Essays and Stories by Marian Keyes Read online

  Then I went to bed where I had another great night, with all those films showing in my head. The plots were a little farfetched and inconclusive at times, but who cares? And I awoke to another dazzling Los Angeles morning.

  Nick wasn't much of a talker first thing. In silence he hunched over his cereal (apple and cinnamon Froot Loops this morning) while I sipped coffee.

  When Tandy marched into the kitchen, I actually thought she 'd just got home after a night of hard partying. She wore a barelythere pink dress, which revealed her long, lean, gold-leaf legs. Pink marabou-feathered, spindly-heeled sandals were on her sparklytoed feet. Her car-tire lips were defiantly sexy, her honey-blond hair a heavy swishy sheet and her hipbones were sharp enough to fillet plaice.

  "Guys," she commanded, "I want to know if you want to sleep with me?"

  "Suuuurrrre." Nick's eyes were half closed as he looked her up and down appreciatively.

  "Grace?"

  "Sure. If I was gay." Except I didn't think I was.

  "Excellent," She smacked those lips with satisfaction. "That part is so mine." She handed me the script. "Will you do a read-through with me?"

  I began, but two lines in I had to stop. "But Tandy . . ."

  "What?"

  "Your part. You're supposed to be a nun dying of cancer."

  "So?" Her stance got even more defiant.

  "So you look like a hooker," Nick interrupted.

  "It doesn't matter," Tandy said in exasperation. "This is Holly wood. Doesn't matter if I'm playing a crack addict dying of AIDs, a nine-month pregnant woman, or a suicidal depressive, I'll never get the part unless every man in that casting room wants to sleep with me!"

  Her words fell into shocked silence.

  Nick was the first to break it. "Fair enough," he conceded.

  "Read," she ordered me.

  "Okay. 'But Sister Martha, you must rest!' "

  " 'How can I rest? Those poor, motherless children need me . . .' "

  Chapter Four

  Nick and I waved Tandy off by yelling affirmations at her. "You will get the part, you will get the part. Good luck, break a leg!"

  As I closed the door I was sorry I'd said the break-a-leg bit. Tandy's endless legs looked thin enough to snap all by themselves.

  All I'd meant was I'd wanted her to get the part because I really liked her. Well, I would I suppose. Being an angel I tend to like everyone, even the bad ones. I don't get much choice in the matter. But there was something sweet and vulnerable about Tandy that touched me, something totally at odds with her sassy, sexy appearance.

  Nick hung around for a little longer, somehow managing to look dark and mysterious as he ate another bowl of cereal. (Lucky Charms, this time.)

  "I gotta take off." He clattered his bowl into the dishwasher. "Work calls. Have a great day." With the fluid, careless grace that had half the women in the greater Los Angeles area beating down his door, he swung out the door.

  Then—apart from Granola, the dog, who still wouldn't come near me—I was alone. So what was I to do? So far I'd managed to commit three of the seven deadlies, leaving less than four days to do Greed, Anger, Pride and . . . and . . . what was the other one? Oh yeah, Lust, how could I forget?

  A dangerous little thought wriggled in—the apartment complex had a pool. How about if I lay beside it and scoped for men? Surely that way there was a very good chance of taking care of Lust?

  And when I rummaged among the clothes I'd been given for my mission, I found a sleek jade bikini, with a matching sarong. This convinced me that catching some rays was the Right Thing To Do.

  There was only one other person by the pool. A man—as luck would have it. But the wrong kind of man. He was astonishingly thin and pale. You don't get too many pale people in Los Angeles. On the other hand you get plenty who are thin; in fact it 's very hard to find people who aren't. But this man looked thin in the way someone who's been sick for a very long time looks thin. He lay inert on a sunbed, asleep behind his shades.

  I tried a couple of exploratory swings past him but no dice. So I stretched myself out on a bed and Thought About Things.

  Perhaps it was actually a Good Thing that I hadn't been a high achiever. If I'd been a perfect superbeing, with an inate grasp of humanity, I'd never have been sent here. Dreamily I let the sun beat down on me while I wrestled with a philosophical conundrum: can angels get sunburned?

  After a while the worry became compelling so I jumped in my car, drove to the nearest drugstore and bought a bottle of factor 25.

  But when I came out of the store, disaster struck. Suddenly I heard myself calling, "Hey! That 's my car."

  The two front wheels were off the ground, attached to a hook, attached to a truck. I was being towed! A man in a uniform said, "You shouldn'ta parked there."

  A feeling stirred in me. A strange, outward spiralling rush where I had an irresistible impulse to physically assault this man.

  "I was only in there for five minutes!" I yelled.

  "Hey, lady, no need to get so angry."

  "I'm angry?" I squeaked.

  "Too right you're angry."

  I took a moment—and he was right. I do believe I'm experiencing . . . ANGER!

  I lunged toward the man and he put his hand up to deflect the blow. But there was no blow. Instead I hugged him. "Thank you so much."

