Almost a Woman : A Memoir (9780306821110) (26 page)

Just before final exams, men in fitted suits appeared at Performing Arts. Within minutes a rumor spread that they were Hollywood producers casting a movie. They visited a few classes but were more interested in the architecture of the school than in the students or teachers. A few days later, however, some of us were told that we'd been chosen to audition for the film version of Bel Kaufman's
Up the Down Staircase.

“Mami, I've been discovered!” I crowed as soon as I came home.

“Discovered doing what?” she asked.

I explained what little I knew. They were making a movie of a famous book about a school. The writer had once been a teacher at Performing Arts. The producers had come to look around, because they might film there and might choose kids to play students in the movie.

“
¡Ay que bueno!
”

“You'd better be careful,” Tata broke in. “Sometimes those movie people just want to meet young girls.”

Tata had never met any movie people. As far as I knew, she'd never been to the movies, so her warning went in one ear and out the other. Still, it was a relief when I went up to Warner Brothers for my interview and there were no couches in the casting director's office.

Mr. Jeffers was a square-jawed, ageless man whose practiced smile nevertheless elicited a toothy response. He sat behind a huge desk piled with black-and-white photographs of every aspiring actor in New York City. I didn't have a head shot, but he said that wasn't necessary.

“We're looking for real people,” he said, “not necessarily professional actors.”

He didn't give me a script to read from but instead asked questions designed to get me to talk. I figured he wanted to make sure I didn't have an accent, so I enunciated every word in standard speech, modulating my voice as I'd been taught. Satisfied, Mr. Jeffers stood to show me out, and I was surprised by how short he was. He took a business card from a wallet in his pocket and handed it to me. When I reached to take it, he took my hand in his, curled my fingers around the card.

“This is my direct line,” he said. I nodded but didn't dare look him in the eye. Was he flirting, or was he being nice? He led me through a maze of halls and offices toward the reception lobby.

“Call me tomorrow,” he said and flashed his perfect smile.

That night I met Alma for dinner and we talked about the interview.

“It's weird. He didn't do anything, other than hold my hand a little too long.”

“You think he was coming on to you?”

“I think so, but I'm not sure.”

“We can't be suspicious of every man we meet,” Alma suggested.

“Maybe I was reading too much into it. But I keep hearing,
‘Men only want one thing,'” I mimicked Mami's voice, but Alma didn't notice.

“It's the same with me.” She thought for a few moments. “Maybe our mothers just haven't met any nice men.”

“They're nice at the beginning,” I reminded Alma. “Then, when they get what they want . . .”

“Now you sound just like your mother!” Alma laughed, and I was embarrassed but had to agree.

Since Mami and Titi Ana had shot down our plan to move in together, men had replaced apartments as the main topic of conversations during our dinners out. In my household, there were Don Julio and Don Carlos, and we had frequent visits from Mami's male uncles and cousins, who came alone as often as they showed up with wives or girlfriends. But Titi Ana didn't encourage male relatives to come around, especially if Alma and Corazón were alone while she was at work. When it came to men, I had firsthand knowledge and long experience compared with Alma, whose main contact with men was her boss, the sock wholesaler. Sometimes we talked about what kind of man we'd like to marry.

“Rich,” I said when she asked.

“But how about other qualities? A sense of humor, kindness?”

“No,” I insisted, “just rich.” She laughed because she thought I was kidding. “Let's say our mothers are right and men only want one thing,” I continued, “what's the point of giving it to just anybody? It's the only thing we have to offer.”

“No, I don't agree with you,” Alma's dark eyes grew larger. “You can't think that way.”

“Why, not? Men think that way about us.”

“No, Negi, that's wrong.” She shook her head back and forth as if trying to dislodge my words from her brain.

“I'm not kidding. When I'm ready to give up my virginity, it's going to the highest bidder.”

“Oh, my God, that's terrible! Don't joke about it. It's not funny.”

I loved seeing her flustered. With Alma I could be outrageous
and say things I wouldn't dare say in front of anyone else. What made it fun was that she believed me. I tried out the craziest ideas on her and she took them seriously. I spoke without thinking, for the sheer joy of seeing her reaction, of arguing a point with her, of hearing myself express opinions I didn't know I had until they spilled out of my mouth.

“Just wait,” I said. “The first man I do it with will be a millionaire.”

“Just make sure you love him,” she warned.

“Of course,” I said. “Once I know he's rich, I'll fall in love with him.” And then we laughed.

When I called Mr. Jeffers, he said he'd like me to try out for Carole Blanca, a featured role, the most prominent part for a Puerto Rican actress in the movie.

“Come prepared to perform a short monologue,” he said. “And call me afterwards.”

“But won't you be there?”

“No, that's not my department,” he chuckled. “Good luck.”

The audition was in a rehearsal studio on West 49th Street. Several chairs were set up against the wall of a hallway that led to a closed door. As I reached the top, a woman flew out from inside, asked my name, checked me off a list attached to a clipboard, pointed to the last unoccupied chair, and then disappeared behind the door.

Three actors were ahead of me. They dismissed me as soon as they realized I wasn't competition. They were called into the audition room one at a time, and I moved up the line. When my turn came, the woman who had first greeted me led me into a small, dark theater with a tiny stage that wasn't even raised off the audience level.

