She thought of the man who’d interviewed her for the job of receptionist in his hair salon, the way he’d looked at her hair, like it was a nest of squirming snakes, Thank you, we’ll be in touch. Then there was the woman at the attorney’s office, dressed like a man, who talked like a man, and whose flinty gaze said Now you’re sorry, right, for wasting your life, well, too late, sister.
The final job was located on Avenue C, a neighborhood Sara remembered well from her days in New York. Back then it had been a dangerous place, but now, as she moved down Sixth Street, she marveled at how much things had changed. There were young professionals on the street, along with the usual tradesmen and delivery people. Tompkins Square Park, once a mire of drug addicts, was now both park and playground, a well-tended expanse of green where children scurried in all directions while their well-heeled parents looked on.
Addison Film Works was located just off the park, the building a bit more dingy than the ones around it. There was no doorman, only a spare foyer with walls painted institutional gray and an ancient elevator that creaked and trembled as it rose to the fourth floor.
The door was at the end of a corridor stacked high with cardboard boxes and black towers of videotape. The name of the company was printed in block letters on frosted glass. A single name was written in the lower left corner of the glass: Art Gillman.
A stubby, overweight man in a dark double-breasted suit greeted Sara as she came through the door. “I’m Art Gillman,” he said. His hair was a lackluster brown, very thin on top, parted low on the left side and then swept over to cover spaces that would otherwise have been bald. “Sorry for the mess. I just got back from L.A.” He shrugged helplessly. “When I’m out of the office, things go to pot.”
Sara smiled weakly.
“So, what do you go by?” Gillman asked.
“Go by?” Sara asked.
“Name.”
“Samantha,” she blurted out before she could stop herself. “Samantha Damonte.”
Something registered in Gillman’s eyes. “That’s good. I like that. Samantha Damonte.” He stripped off his jacket, hung it on a wooden hat rack, then dropped heavily into a seat behind a cluttered metal desk. “You work in the film business before?”
“No,” Sara admitted.
Gillman nodded toward the single empty chair that rested in front of his desk. “Have a seat.”
Sara did so.
“It takes a little getting used to,” Gillman added. “But most people catch on pretty fast.” He glanced about, as if looking for an assistant. “Mildred’s supposed to stay till five, but she cut out early, I guess.” He eyed the small wooden cabinet to the right of his desk. “You want something to drink?”
“No, thank you,” Sara replied.
“How about a cigarette.” He winked. “I got a full pack.”
Sara shook her head.
“Good,” Gillman said. “A girl should keep fit.” He leaned back and folded his hands behind his head, his belly thrust out aggressively so that Sara noticed how large and firm it was, the way it seemed to poke through the stained white shirt. “So, tell me a little about yourself, Samantha,” he said.
Sara offered her best smile. “There’s not much to tell.”
“Start anywhere,” Gillman told her brightly. “And by the way, you can call me Art. We’re real informal around here.”
“I used to be a singer,” Sara said. “Art.”
“A singer?” Gillman said exuberantly. “No kidding? What kind of singer?”
“Clubs. But that was a long time ago.”
“What kind of clubs?”
“Cabaret.”
“So you’re used to performing for an audience,” Gillman said. “That’s good. ’Cause you got to deal with a lot of people in this business. People hanging around.”
Sara nodded silently.
“What else, Samantha? What else can you tell me about yourself?”
Sara tried to think of something interesting, but couldn’t.
Gillman continued to wait for her to respond in some way, show some sparkle, tell him something he didn’t drag out of her. But all she could think to say was “I lived in New York a long time ago. When I was a singer.”
“You’re from the South, right?” Gillman said. “Still got a little twang there.” He leaned forward, rested his hands on the desk, fingers entwined. “You don’t have to like it, you know.”
Sara looked at him quizzically.
“You don’t have to like what you do, I mean,” Gillman said. “Lots of people don’t like what they do. But they got bills to pay, kids to raise. A lot of people in this business have kids, you know. Do you have any kids, Samantha?”
“No,” Sara answered.
Gillman looked at her with what seemed a deep regard, as if he were trying to get beneath her skin. “How old are you, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Thirty-eight,” Sara answered.
“That’s pretty old for the film business,” Gillman said. “It’s a younger group, I mean. But the way I see it, it’s the person that matters. People who see you, they wouldn’t take you for thirty-eight.” He looked her up and down. “Thirty tops. Well, maybe thirty-one, two.” He seemed to be talking to himself again. “Yeah, that’s it,” he concluded. “Thirty-two tops.” He waited for her to respond, and when she didn’t, he said, “Have you ever been on a film set, Samantha?”
“No.”
“Think it would bother you, all that hustle-bustle?”
Sara shook her head.
“Well, even if it did, it wouldn’t matter, right?” Gillman said happily. “I mean, you can keep focused, I’m sure.” He sprang to his feet. “Okay, so why don’t I show you around.”
Sara followed him out of the office, then down the corridor to a set of padlocked double doors. “This is where the action is,” he told her as he fumbled for a key. “I keep everything locked up because we’ve had a couple things turn up missing over the years.”
He unbolted the lock and swung open the door into a pitch-black room. “This is where we do the shoot.” He stepped inside and turned on the lights. “It’s not the Waldorf, but in this business you gotta keep an eye on the budget.”
The room was a labyrinth of small cubicles, each with papered or painted walls, and set up to resemble offices, medical examination rooms, prison cells. To the right, a barn loft, complete with fake bales of hay, stood separated from a pool hall by a slender partition. There was an Arabian tent, its multicolored flaps hanging limply in the windless air, and an automobile showroom, complete with two convertibles. Toward the back a sandy beach, dotted with plastic palm trees, swept out from a large photograph of the ocean. “We can shoot just about any kind of story using these sets.” He motioned her to the left, where a mattress lay on the concrete floor, stark and unadorned, covered with a single white bedsheet. “It’s not up to me, you understand,” he said as he approached a still camera mounted on a tripod. “Other people have a say.” He stepped behind the camera and began fiddling with its dials. “Just have a seat there,” he told her, nodding toward the mattress.
Gillman continued to adjust the camera. When he’d finished, he seemed surprised that Sara remained in place, glancing about, her arms stiffly at her sides. “I have to have a look,” he said. “At you, Samantha.”