Invisible(30)

She used any time off she had to call acting agencies she found in the Yellow Pages and ask if they represented a Fabienne Adams or Basquet, and they never did. In her forties now, she wouldn’t be modeling. Antonia went to the library and looked in the phone directories of every county she could think of, and found nothing.

    The DMV might have had some trace of her, if she was in the area, but Antonia had no access to those records, nor to police files. She checked the county public death records and didn’t find her either. She realized too that things might not have panned out for her mother in L.A., and she could have gone back to France. And Antonia didn’t have any idea of how to search there. She thought that she might hire a detective agency one day, when she could afford to, and try to track her down. But for now, her mother’s trail was cold. She could also accept that if her mother had wanted to contact her, she would have by now, and there had never been even the slightest sign from her, not even a postcard or a birthday card or a note. And Antonia hadn’t gone anywhere. They had moved after she left, but were easy to find, their phone was listed, and she still lived in New York. For whatever reason, Fabienne wanted no contact with her daughter or ex-husband.

Antonia and Jeff from Northwestern saw each other often in the course of the day. He was always chatty and pleasant, and she was feeling particularly down and defeated by the search for her mother one day when she ran into him at lunch. She had called the last acting agency by then. She had known it wasn’t realistic or even likely that she would find her mother, but she had hoped she’d get lucky and find her anyway.

“You look like you’ve just lost your best friend,” he said as he set his tray down on her table, without asking, and sat down next to her. Sometimes she found him a little too friendly, but they were both in the same boat and commiserated at times about the job and the weather, which was relentless. The smog was so heavy on some days that they could hardly breathe while they ran around. She hadn’t taken to wearing shorts, but she wore the lightest clothes she had with her, and even that didn’t help. She wore sundresses, and was always tidy and immaculately put together despite the heat.

    “No, my mother,” she said under her breath in response to his comment about looking like she’d lost her best friend.

“For real?” He was startled and she shook her head.

“No, just kidding. What have you been doing today?” She hadn’t seen him all morning.

“Helping some of the sound guys move equipment. Why is everything in this place so damn heavy?” She laughed at the comment, and had thought it too, although they gave her a lot of envelopes to deliver, which they saved for her, and used Jeff for the harder, more physical jobs. “I can’t wait to go back to Chicago. It gets hot there but nothing like this. And just being here, getting sneak peeks at a bunch of actors, isn’t teaching us anything. I had a shot at a job in Disneyland, wearing a Goofy costume, or Pluto,” which were their taller characters. “I thought I’d die of the heat dressed as Goofy for two months. I’m just as hot here, and Disney would have paid me. I was going to try and get class credit for this. The only thing this prepares us for is to work for a courier service. And at least they ride bikes and make tips.” He looked totally fed up and she sympathized, but she still thought it was a good opportunity. Maybe at some point they would have them do something more intelligent than they had for the first few weeks. She tried to be cheerful, cooperative, and willing and do the best she could, and everyone had been nice to her so far. That was something at least.

    “Do you want to have dinner tonight?” he asked her, sounding discouraged. She was too, and the heat was horrendous, but she tried to be a good sport about it.

“Sure,” she said, thinking it might raise their spirits. She had spent very little money so far, except for the rental car and her furnished studio apartment. She hadn’t gone anywhere, or done anything, and by the evening, most of the time she was too tired and hot to even eat. “Let’s go somewhere air-conditioned,” she said, and he laughed.

“Yeah, like standing in the meat freezer at the local butcher. I could go for that. Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t care, just so it’s cool.”

“I don’t have a car, so I can’t pick you up.”

“I do, I can pick you up so you don’t have to take the bus. Where do you live?” She said it to be helpful, and he looked pleased.

“I live on the wrong side of Hollywood Boulevard, in a fleabag motel, the cheapest I could get. What about you?”

“I have a tiny, ugly furnished studio apartment in West Hollywood, but the ancient air conditioner works.”

“We can get takeout, and eat there if you want,” he said easily, and she shook her head. She would have with Jake in a heartbeat, for the pure practicality of it. But she didn’t know Jeff well enough to invite him to her apartment.

“No, that’s okay. I don’t have enough plates.” It wasn’t true, but served the purpose as an excuse. “There’s a Mexican restaurant down the street from me, which is pretty good, if you like Mexican.” They both did, and she didn’t know any other restaurants in L.A., and neither did he. She said she’d pick him up at seven, and he agreed, and the office sent him on a long mission after that, to unload furniture off a truck. She spent the afternoon in the air-conditioned main office, collating scripts with different colored change sheets for the various sets. But at least she was cool while she worked, and felt fresher than usual at six when she left. Her supervisor liked her and felt sorry for her, so she’d created the project for her.