CHAPTERONE
Poppy
Drama!
It always finds me. No matter where I go, or what I do. On some days, I can almost feel it watching me, waiting to pounce, waiting to hand me that one aerosol can that explodes so loudly that the neighbors call the police and they break down my door. Or to hand me that one bottle of defective hair remover cream (too much peroxide) that scalds my vagina and lands me in the ER with a hot doctor. That accidentally locks me in a toilet cubicle in a shopping center overnight, or that causes that freak wave that rips off my bikini bottom on that crowded beach.
Drama. Look it up in the dictionary. If my face is not plastered next to its definition, it should be. In fact, I’ve often considered sending an email to the good people of the Oxford University Press and suggesting that they include me in its definition somehow.
My mother used to say that drama was my destiny, that it was ingrained in my DNA. After all, that’s how I’d come into the world, she’d said. Bursting into it in the hospital parking lot, unable to wait a few more minutes until I made my grand appearance. Maybe that’s one of the reasons behind the career path I’d chosen. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I was about to make one of the most dramatic and ridiculous decisions of my life . . .
I gazed up at the big, shiny building that towered above me like an intimidating giant made of metal and mirrors. If I walked in and did what I was planning on doing, I’d be breaking the law! Okay, so maybe lying on my CV to get a job wasn’t exactly “breaking the law,” per se. Maybe it was just twisting it a tiny bit. Not that bad, right?
“If you lie, you become a liar.” But I could hear my mother’s words echoing in my mind, over and over again. I hung my head and reviewed my options.
One, I couldnotdo this and in a month’s time would be evicted and blacklisted and living on the streets. Or two, I could do this and potentially save myself from a life of street living.
I took a deep breath and looked up at myself in the rear-view mirror.
Oh God! I looked ridiculous in my short, brown wig and purple cat’s eye glasses. Both the wig and glasses had been props from the TV show I’d recently acted in—that is, until my character had met her rather dramatic and untimely demise.
I’d played the part of “Executive Administrative Assistant to the CEO.” So when I’d seen thatexactsame job offered in the employment section of the paper just two days ago, I’d taken it as a sign. A light at the end of the dark tunnel of debt I currently found myself wading through.
My debt was mostly due to the fact that I was more of an “out of work” than “in-work” actress. And I couldn’t even supplement my income with waitressing work like most other actresses did. My waitressing skills were infamously terrible . . . how was I meant to know that Mr. Wong’s secret sauce wasthatflammable and that the patron had been wearing a toupee?
It’s not like I’d never gotten work as an actress before. In fact, in the last year I’d gotten several roles. I’d played “Scary Witch Five” in a children’s pantomime, “Rushed Train Commuter Nine” in an action film, and I’d also gotten an advert for pantyhose. Granted, only my leg had been seen, but the leg had been attached to my body, as my agent had pointed out. But my biggest role to date had happened a few months ago, playing Ramona González, Executive Administrative Assistant to the CEO of an experimental, secretive government laboratory testing facility, on a very low budget telenovela calledVenganza Ignacio(Ignacio’s Revenge) that had been shot in South Africa (because it was cheap), dubbed into Spanish and only screened in Paraguay.
The only reason I’d gotten the job was because the original actress playing Ramona had gotten food poisoning on day one and the director had decided that they didn’t need all four “Terrified Lab Assistants.” And so, I’d landed myself my first speaking role.
The job had lasted exactly two months, before my character had been viciously killed off by the evil twin brother of the CEO, who for years had been presumed dead when his private jet had crashed in the Amazon rainforest. Except he wasn’t dead. As it turned out, the brother had been taken in by a wild tribe of cannibals, who’d taught him to be very evil and instructed him in the ancient art of killing people with poisonous darts made from the slimy stuff found on the backs of venomous tree frogs. Exactly how my character had died, btw.
What a pile of crap!At least I’d scored this wig and glasses and some other props from the show, which I was now wearing for my job interview in precisely ten minutes. I guess wearing this disguise made me feel slightly better about lying. It made this feel less like a job interview, and more like an audition for a role.
I climbed out of the car and headed for the building clutching my (fake) CV in my now very shaky hands.
How hard could this be? All I’d done in the show was answer calls, staple papers together, file stuff, shout things like “Shall I get the head of the army on the phone?” and “Put the facility on emergency quarantine lock-down!” and “There’s been a breach in the radioactive containment field and the rats have mutated.” Not to mention have sex with my hairy boss on his desk. Not that I’d be having sex withthisCEO; well, I hoped that wasn’t part of the job description anyway.
I carried on walking, forcing my head into the air in the hopes that faking confidence might actually help allay my fears somewhat. I was good at faking, I was an actress, after all. Not a great one. I wasn’t terrible, but I was no Meryl. But I loved acting. I cursed loudly as I walked. Why couldn’t I have loved accounting, or lawyer-ing, or doctor-ing or something sensible like that? Something that ensured my fridge was stocked with more than an old jar of peanut butter and that I didn’t need to rent in the most undesirable part of town. “Undesirable” you must understand is a polite euphemism for “shittiest shithole in the Southern Hemisphere.”
The big shiny building was even more intimidating on the inside. The entrance hall looked like the interior of a modernist museum, complete with very uncomfortable-looking steel chairs that seemed more like sculptural pieces than actual things to put your butt on.
“Hi.” I walked over to the terribly busy-looking receptionist. “I’m here for the job interview. Doris Granger.” I smiled, trying to hide the embarrassment at the fake name I’d chosen for myself.What was I thinking?Doris bloody Granger! But for some reason choosing a fake name had helped add to the illusion that I was assuming a character and playing a role. I’d briefly thought of giving Doris an accent. Something exotic, like Romanian or Czechoslovakian. Thankfully, I’d come to my senses. Besides, Doris did have a certain studious ring to it, certainly more so than Poppy Daisy Peterson. (My mother had been a florist and had named me after her favorite flowers.)
“Have a seat,” the receptionist said, pointing at the “chair.” I smiled and approached it tentatively. I lowered myself onto the avant-garde metal thing and, yes, it was definitely the most uncomfortable thing I’d ever sat on. I looked around for something to do and grabbed one of the magazines on the table.
Travel and Leisure Now.
Leisure Management.
Leisure in Focus!(I wondered why that one had an exclamation mark?)
It all seemed like quite a bit of leisure overkill. Mind you, this was Stark Leisure Group. I tried to make myself comfortable and flipped through the pages of one of the magazines; beautiful seafront villas, bushveld lodges and mountain sanctuaries soon filled the glassy pages and I was just about to read an article about the tourist boom in Rwanda when—
“AAARRGGHH!”
A loud noise made me look up as a woman ran through the reception as if she was being chased by a pack of invisible wolves. The harassed-looking woman stopped when she got to the receptionist and pointed a finger at her. I sat up straight and watched the spectacle.
“I haveneverbeen treated like that in my entire life.” She was on the verge of tears. “I don’t know how you work for him?” she snapped. “He is the rudest, the . . . the . . .” She stuttered, the words sounded like they were getting stuck in her throat. And then she turned and looked at me. “Are you here for the interview?” she asked, sounding frantic. I nodded. “Well, don’t! Just don’t,” she said and then started marching off. I stared after her in horror as she flung the doors open and threw herself out of the building.