  He was transfixed.

  "Aw, hey." He gestured to another man who was in the truck. "What the hell. She was only five minutes. Give her her car."

  "No, no, no," I insisted. "You're just doing your job."

  A small crowd had gathered. As my car was lowered back to the ground, a smattering of applause broke out.

  "This kinda thing," I heard one of the onlookers say, as I drove away, "restores your faith in human nature."

  Back by the pool, slathered in sun lotion, I found my pale, bony man was still immobile. Anxiety about his tender skin getting burned began to gnaw at me. Gently, taking care not to wake him, I gave him a speedy once-over with my factor 25. But as I rubbed lotion into his arm I saw that he 'd lifted his shades and was staring at me quizzically out of pale blue eyes.

  "You angel," he said hoarsely.

  "Sssshhh," I hissed—angrily, as it happens, now that I knew how to feel it.

  The last thing we wanted was him figuring out what I was. Either he 'd get locked up or I would.

  That evening, back at the ranch, things weren't so good. Not only had Tandy not got the part but they'd told her she 'd never make it because her look is "so over."

  "What can I do?" she moaned. "This is how I look. What am I supposed to do?"

  "Plastic surgery?" Nick suggested.

  "I've had it," she said.

  "Really?" I asked curiously. "What exactly?"

  "Nose, lips, eyelids, cheekbones."

  "Boobs," Nick chipped in. "You forgot your boobs."

  She lifted her face from her hands just long enough to scorch him with a look.

  "But you have so much talent," I told her.

  "Talent, shmalent." She gave a scornful wave of her hand. "This is Hollywood. What use to me is talent?"

  She turned her tearstained face to mine. "We must go out and drink white chocolate martinis."

  "That 's the closest you get to a square meal, right?" Nick said.

  "Gimme a break! I eat. Often."

  "Oh yeah, I forgot. You had an aspirin last Tuesday."

  "I'm an actress! Eating isn't an option."

  "I'm giving you a hard time because I care about you."

  "You don't care about anyone but yourself."

  "Not true."

  "Is true."

  "Guys, guys," I said hastily. "Break it up."

  "I'm going to the store." Nick swung from the room.

  Fifteen minutes later he was back, looking out of his mind with worry.

  "You are not going to believe this, I've just met crazy Karl, our unfriendly neighborhood alcoholic—"

  "He pulled a knife on you?" Tandy aske
d, in alarm.

  "No, far worse. He said hey and asked me how I was."

  "Then he asked you for a dollar?"

  "No, he said he was real sorry for all the crazy stuff, the yelling and the howling like a dawg. Says it won't happen again. He 's cleaned up his act."

  "Really?"

  "Really."

  "I'm going to miss him howling like a dawg," Tandy admitted. "So what 's happened to him?"

  "Dunno." Nick shrugged. " 'Far as I can see he hasn't been the same since Grace called in on him."

  "I met the man for two seconds," I defended myself.

  "What is it about you?" Nick considered me with his bleak dark eyes.

  Later in some white-tiled, glass-fronted bar, after three different men asked for and didn't get Tandy's number, she got maudlin about her audition.

  "They way they treat people is the way I used to treat shoes. I used to stroll through the store, ignoring some, picking others up, then saying the most hurtful stuff."

  "Like?"

  "Like . . . too high, weird heel, wrong color, too low. It 's so CRUEL."

  I nodded sympathetically. People at the other tables were beginning to look.

  "And now when I'm at the market buying, like, apples, I pick the shiniest, reddest ones, RIGHT? But I try to send out vibes to the apples I left behind, to let them know that just because I didn't choose them doesn't mean that they're all not WORTHWHILE and UNIQUE. In case any of them feel BAD, you know? Oh no!"

  Two martinis had just arrived courtesy of a man who was winking energetically from across the room.

  "Take them back," Tandy beseeched the waiter. "Please."

  "He 's really cute," I tried to persuade her.

  "Thank you," the waiter said, warmly. "So are you."

  "I . . . um . . . actually meant the man who'd sent the drinks," I explained. "But thank you."

  Chapter Five

  The next day Tandy had already left for her job before Nick surfaced, wafting into the kitchen in a morning-fresh, citrus cloud. He had a strangely alluring unkempt look about him, and he always looked like he could do with a good scrub. Even when he 'd just had one. Even when he was actually having one, according to Tandy, who'd admitted last night that she 'd had sex in the shower with him one "horrible" (her word) evening when they'd both had about ten vodkatinis too many.

  "Won't you be late for work?" I asked him.

  "No work today, Grace."

  "Why not?"

  "Audition."

  "That 's great! Why didn't you say?"

  He shrugged. "Tandy was so bummed over her lousy audition yesterday, I thought telling her about mine might bring her down."

  "So what 's the part?"

  "Mild-mannered, happily married father of three who blows the whistle on a chemical company that 's poisoning the water system."

