Lucky Stars Read Online Free PDF

its director, and its stars, especially Carrey, whom he referred to as “a mediocre clown masquerading as an even more mediocre actor.” And then, as I was turning away from the TV, figuring he was about to move on to another review, he said, “As Carrey’s receptionist, Stacey Reiser uses her precious few moments of screen time to pound us over the head with her lines. She has the subtlety of a sledgehammer and should consider applying for a job in construction.”
    I couldn’t speak at first, couldn’t process what Jack Rawlins had just said about me. If my mother hadn’t been there, I might have remained on the sofa for hours in a state of shock, hoping the floor would open up and swallow me whole. I mean, the guy didn’t just dis me; he annihilated me in front of a live television audience-— an audience that included every important producer and director and casting agent in town. He absolutely drove a stake through my heart with that review, and I didn’t want to deal with it, didn’t want to deal with the fact that I could be the next Belinda Hanson, but my mother was there and she was as mortified as I was. Before I knew it, I was the one consoling her.
    “Don’t take it so hard, Mom. He didn’t trash me. He trashed my performance,” I managed, trying to pull myself together and cleave to the mantra I’d learned in acting class: in order to deal with a negative review, you must distance yourself from it, tell yourself that reviews are subjective and not necessarily the Truth and that one person’s harsh opinion of your work doesn’t make you a talentless fool.
    “Well, he should be ashamed of himself,” she said hotly. “It’s one thing to be a movie critic. It’s another to be a horse’s ass.”
    This was strong stuff from my mother. She was a pistol, as Maura called her, but she rarely cursed.
    “If you ask me, I think he should be fired for incompetence as well as impudence,” she went on. “In the meantime, I will never watch his show again. I bet no one will. I bet Pet Peeve will be a big success and your career will reach new heights, dear.”
    By the following week, it was clear that my mother was no prognosticator. The movie was a box office disaster, despite Jim Carrey’s popularity, and my career, unlike his, didn’t rebound. Jack Rawlins’s review—“Stacey Reiser has the subtlety of a sledgehammer”—clung to me like a poisonous snake, just wrapped itself around me wherever I went. T hanks to Rawlins, I was now officially tainted in the business. Sledgehammer Stacey. That was my adorable new nickname. My agent tried to do damage control, mailing the positive reviews I’d received to all the major players in town, but he couldn’t convince people—any movie or television people, that is—to take another look at me.
    “We’re gonna have to wait this out a while, let the dust settle,” advised Mickey Offerman, who’d been my agent through thick and thin. (Well, through thin and less thin.) Despite an inauspicious first meeting during which Mickey had said, “If you get your hair bleached, your teeth capped, and your tits inflated, I’ll sign you” and I had said, “I’m an actress, not a beauty pageant contestant, and if you’re not interested in representing me I’ll find someone who is,” our partnership had gone very well up to that point. But Jack Rawlins had handcuffed Mickey. “We could go back to sending you out for commercials,” he offered. “So you can keep the money flowing in.”
    Back to commercials. Swell.
    When I discussed this with Maura, she came through yet again with a glass that was half-full instead of half-empty.
    “Look on the bright side,” she said in her customarily upbeat tone. “Before Jack Rawlins, you were hating your mother. She probably looks good to you now, compared to him, right?”

 
     
     
     
    f our
     
     
    I was determined to claw my way back into the movies. I was determined to show everyone I was not