anyway.” He gave her a slight nod and made to exit. “I’ll be waiting in the car after you freshen up. I’ll have the front desk ring you if the Director shows up.”
He closed the door behind him, leaving her alone in the room. Nothing fancy, as she had suspected: a tidy double bed, a nightstand with a lamp and a radio, and a desk tucked in the corner. Enough space for the Los Angeles and San Francisco oilmen to come to town, make their deals, and get some rest. The air felt a little trapped and still, as if no one had actually been in the room, not even to turn down the sheets and check the towels. But this didn’t surprise her—if it had been her job to go from unused room to unused room, she wouldn’t bother with these tasks either; she would kick off her shoes instead and listen to the radio, the minutes of each work morning slowly passing by.
That’s what she was thinking of—what it would be like to be a cleaning woman in a small hotel in an inconsequential city, the daily humdrum of that kind of life. Her mind circled around that scenario as she unzipped her overnight bag and setaside her belongings, giving tomorrow’s blouse a quick snap before putting it on a hanger. She imagined the uniform and the soft shoes, pushing a cart along the narrow corridor she’d just walked along, the quiet red carpet, and the discreet closet at the end where the cart would be hidden away overnight. There was more, she knew, as she emptied her toiletries and set them around the bathroom sink, confident no one would come in to clean: say, for example, the awkward moment when a hotel maid politely knocked on the door and, hearing no one, came in even though the guest was sleeping. Or the curiosity around a stranger’s suitcase sitting like a diary in the corner of a room, the temptation to unzip it and rummage around. Or the toiletries kit left in the bathroom, the inside pocket holding a vial of pills that spoke of nerves, of insomnia, of depression, of a lingering sexual disease.
In her movie script, she had read the description of her character: secretary. She had read the setting: Phoenix. At a leisurely lunch, the Director had told her how he’d already sent a set crew to Arizona to find young women working as secretaries, interviewing them to see how much they made a year, how they dressed, what they ate for lunch, where they ate it, if they had husbands or lived alone or with girlfriends, what their apartments looked like, how they furnished them.
For what? she had asked, because the scenes that took place in the office and the woman’s apartment were brief.
To get it right, the Director had told her, taking a long sip of wine. I want it to look like a girl’s apartment, you see. Right down to the cheap dresser.
It was a pity, she had thought as she looked over her salad, that she hadn’t been invited along, if only to witness how the set decorators found these young women and how they engaged them in conversations that, frankly, could slip into the nakedly personal without much effort. She didn’t let on to the Director that she’d been disappointed about missing such a trip. That wasn’t the purpose, she knew. Listening to him explain the purpose of a set—the information conveyed by the atmosphere of the walls, the correct wallpaper, the furniture just so—made her feel that her own concerns about who a secretary might really be had no place at their lunch table.
The Actress knew the answer even now, staring at the clock in her hotel room, five minutes to ten. Smoothing her dress and looking at herself one more time in the mirror, she saw her own incomparable face, the size of her head, her eyes set apart, her breasts, her hair. A singularity. There was no one else like her, for better or worse, and she had been picked for the part for the sum of these attributes, and maybe nothing more. The Actress gathered her pocketbook and headed down to the lobby. She knew the answer, and it would take only a
He closed the door behind him, leaving her alone in the room. Nothing fancy, as she had suspected: a tidy double bed, a nightstand with a lamp and a radio, and a desk tucked in the corner. Enough space for the Los Angeles and San Francisco oilmen to come to town, make their deals, and get some rest. The air felt a little trapped and still, as if no one had actually been in the room, not even to turn down the sheets and check the towels. But this didn’t surprise her—if it had been her job to go from unused room to unused room, she wouldn’t bother with these tasks either; she would kick off her shoes instead and listen to the radio, the minutes of each work morning slowly passing by.
That’s what she was thinking of—what it would be like to be a cleaning woman in a small hotel in an inconsequential city, the daily humdrum of that kind of life. Her mind circled around that scenario as she unzipped her overnight bag and setaside her belongings, giving tomorrow’s blouse a quick snap before putting it on a hanger. She imagined the uniform and the soft shoes, pushing a cart along the narrow corridor she’d just walked along, the quiet red carpet, and the discreet closet at the end where the cart would be hidden away overnight. There was more, she knew, as she emptied her toiletries and set them around the bathroom sink, confident no one would come in to clean: say, for example, the awkward moment when a hotel maid politely knocked on the door and, hearing no one, came in even though the guest was sleeping. Or the curiosity around a stranger’s suitcase sitting like a diary in the corner of a room, the temptation to unzip it and rummage around. Or the toiletries kit left in the bathroom, the inside pocket holding a vial of pills that spoke of nerves, of insomnia, of depression, of a lingering sexual disease.
In her movie script, she had read the description of her character: secretary. She had read the setting: Phoenix. At a leisurely lunch, the Director had told her how he’d already sent a set crew to Arizona to find young women working as secretaries, interviewing them to see how much they made a year, how they dressed, what they ate for lunch, where they ate it, if they had husbands or lived alone or with girlfriends, what their apartments looked like, how they furnished them.
For what? she had asked, because the scenes that took place in the office and the woman’s apartment were brief.
To get it right, the Director had told her, taking a long sip of wine. I want it to look like a girl’s apartment, you see. Right down to the cheap dresser.
It was a pity, she had thought as she looked over her salad, that she hadn’t been invited along, if only to witness how the set decorators found these young women and how they engaged them in conversations that, frankly, could slip into the nakedly personal without much effort. She didn’t let on to the Director that she’d been disappointed about missing such a trip. That wasn’t the purpose, she knew. Listening to him explain the purpose of a set—the information conveyed by the atmosphere of the walls, the correct wallpaper, the furniture just so—made her feel that her own concerns about who a secretary might really be had no place at their lunch table.
The Actress knew the answer even now, staring at the clock in her hotel room, five minutes to ten. Smoothing her dress and looking at herself one more time in the mirror, she saw her own incomparable face, the size of her head, her eyes set apart, her breasts, her hair. A singularity. There was no one else like her, for better or worse, and she had been picked for the part for the sum of these attributes, and maybe nothing more. The Actress gathered her pocketbook and headed down to the lobby. She knew the answer, and it would take only a
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