The alarm buzzes rudely, as “6:00” now appears in ruby-red digits against the void-black background of the digital alarm clock resting on Halley’s apartment nightstand. Halley props herself up and rotates her head toward the clock, her eyes half-open, and falls limply back onto the pillow. These early mornings will kill me yet, she thinks.
But she forces herself out of bed. The enormous tee-shirt she wears falls to mid-thigh; it is noticeably wrinkled, matching her askew morning hair. She walks over to the closet and pulls out a crisply folded, white, button-up dress shirt and a thigh-length, charcoal-gray knit skirt. From the small dresser, she produces a pair of dark pantyhose and a pair of low-heel dress shoes from the floor. She lays all these on her bed. She then goes into the top drawer for the rest of her ensemble.
The oversized sleep shirt flutters to the bed, and little more rustling can be heard from the dresser —though for the room is empty except for the young brunette woman. The shirt is buttoned up. Stockings cover her legs. The skirt is slid up her legs and zipped up. One hand grabs a brush and quickly straightens out the wiry kinks of her straight hair. Then, both hands gather the long, mahogany-brown hair into a single handful, and in two swift, nearly mechanical motions, one of the hands twirls the hair into a tight coil and the other stabs the bun with a long plastic needle, black. One hand bats the bun to assure professional tightness. A mundane ritual takes place in the bathroom: a mascara brush applies color and thickness to her small eyelashes, another brush adds a soft shade of eye shadow. A touch of blush takes the autumn paleness out of her cheeks, and an unpretentious shade of coral red covers her lips. Halley inhales and exhales deliberately, smiling deliberately as well. “Okay, Superstar,” she tells herself, softly but not whispering, “let’s show the world what we’re made of.”
Halley walks down the short hallway of her apartment, an aura of great confidence surrounding her. She closes the door behind her on her way to work, which shakes the dry erase calendar pinned there, filled with audition dates.
* * *
A middle-aged couple sits down in Nana’s Breakfast Diner. Nana’s is the typical breakfast diner: the structure like an oversized mobile home with curved walls the color of aluminum and neon signs unceasingly stating its message: open. The husband of the pair, a clean-shaven man with dark grey hair, which is just beginning to recede, smiles at his wife, her dirty blond hair that is fading to the color of chalk in places. Halley walks up, an apron around her waist, two menus under her arm, an order booklet in her hand, and a pencil stashed behind her ear. With forced hospitality, she asks them, “Folks, what’ll y’all have today?” There’s that hint of a Southern accent in her voice that comes from living in
After receiving the menus, the wife excuses herself to the restroom. Halley walks to the counter and returns carrying two coffee mugs in one hand and two coffee pots in the other. She is a veteran diner waitress, even after working here for only a year and a half. “Regular or Decaf?” she prompts.
“Well, Miss… Hailey, is it?” the man says, lowering his eyebrow.
“Halley,” she replies, making the short ‘a’ sound audible. Oh Lord, she knows where this is going. “Sugar?” she asks, completely aware of and completely hating the irony of her question.
Obviously flirting, the man replies, “Deary, you are a fine woman, why don’t we…”
“No sugar, then? If you’ll excuse me, I have another table…” Halley firmly interrupts, with every hint of distaste hidden from her voice, but not an ounce of give. Her sternum shakes as she musters up the last bit of resolve from her depleting reserve. Her teeth unclench at the next booth, and the actress reemerges.
* * *
Halley, still in her outfit from work, minus the apron, stands on a harshly lit stage, and is handed a stack of papers, stapled together. A tall, wide man in the middle of the house of this low-quality auditorium suddenly bellows, “Okay, take it from page 14, Scene 11. Donovan, you’ll be Richard. Denise, you’ll be Anita. And Hailey, you’ll be Cassie.”
The three actors begin going through the scene. The director within fifteen second has made three deliberate scratches on his notepad. An assistant, a rather frail girl of no more than twenty years, listens intently to her boss’s obligatory whispered display of his superb discriminatory ability of actors. “Mr. Donovan is mumbling like a lunatic. Ms. Denise appears to believe that a proper English schoolgirl is supposed to act drunk. Then again, possibly it’s not her fault.” He gives a short, throaty chuckle at his own joke. “And Miss Hailey, bless her heart, still has the forced voice. She’s looks to be twenty-four and probably has been acting for twenty of it. A drama major, for sure. We get two dozen of them through each day. Her body language is perfect, I must admit, but her voice still isn’t natural.” He shakes his head with phony sympathy. With raised eyebrows, he looks to his assistant expectantly, who quickly takes on a face of great awe, and replies, “Good points, sir. Brilliant.” She mentally kicks herself for taking Journalism instead of Accounting at the community college.
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