On the train to New York I feel it forming. Just below my right shoulder blade, a slightly raised patch of skin was hinting that something sinister had happened. The seat of the Amtrak coach class was at an odd angle, meaning I couldn’t sit comfortably the whole trip from Philadelphia. I tried to focus on the lights rushing by, on the cars driving beneath the tracks. The cold rain pounding the windows was making it difficult to see anything clearly. But I had planned the next thirty eight hours down to the minute. Four years had been preparing me for ten o’ clock that next morning. I was going to be on a stage in Manhatten, with twenty-nine other people, each demanding something from the universe. 

Senior Showcase was a distorted, debutaunte ball for all the theatre perfomance majors. It was a right of passage where we had to condence who we were into two minutes of performance, sandwiched between two group musical numbers. You did this twice in one day, where dozens of perspective employers were invited to judge you and pick up your headshots from a table in the hallway. After that, you were unteathered from the univeristy, offically becoming a “freelance artist”. You offically become your own problem, not theirs. Every Monday and Thursday evening leading up to this, we prepared in a rehersal space with Hazel Rand. From the first Monday, she stressed the importance of this showcase. 

“It’s up to each one of you to stand out from everyone else. You never know what someone could be looking for. They could be looking for you.” She reminded us each time. “But only if you’re open to their vision of you. It has to be the best version of you. The most wonderful, likeable version of you. From your wardrobe to your lines, you have to make people believe you. They have to believe you could easily fit right into their vision. The bus is leaving at six in the morning. We’re all a team and we’re going up together. If you’re not on it, you’re not right for New York.” 

Her words ring in my head as we pull into Penn Station. 

 

“Mom. Did I make a mistake?” I ask from the floor of the Tallulah Bankhead Suite. I had her on speaker, the phone laying next to my face. Hazel’s words were smashing against my brain, assulting any shred of confidence I’d hung on to. I’d made it out of Penn Station and through the Algonquin Hotel check-in without crying, but arriving to my massive room all alone was too much for me. I crumpled on the ground once the door closed. I didn’t even manage to take my heavy coat off. My bag had tipped over, and I now lay in the fetal position, surrounded by my own headshots. I can hear her on the other end of the line, mauvering around our small kitchen back in Pennslyvannia with our two large dogs. I hear a huff. 

“Now listen to me…Billy, get out of the way…you listen to me. You don’t do the bus. I don’t do the bus. Your father is from the sticks, so he doesn’t know how to do the bus. We aren’t bus people. Tomorrow is important, and you need a good night’s sleep. That’s why you’re there the night before. You can spend the morning getting ready, getting all glamourous. Did you eat? What’s in your mouth? Not you. That last question was for the dog.” I hear the dog in the background, giving an apologetic whine. 

“I had a smoothie.” I lie through my hiccups. I haven’t eaten since I left Philadelphia. In the midst of my pre-showcase panic I’d decided I looked fat. I couldn’t look emotional and fat at my introduction to the theatre elite. 

“A smoothie is not dinner. Order yourself…Billy no! Head off the table! Order a sandwich and have them drop it off at the front desk. You don’t have to go out and risk running into anyone. You told the hotel what was going on, right?”

I don’t answer her. I pick my headshots off the floor, making a neat pile by the window. My room faces the street, with the Ivy League clubs in one direction and Time Square in the other. Below people rush to get out of the rain, heads covered and faces hidden. From the sixth floor I don’t recognize anyone. Mom asks the question again. 

“Did you tell them about Preston? If he thinks he can walk in there…”

“He won’t.” I assure her. I can tell over the phone she’s still skeptical. “He’s on the West Side, by where we’re performing. His dad got him a room. Or he’s staying with friends. I didn’t ask. I just saw on Instagram he’s in the city.” I hear the dogs panting in the background, their huge feet clacking against the linolum kitchen floor. Mom’s voice softens a little.

“I know this was not in the plan. I just want you to be safe. You get through tomorrow, and then it’ll all be over. You’ll have many more auditions where you can just be you, not the you they want you to be. Order that sandwich. Oh, and hang that dress up or it’s going to be wrinkled. You don’t want to be wrinkled in case Scorsesee comes to watch you guys.”  

