Seeing Stars by Diane Hammond Read Free Book Online

outfits that was about a year away from fitting properly and five years away from being appropriate, and Reba was wearing a sundress that she shouldn’t—the smocked elastic top had migrated up her Tweedledee belly, leaving the hem about four inches shorter in front than in back. God knew when she’d last washed her hair. Mimi sighed. She really should insist that the girls go back to their homes, but the mothers were adamant that their daughters would be stars, and anyway Mimi would miss the combined six thousand dollars a month.
    She pushed through the studio door, which was covered with little handprints and had a tendency to stick, and trudged past the vacant reception desk that one of her young-adult students should have been manning. Waiting for her in the greenroom were Laurel Buehl, one of her newest clients, and her mother, Angie. As usual, both were immaculately dressed and made up. They came from outside Atlanta and favored floral print purses and intricately coordinated outfits. Mimi had found them at an International Modeling and Talent Association meeting in LA nine months ago. At sixteen, Laurel was one of her oldest girls. Normally Mimi didn’t take on child clients older than fourteen because finding them work was so hard, especially when they lacked screen and TV credits. The midteen years, in Mimi’s vast experience, were the Hollywood landscape’s valley of the shadow of death. They were too old to play preteen and too young to play late teen, and no one wrote parts for midteens anyway, so the best they could do was hunker down, do their schoolwork, keep up with as many acting classes as they could afford, and wait it out. She’d explained all this to the Buehls, but they’d been unusually focused and utterly determined to come to Hollywood, with or without Mimi’s help, so what was there for Mimi to do but hop onboard?
    And the girl did have some talent, which, coupled with her obvious drive and focus, might be enough to carry her. She also had flawless skin, so fair it was almost translucent. After Mimi had mentioned almost offhandedly to Angie that Laurel’s hair, though platinum, was relatively limp, the two of them had compensated with hundreds of dollars’ worth of extensions at a Rodeo Drive salon. The girl’s eyes were a striking, true cornflower blue and her figure was trim, though big-boned. She’d have to work very hard to keep her weight down when she entered her thirties, but for now she simply looked athletic and healthy—so much so that whenever Mimi saw the mother, she was struck anew by how off she looked in comparison. Even through her immaculate makeup Mimi could see dark, almost bruised-looking circles under her eyes, and though she was slender, it was in a bony, slack way, as though she’d lost a lot of weight recently and her skin hadn’t sprung back. Mimi had never seen Angie eat, not even at the studio potlucks one or another of the parents convened from time to time—though the Buehls didn’t attend studio social functions very often. Angie did carry energy drinks with her everywhere, which Mimi supposed could account for her pallor and the waxy quality of her skin.
    “We were hoping you’d have a minute,” said Angie now, jumping up from the greenroom sofa when she saw Mimi.
    “I haven’t worked out the order of the showcase yet, but I still want her to do the Marbles monologue,” Mimi said, because everyone always wanted to know the order of the scenes to be performed in her showcases, despite the fact that Mimi said over and over that she didn’t make up the schedule until that morning, when she had a final tally of who was participating and what scenes they would present. Clear Glass Marbles , the monologue she’d chosen for Laurel, was about a young woman recalling her mother’s very recent death from cancer. When it was performed well it gave the actor a chance to cry, which could bring down the house. Mimi had seen parents and even an agent or two