Several people huddled in the back. Miss Silver introduced me to an elegant man, Mr. Pakula, who was the producer, and to
a rumpled man with a thick mustache, Mr. Mulligan, the director. We talked for a few minutes as they asked the usual questions; then Mr. Pakula pointed to the stage and said they were ready for me.

“You can use any props that you find down there,” Mr. Mulligan suggested, which meant he wanted to see me handle a prop. I'd chosen the scene from
Member of the Wedding
in which Frankie tells John Henry she wants to leave their small town. I hadn't practiced the scene with props, but I found a bench against a wall and incorporated it into the monologue. When I sat down in the middle of it, the bench shuddered on its hinges, and I jumped up but stayed in character and played it as if the whole thing had been planned. It was the best audition I'd ever given. Mr. Pakula and Mr. Mulligan shook my hand, told me I'd done well, and said Mr. Jeffers would let me know in a couple of days, as soon as they met everyone being considered for the part.

I was proud of myself. I'd reacted appropriately to every situation, and I hoped to get the role. Even though it was after five, I called Mr. Jeffers, who sounded friendly and excited.

“You did great this morning,” he said.

“You mean this afternoon,” I corrected him.

“If they were making a decision right now, you'd be it,” he assured me, and I could almost see his brilliant smile over the phone. “Come in tomorrow afternoon. I'll probably have good news for you.”

That night I couldn't sleep. I had images of myself as Carole Blanca, my first major role in a movie, made by Warner Brothers, a famous Hollywood company. It wasn't legitimate theater, but my training at Performing Arts would ensure that I rose above the indicated performances of movie actors. I'd be brilliant. It would be the first time in my short acting career that I would play a Puerto Rican. Not Maria or Anita or any of the Sharks' girlfriends. I was to be a character with a name, a smart girl, someone my age.

The next day, when I went to Mr. Jeffers's office, he seemed surprised to see me.

“You said I should come today,” I reminded him.

“Yes, of course,” he was flustered, appeared confused, as if I were the last person he expected. “You're Esmeralda Santiago?”

“Yes.”

“Right. Give me a second.” He shuffled through some papers. It took him a while, and I had the impression that he was stalling. Finally he asked if I'd brought a head shot.

“You said I didn't need one.”

“Right, I did.” He shuffled his stacks some more.

“If this is not a good time,” I offered, “I could come back.”

“Yes. No. It's fine. That's fine.” He took a couple of deep breaths, held them in, placed his hands in a prayer pose in front of his nose, stared at me for a few seconds until I looked away. “The truth is,” he exhaled, “I had you confused with another girl.”

“Oh.”

“The other girl . . .” He leaned in, as if about to whisper, but his voice was the same as before. “The truth is,” he repeated, “you're not right for the part.”

“But you said . . .”

“The other girl, she looks more, how do I say this? Well, the truth is,” he said for the third time, and I wished he'd lie because the strain in his voice told me that, whatever he was about to say, I didn't want to hear.

“The other girl looks more Puerto Rican.”

“What?”

“You just don't have the look. You're a pretty girl. This is the movies. It's about the look.”

“I'm too pretty to be Puerto Rican? Is that what you're saying?”

“You don't look Puerto Rican enough. But you'll be in the movie, don't worry about that. There are many other parts . . . a whole classroom of kids . . .”

I felt myself leave my body and rise to a corner of the room. There was Mr. Jeffers, looking somewhat hapless and small, and I, across from him my hands gripping the armrests of the chair as if
loosening them would make me hurtle through space. He was blubbering, or so it seemed, his brilliant smile fading more and more every time he flashed it. He wrote something on notepaper, handed it over the desk, and the me sitting on the chair took it, read it, folded it, put it inside the small pocketbook on my lap. He stood up, stretched his hand out, and I was no longer above my head. I was shaking his hand as if he'd done me a favor. I walked out of the building in a daze; went straight to the library; found a picture of Rita Moreno, another of Chita Rivera, a third of Jose Ferrer. They were not ugly people. They were beautiful Puerto Ricans. But did they, I asked myself, “look” Puerto Rican? Had I not known that they were, would I have said, there goes a
compatriota?
Knowing who they were, I could not know what I would have done if I hadn't known. I only knew that according to Mr. Jeffers, my one connection with the entire motion picture industry, Puerto Ricans were not pretty people.

When I came home, I didn't mention the humiliation. I announced in chirpy tones that I'd been hired to act in the movie, that I'd be paid, that the ten-year rule obviously didn't apply to me. One week before graduation, and I already had a job as an actress. I convinced myself that it was more than I could have hoped. As we'd been told over and over again, rejection was part of the business. You couldn't take it personally.

The auditorium at Performing Arts was filled to capacity. When we marched in, dressed in our caps and gowns, the audience stood up to applaud. It was our final performance, the last day we'd appear in the auditorium as students. Papi wasn't there. From the corner of my eye I caught Mami's proud smiles. Next to her Don Carlos, in his suit and dark glasses, stood tall and dignified, proud too, even though I wasn't his child. I'd been allowed two guests. I'd pleaded that I was the first of nine children to graduate from high school, that my mother wanted to make an example of me
and bring all the kids to watch. But the auditorium at Performing Arts was small. Only two guests per student.