An Anonymous Girl Read Online Free PDF

watch is a giveaway, too. It’s a Rolex, but not an antique that would signal old family money. It’s a newer model that he probably bought himself, maybe with his first end-of-year bonus.
    Too preppy for me.
    “They’re my boyfriend’s favorite,” I say.
    “Lucky guy.”
    I smile at him to soften my rejection. “Thanks.” I select “PurpleRain,” then walk back to my stool.
    “You have Flopsy in your bathroom?” Sanjay is asking.
    “I put down newspapers,” Lizzie explains. “My roommate’s not that happy about it, though.”
    Sanjay winks at me. “Another round?”
    Lizzie pulls out her phone and holds it up to show me and Sanjay. “You guys want to see a picture of him?”
    “Adorable,” I say.
    “Ooh, I just got a text,” Lizziesays, staring down at her phone. “Remember Katrina? She’s having people over for drinks. Wanna go?”
    Katrina is an actress who is working with Lizzie on the new production. I haven’t seen Katrina in a while, since she and I worked on a play together just before I left theater. She reached out to me over the summer, saying she wanted to get together and talk. But I never responded.
    “Tonight?”I ask, stalling.
    “Yeah,” Lizzie says. “I think Annabelle’s going, and maybe Cathleen.”
    I like Annabelle and Cathleen. But other theater people will probably be invited. And there’s one I’d prefer not to see ever again.
    “Gene won’t be there, don’t worry,” Lizzie says, like she can read my mind.
    I can tell Lizzie wants to join them. These are still her friends. Plus, she’s buildingher résumé. New York theater is a tight-knit community, and the best way to get hired is to network. She’ll feel badly about going without me, though.
    It’s like I can hear Dr. Shields’s deep, soothing voice in my head again:
Could you tell a lie without feeling guilt?
    Yes,
I answer him.
    I say to Lizzie: “Oh, it’s not that, I’m just really tired. And I have to get up early tomorrow.”

    Then I signal to Sanjay. “Let’s have one more quick drink and then I need to get to bed. But you should go, Lizzie.”
    Twenty minutes later, Lizzie and I walk out the door. We’re heading in opposite directions, so we hug good-bye on the sidewalk. She smells like orange blossoms; I remember helping her pick out the scent.
    I watch as she turns the corner, heading toward the party.
    Lizzie had said Gene French wouldn’t be there, but it’s not just him I’m avoiding. I’m not eager to reconnect with anyone from that phase of my life, even though it consumed me for the first seven years after I moved to New York.
    Theater was what drew me to this city. My dream caught hold early, when I was a young girl and my mother took me to see a local production of
The Wizard of Oz.
Afterward,the actors came to the lobby and I realized that all of them—Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, the Wicked Witch—were just ordinary people. They’d been transformed by chalky face powder and freckles drawn on with an eyebrow pencil and green-tinted foundation.
    After I left college and moved to New York, I started at the Bobbi Brown counter at Bloomingdale’s while I auditioned as a makeup artist forevery play I could find on Backstage.com. That’s when I learned the pros carry their contour wheels, foundations, and false eyelashes in black accordian-style cases instead of duffel bags. At first I worked sporadically on small shows, where I was sometimes paid in comp tickets, but after a couple of years, the jobs came easier and the audiences got bigger and I was able to quit the departmentstore. I began to get referrals, and I even signed with an agent, albeit one who also represented a magician who performed at trade shows.
    That period of my life was pure exhilaration—the intense camaraderie with actors and other crew members, the triumph when the audience rose to their feet and applauded our creation—but I earn a lot more now doing freelance makeup. And I realized long agothat not