 

The dress in question was the Hazel approved outfit I’d be wearing at the showcase. Between setting up the bathroom for tomorrow’s preporations, and begrudgingly ordering a grilled cheese with pickles, I unzipped my suitcase. Looking at it again, it didn’t have the same mystique as before. It was nice, black with poppy print in a wrap style. Hazel had strict expectations for our apperance. Natural. Approachable. Palatable. Our jewelry had to have a point. It was an unspoken rule that dresses were looked down upon. Bright colors were distracting. But I’d fought for my knee length skirt and my poppies. Looking at it all hung up and pretty only made me sadder. I knew what Preston would be wearing on stage opposite me tomorrow.  We had worked so hard to make sure our outfits were coordinated. But that had been weeks ago. 

“We should do Tennessee Williams. Remember in Lars’s class when we were never scene partners? Fuck Summer And Smoke, though. We should have been Blanche and Stanley.” Preston lay his head on my chest, pulling at the tassels on my living room carpet. It was six days to showcase, and we still had nothing to show Hazel. But we weren’t worried. 

“It has to be funny. Comedy is hard, and everyone is being all serious. We need to bust out something hilarious. We’ll stand out.” I take one long drag on the blunt as I play with his hair, his ashen curls that framed his face. Three years giggling in class together, sneaking grabs at crowded house parties, we finally had a chance to show the world our incredible chemistry. Preston takes the blunt from me. 

“You know we’re gonna kill it. You’re gonna kill it. You’re one of the funniest people I know. It’s that witty, old school shit. Hollywood. Lars said you had Bette Davis face that one time. He was right.” I roll myself over to the pile of plays we were supposed to be reading. We’ve got all night, but I know he’ll have to leave in the morning. Preston’s parents don’t like him staying in the city. I know with this new treatment plan they want to keep an eye on him. But they know me, and I know Preston. I know that I can keep an eye on him. Plus I can’t resist a night next to him, falling asleep together. We haven’t had many lately. I want as many as possible between now, and when we fall asleep in the Algonquin Hotel. 

 

The elevator opens to the lobby. I rush past the Round Table and the lounge, wanting to get my sandwich and be gone. I just took all my makeup off, changing out of my travel sweats and into my nightdress. With my faux fur shawl wrapped around me, it doesn’t look like I’m in my pajamas. As long as no one looks at my feet. The fluffy turquoise slippers are a bit of a give away. A man in a suit is waiting at the front desk, holding on to my sandwich for me. Matilda is sniffing at the paper bag, her tail twitching in interest. She’s a mean old lady, but she is iconic. No other hotels have a gereatric ragdoll cat with her own treehouse at check-in. She slinks away as I smile at the desk clerk. 

“Your delivery, miss. Smells delicious.” 

I return his smile and take the bag. He leans in closer to me, lowering his voice. “My supervisor would like you to know, our doormen are aware of what you discussed. They’re happy to do anything needed to make you feel safe during your stay with us.” Our eyes trail to the front of the hotel. A tall man in a bellman’s coat looks back at us fron his position. He nods politely, then goes to help a new arrival with her bags. I wish I didn’t feel as comforted as I did seeing him guarding the door. But I did. I felt better knowing someone twice Preston’s size was right there, scanning the passersby. 

 

The sandwich doesn’t last long once I get back upstairs. I flip thought the channels beneath the huge portrait of Tallulah. The whole suite is a shrine to her, heavy-lidded glamour flanked by gold and navy trim. She’s that tragic, trashy aunt looking over you, giving you advice she herself has learned the hard way. It’s around eleven at night. My sleeping pill still hasn’t kicked in. It’s around here that I that I strike up a conversation with her. 

“Life’s a bitch, Tallulah.” 

“You should take a lesson from it, darling.” Tallulah pulls a ciggarette case from inside her evening gown. She takes a long drag before tapping the ashes on the edge of the picture frame that houses her. I ask what she wants to watch on TV. We click around for a while, before I find TCM. Tallulah nods in approval, and we settle in. Just in time, as it would seem. Bette Davis is beating the shit out of Joan Crawford. 

“There’s who you should take a lesson from. Stone cold. That’s a slap. I’m glad they gave her my part in Little Foxes” Tallulah rests her hands on the frame. “You look a little like her, Miss Bette. In the face. That disapproving, doe-baby thing. It’s a look. A good one, on you.”

