Idiot - Laura Clery Page 0,70
to be successful. I needed the lead role in the pilot. This self-absorption led me to be completely riddled with fear—I might not get what I needed, and I could even lose what I had. It made me miserable. When I made my day about being rigorously honest and giving, I felt happy.
I feel blessed that I had the willingness to change. It doesn’t happen unless you’re willing, and there are so many people around me that succumbed to their illnesses. I don’t know why I’m still alive. I mean, you read the previous chapters—you know what I was up to. But thanks to Kristal and a swift kick in the ass, I have a design for living now that works for me. If I don’t do it every day, I get sicker.
One of the many slogans in AA is: “You can’t get clean off yesterday’s shower.” One day with no shower: tolerable. Two days: yuck. Three days: you’re just plain offensive.
Trust God, clean house, help others. Every day.
As I got more and more days sober under my belt, Stephen and I started seeing each other again. He was cautious, and I completely understood. He didn’t know if I was going to stick with the program. I had proven myself to be unreliable. All I could do was keep going and keep proving to him that I could live a sober life.
* * *
On my thirtieth day of sobriety, I got a call from Peter, the director I harassed at that coffee shop. “Laura, I’m doing a movie in New York with Jason Bateman and Olivia Wilde and I want you to be in it. I don’t have complete say in casting, so you just need to make a self-tape audition, and make it good. I can get you the job.”
I sent in the self-tape . . . and booked it! But there were some conditions.
“We would love to have you on set. The only thing is that it’s an indie.”
“That’s . . . fine? Right?”
“Well. It means that we can’t afford to fly you out here or put you up. If you can make it to New York and find a place to stay for a month, then you have the job.”
Okay, well, I had no money to do that. I had blown it all on drugs. So I figured that was that. I couldn’t do it. I told Stephen, and he couldn’t believe I was passing up an opportunity like this.
“But . . . you love Jason Bateman!”
“I know!”
“Can I give you some money to go?” he offered. I frowned—I really didn’t want to make him give me money. “You have to do this, Laura. It’s your career.” I hugged him. I didn’t know what I’d do without Stephen—and I was only going to take the bare minimum, no more. My oldest sister Tracy, who I haven’t spoken enough about in this book, also lent me money to make sure I had enough to eat during the month of shooting. Tracy was always like a second mom to me growing up. As irritating as she found me, she was always there to help. No questions asked.
Okay, now I had the money to buy a plane ticket and pay for food while in New York. There was no way in hell I could afford a hotel for a month. I posted a Facebook status: “Who the hell do I know that lives in New York?” I got one response—from Claire, a girl I haven’t talked to since we did speech together in high school.
“Yooooo, Claire! How have you been for the past eight years? By the way, I’m going to be in New York for a month. Do you think I could uh . . . stay with you?”
“No problem!”
Wow, this wasn’t going to be weird at all!
Cut to . . . my first night sleeping over in her apartment. Claire’s smiling face was one foot away from mine, as we lay together in her double bed in her tiny Manhattan studio apartment. It was the size of a closet. And it had no closet. I’m pretty sure it was a closet.
“How’s your mom?” I asked. I figured that if I was lying this close to someone else’s face, then I should probably talk to them.
“Good,” she replied. “Remember how early we had to get up on Saturdays? That was fun.”
“Totally.”
“Yeah.”
“Sure.”
To make things a bit more difficult, the first thing Claire offered me when I got in her apartment