"Uh...okay. I guess." I followed him into the back room. None of the other girls left in tears, so whatever was going on, it couldn't be too bad.
The back room was even more depressing than the front, somehow. Before I knew it, I was alone with this guy, and the single flickering fluorescent light didn't do much to make this place not feel like a repurposed closet. He handed me a few pages; they said UNTITLED PROJECT.
He grinned at me, and I was actually surprised that he wasn't missing any teeth.
"Welcome, hon," he said. "You're gonna be reading the part of Nicole, okay?"
There was a creeping sensation under my skin.
Walk away. Just walk away.
But I couldn't afford to. Not if I wanted to keep chasing this dream.
It was really, really sweet of Maddy to offer me a job. But Laura would be in school before I knew it, and I couldn't rely on her mother doing me favors for the rest of my life. I wasn't going to give up, no matter how creeped-out I felt right now, with this guy's eyes glued on me, and not another soul in the room.
Looking down at the script, I couldn't suppress the thought that this was one of the worst things I'd ever read. It didn't even seem like it could be real - it was that bad.
"Um..." I said, glancing up at him. "Should I just go ahead and start?"
He nodded.
It was incredibly difficult to inject any passion into the words, but I tried. The guy hardly seemed to be listening. His eyes were all over me, but I had a feeling I could have just started reciting the alphabet.
There was a sinking sensation in my chest. I'd just walked into some kind of scam, most likely, and I wasn't even smart enough to sniff it out beforehand. How the hell was I going to make a career out of this?
"Wow," he said, when I was finished. "Great job. Listen, we had a lot of auditions for this project, and you're one of the best. But there's no guarantees, of course. Thing is, we're always producing something new, and even if we're not, I've got friends who are always looking for talent. If you want, I can make sure to pass your info along. Get you listed where all the big companies really go looking for their talent."
I cleared my throat. "I'm already on Cast Me."
Making a noise of derision, he stood up, his chair scraping against the floor. "Cast Me? Psshh. Nobody looks at that crap. I've got a line on all the best people. Lots of them are looking for girls just like you. I can hook you up - give you a nice discount, even." He grinned. "And for no extra charge, I'll make sure you get on all the lists. Including the extra exclusive ones for the really ambitious girls. Those projects are in high demand, but if you know somebody, you can get in. If you ever decide you want to make some real money, it's a useful thing to fall back on. Real classy productions only. No fetish stuff."
Oh, for fuck's sake.
I jumped to my feet. "Does this ever work?" I snarled at him, as I rushed for the door. Thankfully, he didn't try to stop me.
"Sometimes." He shrugged as I walked away. "If you ever change your mind, just call the number in the ad."
***
By the time I got on my bus back home, I couldn't believe I had any teeth left to grind.
I'd walked right into a fake audition, some kind of porno scam, and I was actually dumb enough to see it through past the first warning signs. What the hell was wrong with me?
I didn't belong here. I never would.
A sort of dark panic was clawing at the inside of my chest. I did my best to ignore it, hugging my knees in close and just staring at nothing. It took several minutes of unusual commotion in the bus, and noticing we'd been stopped for entirely too long, for me to look up and try to figure out what the hell was going on.
"I don't know," the driver was saying, sounding incredibly exasperated. "It's just blocked off. All they're telling me on the radio is the whole neighborhood's shut down."
Whatever. I was only a few blocks away from home. I pushed past the irate passengers and hurried down to the street, stopping in my tracks when I ran up against a sidewalk blockade.
"Sorry, ma'am," said the cop standing watch. "This whole area's closed for an emergency gas repair. They had to evacuate. It's not safe to be around, for at least another six or seven hours."
"Six or seven hours?" I felt like screaming, but it came out in a sort of a numb murmur. "But I live here..."
"What's your cross street?"
I told him.
"Sorry," he said again, shaking his head. "You're right in the middle of it. You might want to see if there's a friend you can stay with, or get a hotel. There's no telling how long this will really go on."
He said that to me confidentially, like that was some kind of fucking help. I took a few steps back and tried to reorient myself. What the hell was I going to do? All I wanted was to go home and take a long, hot shower and try to forget about my own stupidity. Now, I couldn't even go home.
I weighed my options. Maddy hadn't been kidding about my pay being competitive, but I still didn't exactly want to spend my money on New York hotel rates. Of course, if I called her, she'd immediately tell me to come stay in their guest room. But I'd seen how they were orbiting each other since the Great Nail File Argument. I didn't really want to be in the middle of that.
Besides, she'd done enough for me already. I was sick of being helpless and relying on my rich friend for everything.
Six or seven hours. If I was lucky. Well, this was supposed to be the city that never slept, right? Maybe I could just hop between coffee shops and bars until the street re-opened. Enough caffeine and alcohol, and I'd forget all about my ill-fated "audition." Maybe I'd even find a place to spend the night after all.
I smiled wickedly to myself. No, I wasn't exactly ready for a one-night stand. That had never been my style. Hell, though, it sure would be nice to do something to shake loose all those persistent thoughts of Ben that I definitely was not having.
"...what do you mean, nobody?"
For a second, I actually thought I was hallucinating. My brain must be playing tricks on me, because I definitely did not just hear that voice coming from a few feet away.
"I'm sorry, Sir." The cop was sounding more and more exhausted. "I mean nobody gets through."
"Do you know who I am?"
I turned around, slowly, like the ill-fated heroine in a horror movie.
"Sir, unless you're an emergency worker or a city employee with the proper ventilation equipment, I don't care who you are. I can't let you through." The cop glanced at me, like can you believe this guy?