We watch the rest of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, a strangely calming tonic for my addled nerves. Tallulah continues to ash on my pillow, her braceleted arm dangling out of her portrait. Bette Davis takes Joan Crawford to the beach. I adjust in my nest of sheets, taking the pressure off my shoulder. The flickering women on the screen look up from their lines.

“Don’t mind me. Please. I love this part.”  

“Don’t you think you should tell someone about that?” Joan Crawford questions me, sitting up from her blanket on the sand. Bette Davis crosses her arms, scowling through her pasty makeup. Tallulah flicks her ciggarette butt across the room and lights another one. The three actresses stare me down as I pull my sheets up to my chin. Three faces, mix with pity and concerned rage. Elegant fingers point at me.  It’s like three terrifying versions of my mother are about to give me three visions of the same lecture. 

“All this time.”

“You mean, all this time?” 

“You mean, all this time…” The final line of the movie sends me into a fitful sleep. The women fade, into the darkness, the inky blackness that matches the bruise on my shoulder. 

 

Breakfast is a coffee drink bought yesterday at Penn Station. The sun is barely up when I plug my rollers in, laying out the contents of my makeup bag like a surgeon does his instruments. Everyone else is already on the road by now, bumping merrily through New Jersey on the megabus Hazel arranged for us. I slap a facemask onto my tired skin as I pad through the suite in my hotel bathrobe. Tallulah has returned to her pose on the wall, drapped elegantly in black organza like a dark, guardian angel. I have three hours to make myself look “likeable”.

I think I looked pretty likeable in my professional headshots. I was smiling. I was in a warm toned, purple top. I asked the photographer not to cover my freckles, or the natural red highlights in my hair. The girl on the glossy photo paper seemed like the kind of actress you’d want to work with. I did my best to recreate her in the mirror. But there were a few small adjustments. My hair got a little bigger. My eyebrows got a little fuller. My plain nylons are held up by vintage, garter belts I never get to wear. My plain, black shoes are vintage, Mary Jane platforms from Steve Madden. I even nudged Hazel’s “no jewelry” rule by putting in my mom’s Cartier gold earrings. They’re lucky. They’re from the seventies, so you know they’ve got some palapable energy. By the end, I feel like an actress. I pack my purse for the day, full of headshots, granola bars and breathmints. I throw on my leopard coat before running to the elevator. 

She’s an actress. She’s not just an actor. She’s got the vibe. She looks pretty put together after a medium sized breakdown on the carpet she now stands on. She’s ready for her debut. 

 

My entree to New York theatre is in a church basement on the upper West Side. You enter the dressing room by using the service elevator, a chrome coffin that smells of cleaning products. I suspect that it’s the same elevator they use to bring bodies up when there is a viewing or a wake. Once you arrive in the bowels of the building, you follow a trail of flourecent lights to three cramped dressing rooms next to a shabby, black box theatre. Hazel gets a room to herself while we all crame into the remain two, with their dusty sofas and makeup mirrors lit by dying lightbulbs. I roll in to find the other, twenty-nine players, clutching their 8x10 glossies and smelling like a Greyhound bus. The room reads frantic, with a mix of sleep deprevation and dying hope. I hear the determined harminazations of the musical theatre majors from the other end of the hall. God love them. The accoustics are terrible. I quietly claim a corner by the door. 

“Preston’s looking for you. He was looking for you on the bus this morning.”

Instantly I have twelve girls quietly wondering why I abandoned my scene partner and dared to find my own means of transport to New York. With a smile and a thank you, I poke my head into the hallway. They’re all fucking waiting for a scene, their eyes following me out the door. I’m determined not to give them one. I feel a black and white hand lower my shoulders, steel my spine. Bette Davis floats beside me as I click my Mary Janes against the tiled floor. I feel her trademark eyebrow raise of disapproval mirror on my own face. 

He’s collasped in a folding chair by the men’s bathroom. His legs are splayed out in front of him, his eyes puffy, his face grey and unshaven. His socks are unmatched. His shirt buttons are uneven. His vest is too small, the buttons straining against the fabric. A copy of Stupid F***ing Bird lays open, face down on his crotch. I get a whiff of him from six feet away. 

“Are we running lines?” I asked, pointedly. I hear my mother in my voice. It’s the tone she speaks in when she’s trying not to lose it. I’m trying not to lose it. Desperetely. 

