Entr'acte by Frank Juliano Read Free Book Online Page B

Avenue.
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Chapter 9
    Joyce walked the several blocks to the photographer’s studio.
    The photos were waiting for her, wrapped in brown paper, on his desk.
    “Sorry if I was a little rude yesterday,” he said. “I see so many people looking for something for nothing.”
    Joyce nodded; he seemed sincere.
    “I really do wish you well,” he said. “Maybe we can get together sometime.”
    “I really don’t think…” Joyce started to say. He still had a hold of one end of the envelope, and he pulled it toward him, bringing Joyce’s face within range of his puckered lips.
    She gave a hearty tug and got the package away from him. As Joyce started down the stairs, she heard the guy call after her, “I’ll give you a call. I have your number right here.”
    He was waving a copy of her resume and grinning oily at her.
    Things didn’t get any better a little after 9, when Joyce reached the unmarked building where a popular ABC soap is taped. There were at least 70 young women inside the heavy glass doors of the office lobby, all of whom looked to Joyce to be perfect for the part—whatever it was.
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    She handed her resume and photo to a rather perfunctory clerk, who glanced at it and tossed it into a wire basket.
    She sat in one of those industrial modern chairs, where a strip of coarse beige fabric is stretched over a length of PVC pipe shaped like a potato chip.
    Joyce picked up a copy of Elle magazine off the coffee table and leafed through it, eyeing the competition and trying to eavesdrop without being too obvious.
    “Going out to the Hamptons this weekend?” one tall blonde was asking another. “It’s a little early but the season has started. A bunch of guys from class have a house for the summer…”
    “Mezzaluna has the best pizza in Aspen. It’s New York style,”
    a young man who looked like a messenger said.
    “In other words, the same stuff you can get here,” his friend said. “If you’re going to be in Aspen, go to the Jerome Hotel. Last time I was there Eva Longoria, Jennifer Anniston and Vince Vaughan were at the same table.”
    “Did they ask you to join them?” the messenger guy shot back.
    More people gravitated to this conversation, which seemed to be about the places to be seen in as many different cities as one could sound familiar with. Joyce guessed there was some kind of point system for ridiculing everyone else’s choices, with extra credit for name-dropping.
    She thought of all the famous people she had met. Once her grandmother booked the reigning Miss America for a visit to her dance studio in Camden.
    Muriel and Joyce were impressed with the young woman, but since she wanted to be a veterinarian and had juggled in the talent competition, there wasn’t a whole lot Miss America could share with the class.
    She and her father had also seen the first President Bush once, 53
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    shopping for fishing lures. It was after he had left office but Bush and his family were in Maine a lot back then.
    Unlike some “year round summer people” who never quite get the handle on living in Maine, the President and his family really belonged.
    Joyce decided no one in this group would want to hear about her Bush siting.
    “The Little Five Points Pub is a good place,” the clerk who had taken Joyce’s resume said.
    “Where’s that?” somebody in the knot of people asked, in an apparently unguarded moment.
    “Atlanta.” The clerk said the word slowly and deliberately, like someone trying to teach an infant to say “ma-ma.”
    “Well, who the hell goes there in summer anyway?” the embarrassed woman asked.
    Two women sitting on Joyce’s right were also eavesdropping. “I’ll be hitting the same old clubs in the Village,” the prettier one said.
    “Oh, no. New York in summer is for the tourists,” her friend said in mock concern. “You HAVE to go somewhere else.”
    “I spent all the money I had just to get here,” the first woman said, putting on a