I'm Glad My Mom Died(10)
The worst part of all of this is the stuff on my teeth. This morning when I went through hair and makeup, they did my hair in two braids and then told me to open my mouth wide. I did as I was told, and the makeup person dripped brown juice-like gunk into my mouth, explaining that she was doing it to make my teeth look rotten. The gunk dried quickly and felt disgusting, what I imagine it’d feel like if I didn’t brush for a month. It’s felt that way the whole day since, and I hate it. I can’t help but run my tongue along the gunk because it’s so bothersome and distracting.
“You don’t look happy to be here. Try and look happy to be here,” Mom says as we both enter the background-designated trailer bathroom. I’d been holding my poop for an hour and couldn’t hold it anymore, so I finally asked a person with a walkie-talkie if I could please go, even though Mom tells me I might be labeled difficult for doing so.
“Sorry,” I say while I poop and Mom wets a paper towel with water. I’m embarrassed she still insists on wiping my butt. I tried to tell her recently that now that I’m eight, I think I can handle it, but she looked like she was gonna cry and said she needs to do it until I’m at least ten because she doesn’t want skid marks on my Pocahontas underwear. I know if I did it there wouldn’t be skid marks, but it’s Mom’s tears I’m more worried about.
“Just stop frowning, okay?” Mom asks, to ensure I’ve heard her request. “Your eyebrows are all bent in and angry-looking.”
Wipe. Wipe. Wipe.
“Okay.”
I get back out to my dirt pile and try to look the opposite of how I feel, but it’s hard with the sun being so bright. I can’t help but squint.
“Where’s the sad-looking kid, the one I pointed out earlier? Let’s just use her,” the director shouts to the assistant director.
The AD points to various children, and the director shakes his head no until the AD points to me.
“Yeah, her.” The director nods.
“Come on, come with me,” the AD says, taking my hand and walking me toward the director.
The director tells me to sit in an old-timey car, look off slightly to my right, and “do nothing.” I nod. After a few takes, he says he got the shot.
The AD walks me to Mom, who’s waiting near the background crafty table. He says that I’m done for the day because they used me in a key shot so I can’t be in the background anymore.
“A key shot?” Mom asks, clearly excited.
“Yeah. Actually, I have to bring over some fresh paperwork because it’s technically a principal role.”
Mom’s almost shaking with joy. “How did this happen?”
“Well, the little girl we hired wouldn’t take direction—she just kept smiling no matter how many times we told her to look sad. But not your daughter. She’s got a great sad face,” he laughs.
“She does. She does have a great sad face,” Mom says, nodding and beaming and seeming to forget that a half hour ago that sad face was the very thing she was trying to get rid of.
“Anyway, we used your daughter for the role instead, so now she’s technically a principal performer.”
The AD peels off to grab the new paperwork, and Mom turns to me and grabs my hands in hers.
“They used you, Net! They used you!”
Mom gets home and calls Academy Kids immediately to gush about my principal contract. They tell Mom this is great news, that this means I’m establishing a reputation as a kid who cooperates and takes direction, two of the most beneficial traits of a child actor. They tell Mom they’re going to look for longer-running background jobs for me—“core background” jobs. These are the kinds of jobs you can’t get when you’re new to extra work because the extras casting director doesn’t know your reputation yet. Mom looks perturbed at the news.
“Core background? That just sounds like a glorified extra. What about principal roles? They just hired her as a principal for Golden Dreams, so can’t she start auditioning for principal roles?”
“Well not quite yet. We want to get a bit more experience under her belt and then we can reassess.”
Mom says all right, but I can tell she doesn’t like that answer.
“Reassess my ass,” Mom says while she’s hanging up the phone. I always worry the person on the other end of the line hasn’t yet hung up when Mom’s complaining about them, but so far it’s luckily never seemed to be an issue.
Mom’s a bit tense for the rest of the night, but by the next morning she swings into a good mood when Academy Kids calls to say they got me a part as a “core background performer” for an upcoming pilot. Eight days of work.
“You might be a glorified extra for now, baby,” Mom says to me as she brushes her teeth. “But if we keep going, you’ll be a bona fide principal performer soon enough.”
She spits in the sink.
“I think that’s how you use ‘bona fide,’ I’m not sure.”
8.
THE PILOT SHOOT GOES WELL, and while I never get upgraded from glorified extra, there is one event on the shoot that gets me closer to Mom’s goal of me becoming a principal performer.
There’s a principal actress my age with a mother who takes a liking to Mom. That mother gives Mom the number of her daughter’s agent, Barbara Cameron.