was an option best left for real emergencies. Like if I was fired. Or if Icon was cancelled, which basically meant the same thing.
Slumping down on the bed, I allowed myself a fantasy of escape; of not going to San Diego—the next stop on the Icon audition tour—and instead taking the morning flight to Honolulu. If I could find a ticket for less than a thousand bucks, I still had enough credit left on my Visa card. No more Bibi. No more Len. No more clipboards and swollen toes. Just white sand and flip-flops… and Brock making me breakfast. Ah, yes… lovely, blue-eyed Brock, muscular and bare-chested, holding up a tray of… ooh, yes, Danish pastries… as the Tom Waits version of “Ol’ ’55” plays on the radio… and our pet sea turtle—all my Hawaiian daydreams involve a pet sea turtle—rests in his shell on the rocks beyond the lanai…
I closed my eyes.
That was more like it.
“Hey—me again.”
I was back on the line with Brock’s voicemail, sitting upright, the hoarseness now gone from my throat. “What if I get on a plane tomorrow? Seriously. Screw Icon. I can find a job—whatever. I can write on the weekends. Call me, call me, call me.”
But he didn’t.
When I awoke the next day—still in my clothes (I know, I know)—my phone showed no new messages, no missed calls. Not even an e-mail or a Facebook message. WTF. Usually, Brock was the one chasing me. Had he just had a busy night at work? Had he left his phone on the beach? Or did I no longer have a boyfriend? (If I’d been having doubts, maybe he’d been having doubts, too.)
What a perfectly shitty end to a perfectly shitty week.
So.
I made myself coffee. I ate a week-old bun. I took a shower. I found some clean clothes and put them on. I decided to buy cigarettes. I walked to the 7-Eleven up the street. I decided against buying cigarettes. I walked home again. I changed my mind. I walked back to the 7-Eleven up the street. I changed my mind again. The guy behind the counter asked me if I was okay. Uh-oh—sobbing redhead! He gave me a soda on the house. I reassured him that I was okay. I reassured him again that I was okay. I told him that, no, seriously, I did not need his cell number.
Then I walked to Plummer Park and spent ten minutes on a bench, watching old men play chess, and feeling pathetically sorry for myself. But here’s the thing with self-pity: It’s boring. I just don’t have the patience for it. So I walked back home, and when I got to my front door—a surprise. Wedged into the jamb was a white envelope. I pulled it out and ripped it open.
On ruled notebook paper, this:
Crazy Woman!
You have date next Tuesday night, eight o’clock, with Boris, nice boy from. He meet you here and take you for dinner. And don’t worry your head—I watching out for you.
Mr. Z.
PS: Nothing I can’t live without (apart from Mrs. Z).
PS: Mrs. Z make me write that.
Oh boy, I thought.
This should be interesting.
Another day passed, and still no word from Brock. Judging by his Twitter feed, he was still alive—he just wasn’t returning my calls. Maybe he was trying to teach me a lesson by doing what I’d done so many times to him for the past few weeks. Or maybe I really was dumped. I guessed I’d find out soon enough. In the meantime, I sucked it up and took the early morning Amtrak to San Diego, ready for the next round of auditions. It was going to be awkward, being on set with Bibi, that was for sure. But whatever. As long as I still had a job, why should I care?
As usual, the venue was a downtown hotel, all thick-veined marble and smoked glass, glittering over the marina. But this time, no one was staying there apart from the judges. The rest of us had been booked in a dive so far across town it was practically in Mexico, and told to get to work using public transportation. This wasn’t a big deal, apart from the fact we had to be at work by 4:30 a.m., when there wasn’t any public transportation. Which meant we had to get taxis at our own expense. In a mass e-mail to staff, Len explained that Zero Management and Invasion Media had implemented a “rigorous cost-control program” to meet “significantly lowered expectations”