Hollywood's Secret Baby

But it’s not meant to be. Because the third audition I watch stars Ben Green, winner of an Academy Award for his leading role in A Streetlight at Night. I’ve seen everything he’s ever been in, not only because he has a ten-out-of-ten face, but also because he has the body and image to match. From everything I’ve ever heard about the man, he’s a perfect joy to know, on set and off.

The lines he reads on the screen are not any I’m familiar with from any of his films, but that’s not too surprising. Cory told me that actors will often be asked to read lines in auditions that don’t make it to the final cut of the movie. Whatever it’s from, Ben plays the part to perfection, forcing myself to wonder how I can ever do what he does.

After watching five more auditions, all featuring people who know what they’re doing, I’m starting to wonder if this wasn’t some sort of trick on Cory’s part. It’s the sort of thing I might get students to do if I were teaching a film class: have them analyze auditions, looking for mistakes and guessing who failed their audition, when the reality is that all of them passed. He probably figures that my time is better spent seeing how it should be done, rather than how to fail.

Because I’m already a master at that.

After getting through half the stack, I check the clock. Somehow, time has leapt ahead while I was immersed in these audition videos, and it’s already two in the morning. Cory mentioned something about a late breakfast, but I’m not going to allow myself a lie in. Not when I have so much work to do. I’m sure there’s another tip or three I might pick up if I can stay awake for the remaining videos, but right now even a few hours of sleep is more important.

So I tiptoe inside. Lizzie’s asleep on the leather couch, a blanket draped over her. After brushing my teeth and washing my face, I carry her to the guest bed. She wakes just enough to mumble, “Are we going to Disneyland tomorrow?”

I sweep her hair back and place a kiss on her forehead. “Soon, baby girl.”

“Promise?”

I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next twenty-four hours, much less the rest of the summer. But one thing is certain above all else: Lizzie will get her Disneyland vacation.

“Promise,” I say. I then wait, kneeling beside her until her breaths are slow once more. Then I head upstairs and slide into bed beside Cory.

His eyes peel open, his curiosity fighting against the chemicals trying to keep him in the land of the dreamers. “Did you get through all of them?” he asks, his words slurred and broken by a yawn at the end.

“Only half of them, but that was enough to figure out what you were trying to do. They were all auditions of people that passed, right? You wanted me to see what I should be doing.”

Cory sits up at this, swipes at his eyes, and yawns. “You poor, unfortunate soul,” he says, quoting a Disney movie. “Not one of the people in those audition tapes got the part.”

I feel my eyes go wide at this bombshell. “None of them passed? Not even Ben Green?”

Cory shakes his head. “Philip Bunn actually got the part in that one. And if you’d watched all of them, you would have seen one of Sarah Park’s failed auditions too.”

I can’t help but shake my head at the utter helplessness coursing through my veins. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“Far from it,” he says. “I wanted to show you that even if you do everything right, you can still fail.” He hesitates before adding, “And while you did make a few rookie mistakes today, there’s nothing you could have done to get those producers to stay.”

“Why?”

He pauses, and I can tell there’s something he’s not saying. After a breath he says, “Because in their mind, you’re a nobody. But that's fine because I wasn’t counting on having their money anyway. It would have been nice, but we don’t need them or their bags of cash.”

This whole situation makes me feel like a petulant child who stupidly thought she could take on the world, only to find out that the world doesn’t even care who I am. “You should have gotten a real actress for your movie. There can’t be anything good about being new. There never is.”

Cory shakes his head. “That’s where you’re wrong. For one, we don’t have to pay you as much.”

I let out a weak laugh at this. “So you’re saying I’m cheap.”

“You haven’t earned your stripes yet. But as I said, that’s not a bad thing. Because with many stripes comes great responsibility.”

“Is that another line from a movie?”

“Everything’s a quote from a movie,” Cory says. “And you’re not paying attention.”

“Stripes. Responsibility. Bullshit,” I say, counting off his sound bites on my fingers.

“It’s not bullshit.” Cory shifts in the bed, pulling me halfway into his lap. It’s at this point that I realize he’s naked. Does he always sleep in the nude, or is this just for me? “You see not having found yourself yet as a bad thing. I see it as freedom. All these other actors are stuck in little boxes. Every time they play the same role, their boxes get a tighter. But you don’t have a box. You’re free to be whoever you want.”

Cory has a point. No one knows what to expect of me, so I can create my own persona. However, this doesn’t fix my current problem.

“But my audition.”

Cory brushes this off. “No one’s first audition is brilliant. And yours wasn’t as bad as you think. I saw it, and I’m not kicking you out of my mov