After two months living in Austere, I got my big break.
It was a commercial for hair dye.
I find it funny since I’m not a natural blonde, and Cashmere didn’t even use the same brand to dye my hair with. But the people who saw the commercial will never know.
I have never been so excited to watch cable instead of Netflix in my life. After one more month of patience the hair commercial is all over major broadcast networks. Almost every family in America will have seen my face after watching another episode of a cop drama.
I didn’t realize how big of a deal it was until Gregorio explained what residuals and royalties are to me. I don’t really know what those are either, until I check my bank account one morning, and I can’t believe my eyes.
Ten grand.
I dance in my empty living room while I think about the money I will get from each time the commercial plays. I imagine all the brand-new furniture I will get in my apartment, or maybe even a brand-new apartment!
I grabbed my phone and call Charlie to tell him all about it.
He picks up, groaning and confused.
“Anne its 6 AM? Are you okay?”
“Oh, the time zone difference, I forgot. Sorry.”
“Its okay, what’s up?”
“I’m on TV!”
I scream at the top of my lungs until my neighbor above me tells me to “shut the fuck up”.
“Wait, how are you on TV? You on the news? Who you kill, girl,” Charlie asks.
“Why you like this? Just go to CWBC, they said it’s gonna show on there!”
“I ain’t got cable. Only old people watch TV now.”
“Okay, search it up online!”
After a few minutes he finds my commercial on the brand’s page and he’s impressed.
“Thank goodness you got on TV without having to kill someone. I don’t wanna visit you in prison,” Charlie says.
“Hush! You’re not even on TV!”
“’Course I ain’t. I don’t want my fans to have one foot in the grave,” he laughed. “I’m an underwriter.”
“A…what? Underwear?”
“Underwriter. I write songs for famous people until I become famous too,” he explains.
“How’d that happen??”
“Remember the DJ? At the party I met someone, and he liked my stuff! So, I write for him! My song’s coming out on his next album!”
“Who?”
“I can’t say until the album comes out. That’s why I never said nothing. But I’ll tell ya when it does. Promise.”
“Oh…okay…”
Next month, when I get my check for eight grand, the song Charlie wrote for Johnny Keys is released. DJ KayFi has a remix, and it makes his song even more popular.
Charlie is now so rich he doesn’t need to work for quite a long time.
I still work as a waitress because I am unsure if I will ever get lucky again. I feel embarrassed about this seed of hatred in my heart towards him. I thought it would go away once we stopped fighting over Nick, but it never went away.
Maybe Nick was just the beginning of something bigger.
My fifth month in Austere I got another call during my break at work. It’s for a side character in a small film. I’ve never heard of the studio but the more times I’m on screen the better. I take the role so I can tell Charlie I’ll be in a movie before he was.
I tell myself to get rid of this seed of hatred and be positive.
But it’s so hard.
The seed of hatred in my heart grows into a sprout when my shift at work ends and I arrive home.
As I sit in front of my fancy new vanity mirror, with lights and a full professional make up set, I pretend that I am already on set. I’ve been practicing acting methods every night alone in my room, but I feel like its not enough. I felt silly practicing by myself until I remembered Charlie, and then the sprout of hatred grew even more.
Charlie is my new inspiration.
“Who’s gonna ruin who now, Charlie,” I sneer into the mirror.
When I fall asleep, I feel tougher than I’ve ever been.
I feel less nervous on the movie set with Cashmere here.
I put in a good word for her at the hair dye commercial, and when I got the role in the small film, I mentioned that I knew someone who was good at hair and makeup.
Cashmere got the job as an apprentice on set, and I’ve never been happier for her. Cashmere is on my left and my head is resting on the window, smiling at the familiar fields upon fields of flowers and their protective trees.
We’re riding inside a rented-out bus on our way to the middle of nowhere to shoot the few first scenes. Half of the movie will be shot in the fields near Edelweiss, so I figured I could come back and visit home while working.
“I can see why you talk about the place so much,” Cashmere says. “It’s so pretty.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty but don’t get too close to the farms. It don’t smell pretty,” I reply.
We gossip the entire way to our “movie set” which is a field of white flowers near an abandoned barn. Our shoot today is shorter than usual because the first scene is supposed to be a younger version of the two lead actors- a little girl and a little boy.
The little girl and little boy remind me of Charlie and me. Our hair and eyes are even the same colors.
The director, Lilah, is supposedly some up-and-coming in the sub-genre of something-or-whatever. That doesn’t matter to me, but what does matter is the way she looks at me.
Between shoots Lilah looks at me like she’s hungry. Like she’s never eaten a day in her life. Like I am the only thing she wants to eat and would ever need to eat.
She’s been looking at me like that since the audition, and since the table readings. Her eyes travel more than a pair of wheels whenever I’m around.
I’m not stupid.
I’ve seen that look on men before, ever since I moved to Austere.
Cashmere told me to use every asset I can. That there is no such thing as just a pretty face. So I take what I can get.
I wait until Lilah goes into the director’s RV and knock a few minutes later. She’s delighted when I come inside and even more excited when I “accidentally” drop some of my actor’s notes and bend over to pick them up.
“What can I help you with, Annabelle,” Lilah asks.
She’s sitting at a table, drinking coffee. She shifts uncomfortably in her chair and I put on my charm.
“You can call me Anne. All my friends do,” I reply.
She’s delighted.
“Okay, Anne! What’s up?”
“I was wondering if you could give me one-on-one lessons with acting. I’m very… inexperienced…”
I wasn’t lying. I did need help, and I could have asked anyone else on the set with a lot freer time than the director. But I chose her, and it made her feel special.
Lilah turns red, her mind clinging to the words inexperienced. She plays with her long dyed pink hair and absent-mindedly bites her lip.
“I’m kinda busy right now, but I can help you practice later on tonight,” Lilah offers.
“That’s great! I got a place in the town over. I’ll be staying there tonight.”
Lilah is trying not to let her eyes wander but they do. I say nothing and let them. I ask her twenty questions about herself and sometimes touch her shoulder. By the time I leave her RV about an hour has passed and I make plans to get more lines in the movie.
