Page 1 of Cast to be Mine

1

GRACE

I’d left my apartment in North Hollywood at eight fifteen my ten thirty audition in Studio City, five miles away. Normally a five-minute drive. In Los Angeles, that meant thirty minutes on a good day.

On days like today, it would take me an hour, which was fine. I’d have plenty of time to sit in the waiting room and rehearse my nine pages of dialogue back to front until they called my name. I had to get this part.

The woman in the lane beside me had been stationary long enough to pull out her book. I leaned forward in my seat so I could get a look at the cover. A black and blue skull and sprayed edges.

“Naughty, naughty,” I laughed.

I’d finished it last week. It still lived rent free in my head. And by “it,” I meant the male lead. Maybe one day all us romance girlies would get to see him on the big screen.

On my other side was a man in a Mercedes eating a burrito with his AC blowing so hard it ruffled the red and white checked wrapper around his meal. Los Angeles commuters. You could fight the game or just figure out how to accept it and make the most of your commute.

I leaned to the left, bonking my head against the window. I could see the emergency lights up ahead. An accident. There was always an accident.

My phone rang through the Bluetooth, cutting off the podcast I’d been listening to.

My agent.

“Hi, Loretta,” I answered.

“Tell me you’re not doing the breathing thing,” Loretta said, her voice rattling out of speakers.

I turned down the sound. “I wasn’t, but maybe I should.” I inhaled loudly through my nose to taunt her and exhaled forcefully. “I feel better already.”

“You didn’t over-practice, did you?”

“No,” I said, perhaps a little too quickly. I had to walk it back. I could feel Loretta’s red flag popping up. “I practiced just the right amount. I had to make sure I had the delivery of my final lines down to a science.” The car in front of me inched forward, and I shimmied along through traffic behind them.

“I told you not to do that,” she sighed. “It’s better to be a little raw. You don’t want to sound too rehearsed. The best performances are the ones that don’t feel like performances.”

“I don’t want to sound unrehearsed,” I replied. “This is a Jack Montana movie. I can’t just show up, bat my eyelashes, and shake my ass. I want to be an actress they take seriously. I can’t just be a pretty face. I’m not going for Bond Girl. I don’t want to be typecast on my first big role.”

“I didn’t say you were just a pretty face.”

“How many people are auditioning for this part?”

“Do you really want me to tell you?”

“No.”

I wanted the damn part. With a star like Jack Montana on the movie posters and media circuits, it was guaranteed to be a box office hit. It wasn’t just some shoot ‘em up movie, either. This was a thriller with grit, clever writing, and a working title that might have been a bit generic but would hopefully be memorable. Breathless. I needed something big. Something to put me on the map. People like me had a resume that fit on an index card. I’d played a corpse on a procedural. My biggest role yet was a barista with a secret on a medical drama, and the secret was never revealed, because the show got canceled.

“You’re going to do great,” Loretta said. “You’re a natural. This part is perfect for you. Sassy, sexy, and smart. So you.”

“Thanks. You’re a good hype-woman.”

“I’m your agent. Don’t go in there looking like this is your first audition. You don’t need the role. They need you. Be chill but also serious.”

I rolled my eyes and inched my car forward. “Not a contradiction at all.”

“Give me your lines,” she said. “Just like you’re going to deliver them.”

“No!” I looked around at the other drivers all lost in their own thing. “People will think I’m nuts.”

“You’re talking now,” she reminded me. “And everyone in LA is nuts. It’s fine.”