Seeing Stars Read Online Free PDF Page B

talking with Allison had been like talking to another grown-up.
    Ruth was exhausted by the time the Believability class ended. She got Bethany home and to bed, but of course once they got to bed, they were too tired and keyed up to fall asleep. It was eleven forty-five before Ruth heard Bethy’s breathing settle. Only then did she mouth in the general direction of the heavens the same prayer she’d been saying every night since they arrived: Please God, shine on my Bethany and make her a star.

Chapter Two
    O N ANY GIVEN DAY , M IMI R OBERTS T ALENT M ANAGEMENT represented anywhere from thirty-five to fifty child, teenage, and young adult actors, depending on Mimi’s mood and willingness to be pinned down. Her clients’ abilities ranged from execrable to extraordinary. The ones who were darling but couldn’t act auditioned for commercials and print; the ones who could act but weren’t cute went out for student films, infomercials, character roles, and lesser dramatic parts; the ones who were cute and could act were sent out for everything: commercials, infomercials, industrials, public service announcements, student films, TV episodics (both dramatic and comedic), indie shorts, and feature-length movies.
    At the epicenter of Mimi Roberts Talent Management was Mimi herself. Sixty-one, childless, and unmarried, she was as tough and canny as an old cat in the night. A skilled campaigner, she drew her clients, helpmates, and resources out of thin air, making it all up as she went along. Because she was chronically cash-strapped (though there were some who believed she had hundreds of thousands of dollars salted away), she lived in a never-ending state of barter, shilling for her poorer clients by digging a little more deeply into the pockets of her wealthy ones, though of course she’d flatly deny that, if pressed.
    Mimi doubted there was a soul left in Hollywood who’d remember now, but she’d come to LA as a young actor herself way back when, full of the certainty that the world was waiting just for her. She’d come to LA from upstate New York on a Greyhound bus with nothing but eighty-five dollars and four changes of clothes. What they didn’t understand—what no one outside Hollywood ever understood—was that she’d had to come, to meet what she was sure was her future. She was plain now, and she’d been plain then, too, though quite a few pounds thinner. She’d also been realistic; she knew she would never become a leading lady, especially not in those days, when leading ladies had tidy hair and elegant hats and Daughters of the American Revolution credentials and just the right balance of self-confidence and sass. Her plan had been to become a character actor, a sidekick like Vivian Vance, who’d made a career out of being Ethel Mertz.
    But of course it hadn’t worked out that way. At any given moment there wasn’t really much difference between a drifter and an actor looking for work. She’d gotten a few small roles, uttered the occasional line, delivered the odd voice-over, but her voice tended to be unmodulated and her acting, while serviceable, didn’t have a thing to separate her from thousands of others. She couldn’t pinpoint the precise day and moment when she realized she was screwed, but once she did, her next move had presented itself like pure kismet.
    She’d been living in a West Hollywood apartment building as shabby as an old shoe, sharing a dank apartment with an unwed young mother out of Kansas named Susan, who modeled lingerie and turned the occasional trick while she waited for her big acting break. Her daughter was a three-year-old named Lucy, who had a high, clear voice, silky blond curls, and a darling space between her two front teeth. Mimi often took care of her while Susan was working, in return for which Susan cooked. One day, Mimi brought Lucy along with her to an audition. The audition itself—what had it been for? A digestive aid of some kind, she thought—had gone badly,