Box Girl (19 page)

Casting directors' wardrobe descriptions were equally entertaining. The oxymoron “Upscale Casual” was a favorite, along with the backhanded compliments: “attractive, yet approachable,” or “attractive, but not a model.”

“You're perfect,” I could imagine a casting director saying to a young actress. “You're good-looking but not
that
good-looking.”

I have seen the wardrobe description “Dog Park Cute” as well as “Carnival Date Casual,” and I have also seen the request, “Seeking Pamela Anderson/Maxim types, but no one with a history of porn.” For liquor and beer commercials, actors had to be “Legally Over 25 – WILL I.D. AT AUDITION.” I almost submitted myself for a Heineken commercial once, before I read the full description of my role: “Has the ability to remain underwater for prolonged periods of time while wearing a mermaid tail.”

In addition to commercials, I'd also receive casting notices for live events. This one was for an unnamed boot company: “We are looking for someone to wear a short dress or skirt or other appropriate outfit to highlight the boots. Duties include walking the show floor with an energized enthusiastic attitude to generate interest and excitement for the boots. MUST BE A SIZE 6 to 7. If you are a 5.5 or a 7.5 DO NOT SUMBIT!!!!”
I did not submit. My feet were too big. Plus, I wasn't sure I could generate the kind of excitement for the boots they were looking for.

I clicked on a male hand modeling notice once, out of morbid curiosity. I had to wonder if the guys who submitted themselves for this role had some serious complexes: “Adult hand model with child-sized hands. Hands should look like that of a 5- to 7-year-old boy.”

I once submitted myself for a Joe's Crab Shack “Female Lunch Patron” audition and got called in. I was instructed to dress “nice casual,” like I was “out to lunch with some friends.” As soon as I got to the audition, it occurred to me that the other girls went out to lunch at different places than I did. Most of them were in four-inch heels. Who eats at a chain seafood restaurant in four-inch heels? I was in a pair of gold flats and a navy-and-white-nautical striped dress. If my outfit didn't say “casual lunch at a maritime-themed restaurant,” I don't know what did. For the audition, there were Fritos scattered on a table, which we had to pretend were crabs and eat with enthusiasm. We then had to pretend we were getting attacked by a very aggressive seagull. Unfortunately, my seafaring attire didn't compensate for the fact that I have absolutely no acting skills. I did not book the job.

The fact that I rarely booked any commercials didn't deter me from submitting myself anyway and Google-mapping my way across Los Angeles to go to the auditions. Because, if the casting notices were amusing, then the waiting rooms at these casting facilities were an absolute bonanza.

On the morning of my Nationwide audition, instead of commuting from my bed to my desk to play the role of “Writer” in the wardrobe of “Pajama Pants, T-shirt, and Slippers,” I took a detour to the bathroom to take a shower, put on makeup, and blow-dry my hair. The assistant at the agency
called me with the specifics the night before. Role: wife. Age Range: 25-35. Description: attractive yet approachable, not too model-y. Wardrobe: Upscale Casual.

It was hot that day, and the air conditioning was broken in my car. By broken I mean it had never actually worked. This left me with two unappealing options: 1) roll down all the windows to stay cool, which would whip my hair into a chaotic nest, or 2) keep the windows up and keep the hair in place, then arrive at the audition looking like I'd just left the steam room. When I left my apartment, freshly showered and deodorized, my hair slightly spritzed into its on-camera position, I looked like someone who could at least fake it as an actor, someone presentable enough to be in an insurance company commercial. But by the time I arrived at the audition I looked like exactly what I was: someone who didn't have health insurance.

Inside the casting facility, a giant flat screen read: “Quaker Oats: Room 1. Alltel: Room 2. Budweiser: Room 3. Nationwide: Room 4.” I took a seat outside room four and filled out my Size Card: name, agency, height, weight, bust, hips, waist, inseam, glove size, hat size. The last two—glove and hat size—I never knew and sometimes just wrote “regular” or “proportional.”

