An Industry of Cool

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

The girl sitting in the chair is me, but I can hardly recognize her.  The lights are on and they've done her makeup to perfection.  It isn't that the girl doesn't like makeup.  In fact, she thinks makeup is pretty damn sexy when she really puts her mind to it.  But this feels all wrong.  The lights are blazing directly upon her like prison search beacons and she can't help but feel like an tiger performing in a zoo.   Everyone is scurrying too and fro around her, taping down cable or speaking into a headset, readjusting the drop behind her or checking prompt scripts.  She swallows, hard.  

"There's no reason to be nervous, dear."

Every muscle in her body jumps.  She hadn't even been aware that there was someone here to pay attention to her yet.  

"I'm not nervous," she begins, picking her eyes up from her hands to see a distantly familiar face from some online publication sit in the chair across from her, "I just want to make sure I say the right thing."

A gossip columnist.  That is who they gave her as her first interview.  She gave them a screenplay about war and they gave her an interview with a gossip columnist for this press junket.  Unbelievable.  Simply astounding.  Indignance bubbles in her chest.  The tall, thin brunette with arms like Laila Ali's smiles.

"I hope I ask the right questions, then."

The production manager calls time, and the interview begins.  All softball questions, all light and easy ones that don't have anything to do with her film or the importance of it.  

"I'm just trying to get to the girl behind the war writer," the woman begins, "Down below that military posture, there has got to be a bubblegum pop loving girl, right?"

Wrong.  Wrong.  Wrong.  There is not.  But the bear bating continues.

"Come on," she says, flashing a smile that speaks to years of cigarettes and too much red wine, "Give me something.  Favorite girlie book?  Secret Taylor Swift fan?  Any celebrity crushes?"

The screenwriter is about to tell the woman off about gender stereotyping when she hears that last bit.  Celebrity crushes.  

"I don't really… Not a crush, really.  I don't watch many movies, but Dean Murphy isn't so bad to look at," she says with a shrug.

Dean Murphy isn't 'not so bad to look at' looking.  He is remarkable.  A face chiseled by angels and had life breathed into him by God himself, probably.  If I had an inclination to make myself out to silliness, the shadow of me would have gushed for hours.  But I'm not.  I hardly think of Dean Murphy aside from the few times I pass a billboard bearing his face.  

"I can't imagine he's much more than a face though," the girl in the chair continues, wanting desperately to discuss something of substance. 

The problem with the girl in the memory and I is that months have passed and I still am not taken seriously.  No matter how seriously I take myself, I will always be the girl playing at war. 

"Lena!"

Oh, shit.  Is it Sunday?

"Lena Parker!"

Yep. Sunday.  Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.  A fist repeatedly makes contact with my door, hit after hit.  Drawing some air into my lungs before blowing it loudly between my lips, I open the door.

"Good morning," I mumble.

And there is Jayne.  Garment bag held high from the ground in one hand, my house key in her other.