Shadow Traffic

The Interview

187 The Interview The jeans were a disaster—a failure on every level. Not sexy enough, not classy enough, too preppy, like something from a different era. What was she thinking to even consider them for the interview? Her mind had been off lately, she knew that, as if it were taking delight in sabotaging her with one trap after another. Even this morning, just after Eric left, she found herself thinking about the farm in Chester Springs, jumping from the tractor that she used to climb every day as a little girl and landing in the hay below, then laughing after she landed when she looked around her—suddenly surrounded by a yellow world. And then, no sooner remembered, than the guilt for remembering it. It was a Pennsylvania memory, and Eric didn’t want her to remember Pennsylvania. He’d bristled when she’d first told him about it—pretended he didn’t but really did—which was so often his way. She was supposed to be from the South just like him, the self-styled “cowboy director,” was supposed to be from Arizona though he really grew up in New Jersey. It would hurt both of them if that came out, not just her, but both of them, he’d said, staring hard at her when he first told her, as if he were her father catching his little girl in a lie. It was shadow traffic 188 like acting, Eric said. Once you accepted the part you had to live it completely. If you started remembering things that didn’t match up with the part, the next thing you knew you’d be talking about them and then you’d betray the character and lose the role. She had nodded and agreed. Who was she to disagree with Eric West, the great director, when he talked about acting? But what she wondered was, if you weren’t allowed to remember yourself, who were you? Maybe that was why she wanted a baby so much, to have something she could remember that would be real. She was doing it again—giving in to the bad thoughts that these days were always just a second away. She opened her closet in search of the right jeans and felt like she was entering a forest . It was obscene to have a closet this big, the way people were living all around the world. But even the most socially activist stars lived like royalty, every single one of them from Angelina on down. Who was she, to think that if she ever became one and had her own money that she’d live any differently? It was just another self-sabotaging fantasy, she supposed. She began thinking about her conversation with Jaime two nights ago at Lillian’s party. He was obviously an intelligent guy, kind of attractive, too, in a non-Hollywood way. Of course she assumed it was Eric he wanted to interview. Why wouldn’t she assume that? When they met people, journalists or otherwise, they stared at her breasts for a few seconds, then turned toward Eric and quickly told him how much they loved his movies and proceeded to ignore her for the rest of the night, treating her more like a poster than a person. Ah, these were better, she thought, taking a new pair of jeans with her as she emerged from her closet, then throwing them on the bed next to her prospective shirt. Sky blue jeans and a pink shirt. Was it too cute a look? Too “Barbie?” She caught a glimpse The Interview 189 of herself in the wall-length mirror and held her stomach in. She ate too much last night when Woody was over. She was nervous around him (she thought even Eric was a little wired), and when she was nervous she ate too much, drank too much, too. Who wouldn’t be nervous around Woody Allen? She’d kill to be in one of his movies. And now, as if it were a punishment for the dinner, she could see the results in her stomach. Stomachs were like cancer , when you thought about it. They only got worse with time. Almost everyone had one when they died, too, no matter how hard they’d tried to get rid of it. If that was your fate in life, your stomach fate, why not get one...