I pulled out my book and pretended to read. At the far end of the waiting room were the Alltel guys—all in their mid-thirties, all dressed in suits, all with brown hair, all holding the same piece of paper. Some sat and read silently while others paced, pantomiming their lines. They became increasingly distracted, I noticed, as the room began to bustle with busty blondes arriving for their Budweiser auditions. I swear some guys only go to castings to pick up girls. And if they don't, they should. It's like a buffet. Everyone is skinny and pretty and between the ages of twenty and thirty, and there are fifty or sixty of them in one waiting room, all in nearly identical outfits.

The Budweiser candidate to my right—platinum blonde hair, jeans, heels, low-cut top—seemed to be having some sort of dispute with a salon receptionist. “Well then can you
at least
squeeze me in for a pedicure?” she said, into her phone. The Budweiser candidate to my left—golden blonde hair, jeans, heels, low-cut top—recognized another girl—dirty blonde hair, jeans, heels, low-cut top—and greeted her with, “Heyyyyyyyyy. How are youuuuuuu?” The words dragged out like a wind-up doll that needed to be wound. The dirty blonde replied, “Oh my god I left my cell phone at home and I am like
totally
freaking out.” The golden blonde responded, “Oh my god, that suuuuuuucks.”

As I eyed these girls' perfectly curled and coifed locks, I tore my fingers through my hair, attempting to untangle its nautical-sized knots. I adjusted the collar on my shirt. I was wearing a blouse and slacks—two words I rarely use and two clothing items I rarely choose—but I was going for the conservative and responsible look. The insurance commercial look.

A few minutes later, the casting director emerged to inform me I would be auditioning twice since they had, at the moment, a shortage of women for the role of “wife” and a surplus of “husbands” and “children.” He then explained that the Nationwide commercial would show three major snapshots of my life: the marriage proposal, the pregnancy, and then, cut to five years later, a portrait of my new little family.

Husband Todd entered, and we exchanged awkward hellos. For the first shot, we were told to sit on the couch and pretend we were watching TV, but we were really watching another chair across the room. Husband Todd was then instructed to—ever so casually—put his arm around me and dangle an imaginary engagement ring on an imaginary string, so it would lightly graze my right shoulder. I was told to notice this imaginary ring and gasp and smile and scream and look at this complete stranger, saying with orgasmic enthusiasm,
“Yes! Yes I will marry you!” And then we were to embrace in a jubilant hug.

For the next shot, I was told to stand in our pretend-living room, holding papers from the doctor's office that apparently informed me I was pregnant, while rubbing my belly and smiling into the distance. Husband Todd would then walk in, as if getting home from work, and see me smiling gleefully and rubbing my belly and
just know
, exclaiming, “Yeah?! Really, hon?! That's great! This is so great!” The casting director chimed in, “This is something you have both been hoping for, for a long time. Be sure to look as excited as your wife, husband.”

For the final shot, the child actor joined us. Child actors always sort of scare me. So much bravado at such a young age. It's as if, at any moment, they might bust out a tap dance rendition of
Fiddler on the Roof
. It's unnerving. At any rate, Todd was told to pick up Elsie, and I was told to stand next to them, my arms around both, and smile like we were taking a family portrait at the softer side of Sears.

Todd and Elsie left and in came my next husband and child, Wes and Haley. Now, if there is anything more awkward than pretending to get married and have a baby with a complete stranger, it's pretending to get married and have a baby with someone you know.

“Lilibet? Is that you?” Wes was very confused. He was represented by the agency I used to work for, the agency that now represented me.

“Yes, it's me, hi!” I said.

“Oh my god, what are you doing here?” he said, leaning in for a one-armed hug. “I thought you were working at a magazine or something? Are you an actor now?”

