Borderline (The Arcadia Project, #1)(38)

18


Reason Mind told me I should give the shallow cuts on my thigh more time to air out before I put my AK prosthetic back on, especially since I hadn’t showered the night before, but Emotion Mind didn’t want David Berenbaum to see me in a wheelchair. Cleverly masquerading as Reason Mind, it argued that I wouldn’t be wearing the AK for very long and that time was of the essence. I took it as an encouraging sign that the cuts didn’t hurt too badly once my thigh was nestled firmly in the socket.

I put on my third-nicest outfit and some fresh deodorant and decided that would have to do. I considered telling Teo that I was going out for a while, but after last night I was afraid he’d get too nosy about it, so I just left.

I had enough cash for a cab there and back, but after that I was going to need to visit an ATM. Little details like this drove me nuts; life seemed too full of speed bumps when I just wanted to Get Things Done. This was why I made a better director than a production assistant.

The trouble with taking a taxi to the Warner lot was that because I wasn’t driving through a security booth, I had to limp my way down the sidewalk to the place where people from the parking garage checked in. That normally meant extras or tourists, so when I told the freckled white guy at the turnstile that I was here to see Berenbaum, he looked at me like he was fitting me for a tinfoil hat.

“He knows I’m coming,” I said, but my voice sounded uncertain even to me. “Can someone contact him?”

“Ma’am, you’ll want to get a pass for your dashboard and drive through the main entrance.”

“I don’t have a car,” I said, feeling my cheeks go hot. In L.A., that’s like admitting you don’t have a place to sleep.

“How did you get here?”

“Taxi.”

“What’s your name?”

“Millie.”

“Millie what?”

“He doesn’t know my last name. Millie from the Arcadia Project.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Mr. Berenbaum will know, if someone can get hold of him.”

“Can you stand over there a minute?”

I got out of the way of the tourists and “background -talent” and stood against a hedge, feeling the sun beat down on my hair. I suppose my lack of outrage wasn’t helping my case for being Someone Important, but I had too many humiliating memories associated with the Warner lot to cop an attitude.

Anyone who does background work more than twice is either a starry-eyed wannabe, an out-of-work actor slumming to keep his SAG card, or someone unemployable at any other job besides taking up space. Generally speaking, extras are an unruly mob with a variety of unpleasant attitude problems, and sometimes in desperation they try crazy stuff like, oh I don’t know, claiming they have an appointment to see the most famous person on the lot.

I stood there long enough that it was beginning to seem like the guy was hoping I’d get bored and go away. Finally I approached him again. “Hi,” I began, but he cut me off.

“I can’t get through to Mr. Berenbaum right now,” he said. “When that changes, you’ll be the first to know.”

“He invited me here,” I said. But even as I spoke, I could feel a Borderline paradigm shift. Without a stable sense of identity—something most people have mastered by the age of four—it becomes very easy for other people to tell you who you are just by the way they treat you. As I stood there, in my own mind I was becoming what he saw: a crazy and slightly scary woman with delusions of importance.

I frantically did a mental replay of the conversation I’d had with Berenbaum earlier, trying to reinterpret. I wasn’t really supposed to have his number in the first place; I shouldn’t have called him. His delight in hearing from me could easily have been faked. But he had specifically said that I should come to his office. I was right and the security guy was wrong. Right?

I pulled out my phone—painfully aware of how cheap and obsolete it looked—and dialed Berenbaum’s number myself. His assistant answered.

“Hi, Araceli,” I said, feeling a moment’s delight that my slippery brain had held on to her name. In Hollywood, knowing the assistant’s name is crucial. “This is Millie with the Arcadia Project again.”

“One moment please,” she said politely.

I turned to give the security guard a glare, but he wasn’t paying me the least attention.

After a few moments, Araceli came back on the line. “He doesn’t seem to be available right now. Can I give him a message?”

I stood there, disoriented, starting to dissociate a little. Dissociative episodes are a Borderline thing that happens under maximum stress; you just kind of check out, leave yourself. My brain damage didn’t help matters. In that moment if she had asked me my name, I couldn’t have given it. I didn’t understand what was happening, why I had taken a taxi to the Warner Bros. lot, why I was now going to have to take a taxi right back home. I chewed my bottom lip, furious at myself for losing it now of all moments.

“Do you have a message for him?” she prompted again.

“I . . .” I struggled to assemble words. “I’m outside. At security. They won’t let me in. He said for me to come.”

“Can you put me on with the security guard, please? Tell him Araceli wants to talk to him.”