I'm Glad My Mom Died(4)

“But Grandma and Grandpa wouldn’t let you,” I say.

“But Grandma and Grandpa wouldn’t let me, that’s right.”

I wonder why Grandma and Grandpa wouldn’t let her, but I don’t ask. I know better than to ask certain types of questions, the ones that go too deep into specifics. Instead, I just let Mom offer up the information she wants to offer up, while I listen closely and try to take it in exactly the way she wants me to.

“Ow!”

“Sorry, did I clip your ear?”

“Yeah, it’s okay.”

“It’s hard to see from this angle.”

Mom starts rubbing my ear. I’m immediately soothed.

“I know.”

“I want to give you the life I never had, Net. I want to give you the life I deserved. The life my parents wouldn’t let me have.”

“Okay.” I’m nervous about what’s coming next.

“I think you should act. I think you would be a great little actress. Blonde. Blue-eyed. You’re what they love in that town.”

“In what town?”

“Hollywood.”

“Isn’t Hollywood far away?”

“An hour and a half. Granted, freeways are involved. I’d have to learn how to drive freeways. But it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make for you, Net. ’Cuz I’m not like my parents. I want what’s best for you. Always. You know that, right?”

“Yeah.”

Mom pauses the way she does before she’s about to say something she thinks is a part of a big moment. She bends around to look me in the eye—still holding my unfinished hair strand.

“So what do you say? You want to act? You want to be Mommy’s little actress?”

There’s only one right answer.





3.


I DON’T FEEL READY. I know I’m not ready. The kid in front of me hops down off the stage steps in a way that confuses me. He doesn’t seem nervous at all. This is just another day for him. He takes a seat next to the dozen or so other children who are already sitting because they’ve already performed their monologues.

I look around at the boring, white-walled, undecorated room and the rows of kids in metal stackable chairs. I thumb the paper in my hands nervously. I’m next. I got in line last so I would have more time to practice, a decision I now regret because my nerves have had more time to build. I’ve never felt this way before. Sick to my stomach from nerves.

“Go ahead, Jennette,” the man with the black ponytail and goatee deciding my fate tells me.

I nod to him, then step up onstage. I set the piece of paper down so I have more freedom to use my hands for the big gestures Mom instructed me to use, and then I begin my monologue on Jell-O Jigglers.

My voice is shaky as I start out. I can hear it so loud in my head. I try to tune it out, but it just keeps sounding louder. I smile big and hope that Goatee doesn’t notice. Finally, I get to the closing line.

“… Because Jell-O Jigglers make me giggle!”

I giggle after the line, just like Mom told me—“high-pitched and cutesy, with a little nose wrinkle at the tail end.” I hope the giggle doesn’t come across nearly as uncomfortable as I feel with it coming out of me.

Goatee clears his throat—never a good sign. He tells me to try the monologue one more time, but “loosen up a bit, just do it simply like you’re talking to your friend… oh, and don’t do any of those hand gestures.”

I’m conflicted. The hand gestures are exactly what Mom told me to do. If I get to the waiting room and tell her I didn’t do the hand gestures, she’ll be disappointed. But if I get to the waiting room and tell her I don’t have an agent, she’ll be even more disappointed.

I do the monologue again, losing the hand gestures, and it feels slightly better, but I can tell Goatee didn’t get exactly what he wanted. I disappointed him. I feel awful.

After I finish, Goatee calls out nine names, including mine, and tells the other five kids they can go. I can tell only one of the kids understands that she’s just been rejected. The other four waltz out of the room like they’re going to get ice cream. I feel bad for her but good for myself. I am a Chosen One.

Goatee tells all of us that Academy Kids would like to represent us for background work, which means we’ll stand in the background of scenes for shows and movies. I immediately know that Goatee is trying to make bad news sound good by the way that his face is overly animated.

Once he lets us go to tell our moms in the waiting room, Goatee calls out three kids’ names and asks them to stay. I linger, trying to be the last one out of the room so I can hear what’s going on with these three special children—these three Even More Chosen Ones. Goatee tells them that they have been selected to be represented as “principal actors,” meaning speaking actors. They did so well on their monologues that they are not being represented as human props but rather as genuine, certified, worthy-of-speaking ACTORS.

I feel something uncomfortable brewing inside me. Jealousy mixed with rejection and self-pity. Why am I not good enough to speak?

I get out to the waiting room and run over to Mom, who’s balancing her checkbook for the fourth time this week. I tell her that I’ve been chosen as a background actor, and she seems genuinely happy. I know this is only because she doesn’t know that there is a higher tier that I might have been chosen for. I worry about her finding out.