“Sure. Let’s run lines.” He takes off his glasses revealing red eyes ringed by purplish bags. We start the scene between Dev and Mash, a scene reconfigured for a modern audience for whom The Seagull was a bit too thick. Preston keeps the book on his lap, flipped over to aid him when he stumbles. He stumbles every three lines. Every six lines, he pulls a blue water bottle from his bag, nursing at the smoky liquor inside of it. I pretend not to know whats inside. I’d rather he be drunk and easily lead then cranky and combative. Hazel walks right past us as all this goes on. Alot of people walk past, to use the bathroom or find a quiet spot to gather focus. A few eyes shift at the smell, at the two of us sitting together. But no one says anything. We take four attempts to get through the two minute scene. I long to go full Bette, full Joan, full Tallulah. I want to knock the water bottle from his hand, deliver some impassioned speech, and storm out of that dungeon with my faux fur flung over my shoulders. 

Then I remember Hazel’s words. I’m supposed to be likeable today, though I despretely want to be vile. 

 

Backstage, we’re plunged into darkness. The heavy curtains have no seams, no small rips or tears to put your eye to for a quick peek. We hear footsteps and coughing on the other side. Whispers of who we thought was attending bounced between the wings. Everyone has high hopes. Hazel’s got to have some pull in New York. Surely she’s come through for us, and the seats will be packed with heavy hitters. Preston’s been trailing me since we got back here, constantly moving around like a sloppy shark. Eventually he stumbles to the other wing and leaves me be. I feel his body against me as he goes, brushing past me in the cramped space. I hold my breath, only exhaling when I’m sure he’s out of my orbit. 

 

He reaches for my hand but I pull away. I shove my hands into my gloves, getting up from the resturant table. My body creaks as I get up. He stays seated, looking up at me helplessly. I look down at my coat buttons. 

“Please don’t do this.” He begs me. He has a stain on the same sweater he’s been wearing for the last two days. He never went home after I kicked him out of my apartment. His copy of Stupid F***ing bird sits on the table, it’s tiny spine uncracked. He never read The Seagull either. I’d flash him my notes each time Lars would ask him a question, doing so the entire year we had that class together. I pull five dollars from my pocket for tip. 

“I think we should work on memorization for the next two days. Seperetely. You’ll have to stay with someone else. I’m sure Hazel would let you ride the bus if you ask her today, even if it is last minute.” 

He stares at me like I’m speaking another language, like the Armenian busboys watching us behind the counter. They’ve been keeping an eye on us since they gave us our coffee, since Preston slammed his fist on the table when I said I’d rather stay at the Algonquin alone. I’d rather never sleep next to him again. I go to get my purse from beneath the table. My wrist is encased in a vice grip. My skin pinches under his hand, being twisted under his nails. 

“It was an accident.” Preston pleads with me. His eyes pool with tears as he bares down on my arm. My bones begin to creak under the weight, under the pressure. I feel myself freeze. “It was an accident. I swear to God. I would never do that if I was thinking clearly. This is why I have to have someone with me. Just until my new medication levels me out. I know in the begining I’m not myself. But by showcase I’ll be fine, I promise.” 

My hand is freed with the arrival of the Armenian busboy. He’s armed with a to-go container. Loudly he starts packing both sandwiches, dumping Preston’s fries off his plate on top of everything. He’s the biggest one of the three, not doubt sent over to keep a scene from starting in the middle of their nice sandwich shop. The other two are loudly cleaning the empty booths and making small talk with the other customers. I turn my back on our table. He watches me walk to the door, and slip the busboy the five dollars with a few extra notes. 

The cafe door opens. 

The curtian goes up. 

I step into the light, flanked by twenty-nine people with an addition three. I see their faces, their perfectly made up, glamourous faces, watching from the stage lights above me. I look up at them, intro music beginning, feeling Preston’s eyes borring a hole into my back, right into the tender spot where the bruise is growing. 

 

The sun is barely out when we’re finally free to leave. I drink in all the chaos of the city, happy to feel something other then the dull throbbing of anxiety. All of that seems microscopic in the cold light reflecting off the skyscrapers. I inhale greedily. 

