baristas, and waiters, hoping for stardom, eventually hoping even for bit parts, for commercials, anything to prolong their belief that they're going to make it as a paid actor, be able to quit the jobs they took to get by in the meantime."
"Maybe some of those people wanted to give up their lives anyway. Maybe becoming an actor is an excuse for cutting ties and going somewhere else."
"Maybe."
"So, why don't you like it?"
"I did. For a long time, I loved it. I loved the fantasy of it. Becoming other people, with other lives. Creating this whole other existence. Taking on different personalities, imagining having different jobs, living in different places, other eras. I remember playing Mercutio in high school. I went to a small school; it wasn't a choice. Everyone in my year had to be in the play. But I . . . sort of fell in love with this character I was playing. He was such a smart-ass, really clever. Witty. In a way that I'd never seen before, in the 94
people around me. And for all the weeks of rehearsal and the final performance, I got to embody that." He laughed. "And wield a sword, of course."
"When I went to college, I took drama every semester. I never cared that much how big a part I got in the little productions we did. Whatever role I was given, I'd immerse myself in. If it was a period thing, I'd get history books on that time. Imagine being a reverend in seventeenth-century Salem."
"There's a mental image."
"What, you don't think I'd make a good Puritan?"
He put on a stern look and held forth, "Let you not mistake your duty as I mistook my own. I came into this village like a bridegroom to his beloved, bearing gifts of high religion; the very crowns of holy law I brought, and what I touched with my bright confidence, it died; and where I turned the eye of my great faith, blood flowed up.”
"Very convincing."
"My first part in a movie, it was a total fluke, me getting it. I wasn't out, auditioning. It was just handed to me. And suddenly, I was in the woods every day, riding horses, fording streams. I'd been physically transplanted into an alien world. It was amazing. That's what I loved about acting, for so long. Getting to live different lives, like a fantasy. But after a while, it feels kind of pathetic. Empty. I've started to wonder who I actually am. I've spent so much time pretending, developing all these personas that have nothing to do with my real life. Creating facsimiles of lives, of relationships. I'm a little sick of pretending."
"Yeah. I get it."
95
He smiled. Caressed the sensitive skin inside her forearm with the back of his index finger.
"I know you do," he whispered.
She hadn't expected this. As they sat there, cuddled together in the curve of their vinyl booth, his forehead tipped to the crown of her head, his finger tickling over her skin, she felt . . . connected to him. Close. Warm. Safe. She was beginning to feel that he was more than a one-, or rather a two-night stand. She was starting to feel he was her friend.
* * * *
"So," he sighed as he pressed himself against her, pressing her against the passenger door of his car, "will you be coming home with me?"
He sealed his invitation with a surprisingly sweet, tender kiss. She said “yes,” and as they rolled over the streets of Los Feliz and Hollywood and up into the Hills, she wondered at the tender little feeling of affection that was mingling with her aroused anticipation. After Galen pulled the car into the garage and the door levered shut behind them, he leaned over and they shared a deep, lingering kiss. This kiss, like the one they'd shared on the street by the Dresden, was different from all the kisses between them before this night. Now, suddenly, it wasn't an erotic kiss between strangers, an oral prelude to sex. Just one touch among many designed to get oneself and one another off. It felt, now, like a tender moment between two people learning one another.
It was the expression of some nascent feeling.
It
"Maybe some of those people wanted to give up their lives anyway. Maybe becoming an actor is an excuse for cutting ties and going somewhere else."
"Maybe."
"So, why don't you like it?"
"I did. For a long time, I loved it. I loved the fantasy of it. Becoming other people, with other lives. Creating this whole other existence. Taking on different personalities, imagining having different jobs, living in different places, other eras. I remember playing Mercutio in high school. I went to a small school; it wasn't a choice. Everyone in my year had to be in the play. But I . . . sort of fell in love with this character I was playing. He was such a smart-ass, really clever. Witty. In a way that I'd never seen before, in the 94
people around me. And for all the weeks of rehearsal and the final performance, I got to embody that." He laughed. "And wield a sword, of course."
"When I went to college, I took drama every semester. I never cared that much how big a part I got in the little productions we did. Whatever role I was given, I'd immerse myself in. If it was a period thing, I'd get history books on that time. Imagine being a reverend in seventeenth-century Salem."
"There's a mental image."
"What, you don't think I'd make a good Puritan?"
He put on a stern look and held forth, "Let you not mistake your duty as I mistook my own. I came into this village like a bridegroom to his beloved, bearing gifts of high religion; the very crowns of holy law I brought, and what I touched with my bright confidence, it died; and where I turned the eye of my great faith, blood flowed up.”
"Very convincing."
"My first part in a movie, it was a total fluke, me getting it. I wasn't out, auditioning. It was just handed to me. And suddenly, I was in the woods every day, riding horses, fording streams. I'd been physically transplanted into an alien world. It was amazing. That's what I loved about acting, for so long. Getting to live different lives, like a fantasy. But after a while, it feels kind of pathetic. Empty. I've started to wonder who I actually am. I've spent so much time pretending, developing all these personas that have nothing to do with my real life. Creating facsimiles of lives, of relationships. I'm a little sick of pretending."
"Yeah. I get it."
95
He smiled. Caressed the sensitive skin inside her forearm with the back of his index finger.
"I know you do," he whispered.
She hadn't expected this. As they sat there, cuddled together in the curve of their vinyl booth, his forehead tipped to the crown of her head, his finger tickling over her skin, she felt . . . connected to him. Close. Warm. Safe. She was beginning to feel that he was more than a one-, or rather a two-night stand. She was starting to feel he was her friend.
* * * *
"So," he sighed as he pressed himself against her, pressing her against the passenger door of his car, "will you be coming home with me?"
He sealed his invitation with a surprisingly sweet, tender kiss. She said “yes,” and as they rolled over the streets of Los Feliz and Hollywood and up into the Hills, she wondered at the tender little feeling of affection that was mingling with her aroused anticipation. After Galen pulled the car into the garage and the door levered shut behind them, he leaned over and they shared a deep, lingering kiss. This kiss, like the one they'd shared on the street by the Dresden, was different from all the kisses between them before this night. Now, suddenly, it wasn't an erotic kiss between strangers, an oral prelude to sex. Just one touch among many designed to get oneself and one another off. It felt, now, like a tender moment between two people learning one another.
It was the expression of some nascent feeling.
It
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