  "Really? That 's excellent." And what a change from the stalker/ slasher/wacko parts he was usually up for!

  "Nah, just kidding." He slung himself into a chair. "Psychopath. Neo-Nazi tendencies. Impressive collection of knives."

  As he ate his Cap'n Crunch, he looked kind of depressed.

  Then the phone rang. Another heartbroken woman for Nick. Except it wasn't. The call was for me! And there was only one person in Los Angeles who had my number: Robyn Dude, theatrical agent and ass kicker extraordinaire. This could only mean one thing—an audition!

  I know I'm not a human being. I know I'm an angel whose mind is on higher things. Or at least it should be. But when Robyn growled at me to show up at some suite in Wiltshire with my resume and head shots, I suddenly wanted that part. Fiercely. Violently.

  So desperately that for a while I forgot why I was actually on Earth. Seven deadly sins, I reminded myself sternly. Perhaps today I'd see if I could tick off, ooh, let 's see, how about . . . Pride!

  "Tell me what you know about Pride," I said to Nick.

  "It comes before a fall."

  "That 's all you can tell me?"

  "Pride is a big ole march they have in San Francisco every year."

  "Ohhh-kaaaay." Why did I expect him to make sense? After all, this was the man who'd told me that Sloth was a small British animal.

  Nick loped off to his audition and I dressed for mine. The part was for the fat, supportive sister of the kooky, beautiful heroine. Another fat girl part to add to my fat girl resume . . .

  * * *

  In the suite in Wiltshire there were dozens of us, all doing our best to exude fat, supportive, sisterly energy. But in a strange, smug way I suspected I was the best. At one hundred and twelve pounds I was certainly the fattest, and humming in a warm place inside me was the conviction that the part was mine.

  So sure of myself was I that I was able to chatter brightly to the sweet girl next to me. Who confided that nothing had gone right in her life for so long that she was beginning to suspect her exboyfriend had put a curse on her. Her car had been stolen, her highlights had turned a funny color and she hadn't worked in six months. When I heard my name being called, I touched her on the shoulder and said, "I hope you get the part."

  "I hope you do too," she replied. Which was a kind of stupid conversation because there was only one part and there were two of us, but I suppose we were bonding.

  I'd never been to an audition before but having done a runthrough with Tandy for her audition I knew exactly what to do. A girl called Lana fed me my lines and Wayne, the director, watched from the back of the room.

  "I am so kurrr-ay-zee," Lana said, acting the part of the kooky heroine.

  "Hahaha," I laughed, in what I hoped was a fat, supportive, sisterly way.

  "Thank you!" Wayne shouted.

  "You're welcome," I said, then turned back to Lana, waiting to be fed my next line. She remained oddly silent.

  "Go ahead," I encouraged.

  "Thank you," Wayne called again. "You can go now."

  "But I'm not finished." I held up my page of dialogue.

  "We would like you to leave now."

  Then I understood. When they shout, "Thank you," they're not actually thanking you, they're telling you you're crap. As I slunk towards the door, Wayne yelled, "Next!" I was barely aware of the nice girl I'd been talking to in the waiting room being ushered in past me.

  I was crushed. Crushed. Tandy had warned me about auditions: meat racks, cattle markets, where they treat you as if you're not human. (Well, obviously I'm not, but how were they to know?)

  As I trudged towards my car I wanted to go home. Not home to Silverlake, but home home.

  I'd been so sure I'd get the part. I burned as I remembered how I'd thought it was in the bag when it wasn't. What 's that Nick had said?—"Pride comes before a fall." And he 'd been right. I'd certainly taken a tumble . . .

  Then the sense of that began to dawn on me. If I'd had the fall, I must 've had pride. Pride.

  And all at once it was as if the sun had come out from behind the clouds. I'd done five now. Only Greed and . . . and . . . what was the other one? Oh right, Lust. Only Greed and Lust to go.

  There was the sound of running feet behind me. It was the sweet girl I'd spoken to in the waiting room. "I got the part," she gasped. "They just took one look at me, before I'd even read and they said, 'You're our Mary Ann.'

  "It 's totally weird," she said. "They don't usually do it this way. Like, never. They've sent everyone else away."

  And sure enough, flooding out into the car park came a stream of supportive, sisterly women, now looking peeved and disappointed. A disgruntled mutter reached me.

  "It 's like you were my good-luck charm or something . . ." She looked at me in a kind of confused wonder, a little like the way Granola did.

  "I'm really happy for you," I said, because actually, I was.

  To celebrate my ritual humiliation at the audition I went to a bar with Tandy for apple martinis. It was wall-to-wall beautiful people.

  "Why was it horrible?" I asked.

  "What?"

  "You said when you slept w
ith Nick that it was horrible."

  "The sleeping bit wasn't horrible," she said awkwardly. "It was afterwards . . . He never mentioned it again. And there were— are—all these other girls."