We played two back to back shows to a total audience of seven. Months of working on my most likeable self to find that nobody cared to see it. They hadn’t even bothered to touch the piles of headshots, those hopeful faces that lined the card table in the hallway. Hazel seemed to have no powerful friends left in Manhatten from her glory days as a maven of third wave feminist theatre. They’d all migrated to Vermont, or New Hampshire. All I wanted to do was get as far away from there as possible. Once our final bows were done I was off the stage, my ghostly posse trailing behind me. Joan’s commenting on the lighting, Bette and Tallualah sharing a lighter. They’re all in black and white, sunglasses lowered to protect their identities. They’re only in my head, but old Hollywood houses creatures of habit. They can’t risk being recognized in this hellhole. They huddle off to my left as I collect myself. Sunglasses, gloves, coat buttoned against the gusts of wind. The bus ominously rounds the corner, harolding the return to Philadelphia. The hung heads form a line, ready to spend the next four hours navigating the freeway. Hazel spots me waiting for the light to change. 

“You won’t be joining us on the bus?” Her tone is sickly sweet, condesending. “We all missed you this morning.” She curbs my path, stepping close to me. “I think you’d have benefited from more time with your scene partner. You seemed a little guarded today with Preston. You two are usually so animated together. I think that affected your performance.” She continues to stand there as the light changes from green to red. Does she want an apology? A cookie? Does she want me to grovel for not being my best and bubbliest? She smiles at me, at my slack jawed confusion. In a move meant to seem maternal, she puts her hand on my shoulder. The tender spot radiates heat as I pull back defensively. “You can’t go through life not helping your fellow artists. You really should have been on the bus preparing. It would have helped Preston. A lot.” 

“He slammed me into a wall four days ago. He stopped taking his Lithium. We didn’t have a scene until last week. He threw me like a ragdoll . That might have affected my delivery.” 

Saying it was easier then I thought it would be. I thought I would cry. I thought my world would crumble, or I’d feel some deep sense of shame. But I didn’t. After all this time, I put my sun glasses on as the light goes green once more. Hazel stares at me as I step on to the cross walk. I leave her with the bus, with the faces watching me from the windows, from Preston bumming a ciggarette from a church parishoner. I disappear into the throngs of people getting out of work, going for drinks. It’s too cold to cry on the Upper West Side. 

I’m a few blocks away when I stop to get my phone from my purse. A folded piece of paper brushes against my hand. At some point when I had been away from my bag, Preston had another girl in the dressing room slip in a note. I leave it until I reach Algonquin. My door guy is back for another shift, waiting. He nods at me again, this time with a small smile. Nothing’s getting past this guy, and I hope he knows how grateful I am for it. Inside is like stepping into a glass of merlot, warm and full of expensive hints. I throw my bag onto a sofa in the lounge, barely having to wait for someone to take my order. 

“I’ll have the biggest roast beef sandwich you can make, with a Dorothy Parker.” The waiter writes that down, and sees all the headshots poking out of my purse. 

“Are you an actress?” He asks me as I begin to unfold the note. Preston’s handwriting leaps out at me from the paper.

“I am.” I smile up at him. He leaves me to my reading. I say a prayer the Dorothy Parker arrives before I finish. I’ll need something strong to get through this.

Preston was always a good writer. I have to give credit where credit was due. He likened himself to Hemingway with his style. But I think Hemingway was able to finish more material then a scribbled note apologizing for “accidental” physical altercations. He definately wrote a few, but that wasn’t all of his work. The waiter delivers my cocktail as I get to the really difficult part. He listed all the things we’d done together, all the things we had planned on after graduation. He wrote about our plans for California. He wrote about all the nights we’d taken his dad’s vintage, covertable to the twenty-four hour diner, always when his family was out of town. All those wonderful parties that we attended but didn’t remember. Every time he remembered how I’d said I’d always be there for him. All this time we could have let everyone know we’d been together. I ask for a box to take the roast beef to my room. With one long gulp I finish my drink, gin burning away the lump in my throat. All over the lounge walls are Hirschfield cartoons, memorialzing all the Algonquin’s famous patrons. Joan Crawford looks down on me, her huge eyes magnified by Hirschfield’s pen. She winks her massive lashes at me, making sure I get to the elevator and safely to my room. The note is lost at the bottom of my purse, along with it the honeyed, hollowed promises of a young man that would never change, never grow, never be what I needed on stage or off. My grumpy guardian greets me as I arrive at the suite, still above my bed. A quote of hers decorates the door. 

 

“ If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes. Only sooner.”