“Yes, no. No I'm not an actor but yes I go on auditions sometimes,” I said, rocking nervously in my sensible high heels. “I really have no idea what I'm doing,” which I'm sure
was super reassuring for him, considering he was going to be auditioning opposite me. Auditioning with someone who has no idea how to act is sort of like trying to play tennis with someone who has no idea how to play. You hit the ball to them, and they just stare at you blankly.

Wes was not the first former client I ran into while on an audition. I had several similarly awkward interactions. With the models, it was always, “You look so much thinner!”

“Well it's a lot easier to stay trim now that you're not sending me muffin baskets daily,” I always wanted to say.

Like my first husband, Wes also interpreted “upscale casual” to just mean “casual.” I was the only dope in the room dressed like someone whose day would be made upon hearing that there's cake in the conference room. Wes was clad in your standard East LA actor uniform: a partially un-tucked flannel shirt, the sleeves unevenly rolled, the collar not popped but not totally flat either—a calculated disarray, a level of disheveled-ness that can only be achieved with the finest attention to detail.

Our child was five and three-quarters and was missing her two front teeth. She told me she got twenty dollars per tooth. My mouth dropped open like a codfish. This may have seemed like an indication of astonishment, but really, it was jealousy.

Wes and I went through the same motions—the proposal, the pregnancy news, the glamour shots at Sears—in five or six minutes. My life's most momentous occasions were cranked out twice and packaged up tight, all for the sake of selling insurance. I always imagined I would someday get married, get pregnant, and have a child, or maybe even a few. I just never imagined all of this would happen with two different men, and within ten minutes, in a windowless room with coffee-stained carpet.

Walking out of the casting facility, I un-tucked my blouse and pulled my hair into a knot with the elastic I had accidentally left on my wrist during the audition. I took down my convertible's top—manually, of course—and kicked off
my kitten heels, cracking my toes against the floorboard. The car's antenna was broken, so all that would come through on the radio was Mexican ranchero music. I reached into the backseat and grabbed the Case Logic that had followed me across the country years before. As I headed west on the 10, back toward the beach, and back toward my home, my BMW rattled along in the far-right-hand lane, the CD skipping with every bump in the road.

A Million Little Pieces (of Paper)

I have this impulse to put things on paper—bits of dialogue
I overhear, observations, anecdotes, funny old-fashioned sayings my Southern relatives slur after too many Scotch and sodas
⁸
, lists of books I should have read by now, lists of films I should have seen by now, lists of words I should use but never do. All these things are scribbled on tiny pieces of paper. Hundreds of them. They're written on pulled-out pieces of notebook paper with the perforated edges still attached, on Post-it notes, corkboard coasters, coffee shop pastry bags, the corners of flight itineraries, the backs of bookmarks, the blank pages torn from the ends of books. I write these notes while I'm waiting in line at the grocery store, while I'm waiting for my hair to get highlighted, while I'm driving my car.

In Santa Monica one day, while getting honked at for holding up traffic, I scribbled on a carwash receipt: “Why does
the intersection of Lincoln and the 10 always smell like cinnamon buns?” (I have yet to discover the source.) Another time, I wrote: “Melon is a superfluous fruit.” What on earth would I have done if I couldn't have recorded that earth-shattering insight while cruising south on Sepulveda?

These pieces of paper follow me everywhere. They're crumpled in the console of my car, wadded in the pockets of my jackets, hibernating in the bottoms of bags next to receipts for things I should not have bought and meant to return. The largest heap of these notes is collecting in the corner of my apartment where my desk meets the wall, in a formation reminiscent of a wigwam. I check occasionally to make sure a small animal hasn't tried to make a nest inside them. I try to contain them, with a paperweight, with a stapler, by paper-clipping ones with similar themes together, by taping some of my favorites to the wall, but the pile keeps growing. Some days I'll think, okay, I'm spending today typing them into the computer, and then I'm throwing them all away. But I can't bring myself to do it. Because sometimes the thing it's written on tells as much of a story as the observation itself.