to where Alice was sitting on the couch, still clutching her bag as if it were an infant.

'Oh, sure, no problem,' Alice nodded, smiling. 'So . . . as if the couch is the helicopter seat and the control panels
are right here?' Alice checked, referring to the space in front of her. The couch was in need of new springs and she felt herself sinking into the centre of the cushion. She budged her bottom forward to give herself a more energised position on the couch's hard edge.

'Yes, perfect. Now if you just look to your left to direct your lines at "Bobby Blade" who would be sitting right there. I'll just holler out his lines from here, but he only has a couple. Just don't look back at me unless you're staring straight ahead through the helicopter windscreen.'

'Got it,' said Alice, flinging her satchel to the left. It hit the floor hard and a packet of tampons and a map of LA popped out. She propped herself as upright as possible with the wooden edge of the couch biting into her behind.

'Now, for the part where you're yelling down at the guy below the helicopter, I suggest you make your eye line around here.' She waved her right hand on the camera's right, about level with her hip.

Alice took a deep breath and ran through the details in her mind while Susan made some final camera adjustments.

Control panels level with chest, she revised, invisible co-star on my right, don't mistakenly look at Susan when she says his lines from off camera, only look in her direction if looking at the sky straight ahead, people below are camera right, hip level, keep knees at an angle to the left because unflattering with knees straight on . . . and keep your shoulders back, she told herself, suddenly aware she was slumping under the weight of all the information. Alice inhaled deeply and brought her hands forward to clutch the invisible helicopter gear-stick. She was sure Celestia wouldn't have had a problem with any of this. She
would have been perfectly graceful in the imaginary helicopter, and had probably glanced at her lines only once before knowing them inside out. Alice shook her head rigorously to clear her thoughts.

'Ready, Alice?' asked Susan.

'Yep,' Alice replied, not letting go of the gear-stick. 'Ready.'

'Action.'

'You think I don't need that money as bad as you?' yelled Alice, over the imaginary helicopter noise. In her own ears she sounded strident and she willed hard for her American accent not to slip. She glanced briefly at the imaginary character on her right and then inadvertently looked back down at the gear-stick. She was convinced this would look wrong, so she looked up at the 'sky' beyond the camera instead. Susan's form skimmed her peripheral vision and she hoped that she didn't think Alice was looking at her by mistake.

'How long have you been flying these things for?' Susan continued, presumably keeping her head down so that Alice would remember not to look at her.

'You scared?' asked Alice. 'Don't be!' She yanked the gear-stick in an approximation of a radical helicopter manoeuvre to the left.

'Hey, you there!' she yelled out the imaginary helicopter window, 'Outta my way!' This she delivered to Susan's hip as instructed.

'Oh my God, what the hell are you doing? Those are people and cars down there!' said Susan. Alice glanced at the invisible character on her right.

Alice stabbed some imaginary buttons. For this she had
to release one hand from the gear-stick. She had come to the part of the scene in which she had to talk into an invisible mobile phone while simultaneously steering the helicopter to a landing position on a freeway.

'I'm comin' to get you, ass boy!' she yelled into her right hand which was forming a claw at her ear. She hung up the imaginary phone with her thumb which she would never have done in real life, but she found phone acting was hard at the best of times. She threw the imaginary phone over her right shoulder and put both hands on the gear-stick, yanking it backwards to look as though she were landing the helicopter.

'Hold on!' she shouted, to no one in particular.

The helicopter came down with a bump and Alice wobbled from side to side to indicate that she was back on terra firma. She'd broken into a sweat. Whether it was from exertion or embarrassment, she couldn't be sure. Alice opened the door of the imaginary helicopter, stood up from the couch and started to run. She didn't want to run too far because the camera wouldn't be able to contain the activity. She ran around in small circles in front of the couch, yelling at another imaginary character ahead.

'That's my jeep, you give it back! I never said you could have it!' She threw a punch in the air. 'You give. It. Back. Now.' Alice stomped and punched with each word. She ended up with her back to Susan. Her hair was askew and fell in her eyes. She spun back violently to face the camera and made an involuntary grunting noise.

'Cut!' said Susan, laughing. 'Well done!'

Alice panted and fell back onto the couch. 'Do you
want another take?' she asked, pushing her hair behind her ears.

'No way, Alice, that was perfect,' Susan enthused, stepping forward to shake her hand. 'Thanks so much for stopping by.'

Alice stood up and shook Susan's hand. 'Thank you,' she said, and bent down to scoop up her belongings which still lay strewn all over the floor. She didn't want to appear to be a lingerer. 'Bye for now.'

Alice walked the length of the floor to the lift. People all around her were busy working and didn't indicate that they had heard her shouting in the corner. She reached the lift, pressed the down button and looked at her watch. It was 12.20 pm and she was starving.

Alice ate the last of her spicy burrito and used a refresher towel to mop up the juices that had dribbled down her arm. She had hoovered up the Mexican food, suddenly aware that she hadn't eaten since the Wow chips the night before. Being hungry was a good sign, she thought, wanting to distance the memory of the previous night's drama. Alice checked her reflection in her compact mirror for signs of burrito and was pleased to see that natural colour had returned to her cheeks. She sighed in her appreciation of the Baja Fresh feast and sipped her soda. She had time at last. Alice pulled the pages of her third and final audition from the pocket of her satchel.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Re: Too Beautiful

Laurel (early twenties) is a Miss America contestant from Idaho. Sarah Jessica Parker has signed on for the lead in this comedy. Begins shooting May. Please learn scenes 73 and 105. Trust me, we think you're perfect and so will they. You can do funny! Audition at 3.00 pm, April Franks Casting, Cnr. Olympic and South Robertson Blvds. (Address and Yahoo map attached.)

