Around the World in a Bad Mood! by Rene Foss Read Free Book Online

I’ll be out here next week. Can I move in then?”
    â€œSure, donworryaboutit, no problem.”
    Olive and I worked out the details regarding keys and phone numbers and then she gave me the address. My first New York address: 22 Lefferts Blvd., Top Floor. It wasn’t exactly Fifth Avenue. In fact, it was about as far away from Fifth Avenue as a girl could get, and yet I was thrilled. I had found a place in New York on my own and I was now about to embark on a journey that held all sorts of possibilities.
    I began making my plans. As soon as I was settled, I would start my acting classes, get new head shots, find an agent, and start looking for an apartment in Manhattan. Oh yeah . . . and fly a few trips. After all, my first priority would have to be my job. I arranged to have my boxes shipped out (courtesy of WAFTI). I had a lot of boxes because I planned on staying in New York, and since the shipping was free I decided to take advantage and get as many of my personal effects as possible (like my clothes, books, cross-country skis, tennis racket, roller skates, and assorted other necessities, not least of which included my stereo, the speakers, and about three hundred albums—this was the eighties) sent to my new home, 22 Lefferts Blvd., Top Floor. I had arrived! I had a roof over my head and a song in my heart.

Il Fait Souffrir
(One Must Suffer)
    A LL TOO SOON I discovered the song in my heart was the blues. This living-in-Queens thing was worse than I imagined. To put it mildly, it sucked. My housemates were colorful (to say the least), and the ringleader had a flair for drama and a hot temper the likes of which I’d never seen. Combine the temper with a few vodkas and you had quite a lethal combination. He was home a lot and unhappy. I was home a lot, too, so we spent a great deal of time together. Joy. Why was I home so much? After all, this was my new life, wasn’t I the one who was going to take acting classes, get an agent, and be a star? Yeah, that was the plan, but in making these plans I forgot to include the part about being on reserve with WAFTI. You know, sitting on call twenty days out of the month, ready to be at the airport with one hour’s notice (and no beeper allowed)! Sometimes I would fly ten days in a row. I felt as though I lived in my uniform and the only good thing I can say about that is that it reduces your dry-cleaning bill considerably. If you never take it off, you can’t get it dry-cleaned!
    Plus, getting in and out of Manhattan was no small feat. I had to walk eight blocks and then take two trains. I could really go in only on my days off, which were irregular, thus making it difficult to take classes consistently or to attend auditions. It also made it difficult to look for an apartment. You see, I discovered that in New York there is a whole system to obtaining a decent, or for that matter an indecent, apartment. To begin with, you have to decide whether you wish to navigate the stormy sea of rental properties alone or with the assistance of a broker. Going it alone requires a lot of phone-calling, running around, and encountering some unsavory characters along the way. Enlisting the services of a broker also requires a lot of phone-calling, running around, encountering unsavory characters, and shelling out a huge sum of cash to the broker in the event he or she finds something for you. The advantage to using a broker is that if you’re fortunate enough to hook up with a good one, he or she can speed the process along and prevent you from going on some wild-goose chases. I didn’t have the money to use a broker or the time to go on a wild-goose chase, so I simply stayed where I was—22 Lefferts Blvd., Top Floor. It was sort of like a bad marriage.
    Actually, the housing thing was the least of my problems. The guys were nice and for the most part they were gone for eight- or nine-day stretches. Even the ringleader had to fly his trips, so often I