Love Rebekah

There were ten pages in all, but a lot of it was big print. When she broke it down, it didn't seem so bad. The first section involved her character, Laurel, a smalltown beauty-pageant contestant, boasting to one of the other competitors about her skills. The skills she was most proud of were baton twirling and yodelling. Alice could do neither.

The second section was the beauty pageant itself. Laurel was on stage performing for the adjudicators. She hoped she didn't actually have to spin a baton, and that it was okay to mime. All the miming so far today had catapulted her mind back to the childhood games she used to play with her neighbours on the quiet suburban streets of Wollongong. 'Okay, now I'm driving the car and you're in the passenger seat. Vroom, vroom. Okay, now we're there and we got out and there's a monster chasing us. Eeeeek.'

Alice checked her watch. It was just after 1.30 and she needed to be at the casting office on the corner of Olympic and South Robertson for 2.45. It was an eight-minute drive, tops. She figured she could use the next
hour productively on audition preparation. Alice waited in
line for another soda, or soft drink as she called it.

'Uh, ma'am, y'all can refill for free,' the waitress told her.

Alice smiled. She could enjoy the ambience of the West Hollywood restaurant and revise lines with her free soda. It didn't take too much to make her happy. Her cell phone rang. 'Hi, Rebekah, how's it going?'

'Hey, Alice, are you feeling any better?'

'Yes! Better now I've had my burrito,' Alice replied, smoothing out her audition pages on the formica table top.

'I hope you're at Poquito Mas on Sunset and not Baja Fresh. You want the ingredients to be preservative-free,' warned Rebekah.

'Um, I didn't know that, but thanks for the tip,' said Alice, watching a couple of teenagers in low-slung jeans shovel Mexican food into their mouths. The Baja Fresh logo flashed toxic neon in the window beside them.

'I just wanted to let you know I've spoken with the casting director of a movie that is being cast out of LA but shot in Australia. It's called
Looly Down Under
and we hope to get you in to see the director next Monday. We're really excited and think you'd be perfect. How was this morning?'

'Fantastic so far,' Alice replied, doodling on her script. 'The one in Studio City went well, and the helicopter pilot audition was just . . . so much fun. I'm looking over the pages for my third audition as we speak and I'm all set.' Alice had drawn a crude scribble of a helicopter exploding and a stick figure falling out with its hair alight.

'Okay, perfect. Call you later.'

'Any word on the . . .' Alice began, but Rebekah had hung up.

'Goldenberg,' she sighed, and stared at the dialogue she had highlighted with green fluoro marker pen. The onion incident was still fresh in her memory, and she wondered if the casting director had given Rebekah any negative feedback.

'From the top,' she said, shaking off the memory, and she hid her character's dialogue under a napkin to test her memory.

At 2.40 pm, Alice parked her car on a side street off Olympic Boulevard. She estimated she was a five-minute walk from her destination. There were no parking meters and Alice reckoned this was a good sign. Karma was taking the afternoon off. She felt inside her satchel for the parking ticket. It was still there, scrunched into a ball at the bottom. Alice made a mental note to deal with it when she got home. She'd been cautioned for jay-walking and she sure as hell wasn't going to get into trouble over a parking violation.

Alice checked her appearance in the rearview mirror. The sunlight was harsh and she noticed that her concealer stick hadn't managed to do its job on the shadows under her eyes. She applied more then put a stiff brush through her hair. She assumed a beauty pageant contestant would need to be half-way decent, and pulled out some berry lip-gloss for additional oomph. Alice preferred to do final checks in the car rather than in the casting office waiting room which made her feel self-conscious.

Satisfied she'd done her best with the raw materials God had given her, Alice got out of the Daewoo and checked twice that it was locked. The side street was lined with bins, or trash cans as they were called here. Alice guessed a rubbish truck had been by or was on its way. A postman on his delivery rounds walked past listening to his iPod and smiled a greeting. Alice smiled back and checked her watch. 2.45 pm. Time to go.

Alice set off at a clipped pace, checking the address on her Yahoo map as she went. The casting office was a large square tower of grey concrete that appeared to have been built in the 1930s. The lobby floor was marble and by the lift a blackboard housed in plexiglass named the buildings' occupants. Alice found April Franks Casting listed for the fourth floor. She stepped into the old-fashioned lift and pulled the wire door shut with a clunk.

Alice stepped out at the fourth floor, pleased to be on time. Someone had printed a sign that read 'Too Beautiful Casting This Way' with a large black arrow pointing to the right; Alice followed the directions down the hall. The building was eerily silent. The large windows on her left looked as though they hadn't been cleaned in years, and the floor's dark grey swirls lent the corridor an austerity that wouldn't have been out of place in a bank. Alice opened the door at the end of the corridor and stepped into the waiting room. Two other actresses were sitting on the only available chairs. One had her head down and appeared to be reading a paperback. The other was sending a text message on her cell phone. Her thumb moved across the tiny keyboard at rapid speed.

Alice looked around the space. A well-nourished ficus
tree sat in a black pot in the left corner under the window. Its deep green leaves shone even under the dull glow of the fluorescent lights. There was no other furniture.

Alice cleared her throat to speak. 'Are there any forms to fill in?' She addressed the question to the actress reading the paperback. When the girl looked up she recognised her as Molly, the redhead who had tested for the same role in
Rough Beast Slouching
. She was the one who had said something about playing a fun cripple in Canada.

'Oh hi,' said Alice, 'how are you? I guess we missed out on that British journalist job, huh?'

'Huh? Oh, right,' Molly replied, smiling as she remembered. She closed her book over her finger to keep her place. 'Um, no forms for this one but be warned, they're way behind schedule.'