Wait a minute. Had I said that? I bit my lip. I honestly couldn’t remember. And seeing as I’d recently moved back to said small town in Northern Michigan, it was particularly embarrassing.
And then it got worse.
“It’s nothing but a bunch of drunks, rednecks and religious gun nuts,” I heard my voice saying as footage of some unfamiliar, old-timey main street flashed on the screen, complete with a farmer riding a tractor through town. “I’d never go back.”
“What?” Furious, I got to my feet. “I know I never said that! That footage wasn’t even taken here!”
“Can they do that?” Natalie wondered, finally sounding a little outraged on my behalf. “I mean, just take any words you say and mix and match like that? Seems wrong.”
“Of course it’s wrong, but yes, they can,” I said bitterly. “They can do anything they want because it’s their show.” As I poured margarita down my throat, my cell phone dinged. I grabbed it off the couch and looked at the screen.
A text from our oldest sister, Jillian. She was a doctor and usually too busy for television, but lucky me, she must have found time tonight.
What the hell was that???
But before I could reply, another text came in, this one from my mother.
I thought you said last week was the worst. The thing with the mechanical bull.
My head started to pound. I opened my mother’s message and wrote back, I thought it was! I told you not to watch this show, Mom. They manipulate things. I never said that stuff. But I knew she wouldn’t get it. No matter how often or how well I explained the way editing worked, she still didn’t understand. My phone vibrated in my hand. “Oh, Jesus. Now she’s calling me,” I complained.
“Who?”
“Mom. She’s watching the show, even though I told her not to. Do I have to answer this?”
My sister shrugged. “No. But you live on her property. She can probably see in the windows.”
I ducked, then sank onto the couch again. Generally, I didn’t ignore my mother, but right now I really didn’t feel like defending myself or lecturing her again on the how-and-why of editing for ratings. I tapped ignore and tossed my phone on the table. “Can we please stop watching this now?” Picking up the remote, I turned the television off without waiting for her answer.
“It’s not that bad, Sky.” Natalie got off the couch and went to the kitchen to refill her glass.
“Yes it is, and you know it. I just insulted everyone we know here.”
“Maybe no one is watching,” she said, ever the optimist.
“I seriously hope not.” I hugged my legs into my body, tucking my knees under my chin. Glancing out the big picture window, I saw darkness falling over the hilly orchard where I’d grown up. Memories flooded my mind…running through rows of fragrant blossoming cherry trees in the spring, picking the fruit in the summer, rustling through crunchy brown leaves in the fall, throwing snowballs at my sisters in the winter. Maybe I hadn’t appreciated it enough when I was younger, but I loved it here. For all its glitz, New York had never felt like home to me. I’d even liked Montana better than Manhattan.
Natalie returned to the couch and leaned back against the opposite end, stretching her legs out toward me. “All right, silver lining. You did exactly what you set out to do—draw attention to yourself. You’ve always been good at that.”
Had she intended to be snide? Natalie wasn’t the cryptic remark type, and neither was I. If we had something to say to one another, we said it.
I eyeballed her. “What do you mean by that, exactly?”
“Don’t get prickly.” She nudged me with one bare foot. “I’m just saying that you know how to work a room. You obviously charmed the producers into wanting you to stay on.”
“But not so much that they thought I’d win the cowboy’s heart on my own,” I pointed out.
She shrugged. “You said yourself you guys had no chemistry.”
“We didn’t. But why me?” I whined. “Why couldn’t they’ve asked someone else to play the villain?”
“Because they didn’t trust anyone else to play it right. They needed someone to act devious and manipulative but who was also beautiful and appealing enough for it to be realistic that he’d keep you on so long. I think it was a compliment!”
I held up one hand. “Please. Everyone there was beautiful. And haven’t you heard? My mouth looks like someone’s asshole.”
She kicked me. “Stop it. You have that something extra—you light up a room, you always have.” She slumped like a hunchback and contorted her pretty features. “The rest of us just linger in the shadows, waiting to feed on your scraps.”
I rolled my eyes. Natalie was perfectly lovely, and she knew it. She just had no desire to play it up. While I adored cosmetics, she usually went bare-faced. I was a hair-product and hot roller junkie; she let her natural waves air dry. I could easily—and happily—blow a paycheck on a pair of Louboutins; she saved every penny she could and always had.
And that’s why she owns her own business at age twenty-five and you’re still scrambling to get by at twenty-seven. You might be the big sister, but she’s got a shop, a boyfriend, and a condo. What do you have?
I propped my elbow on the back of the couch and tipped my head into my hand. “God, Nat. I really fucked this up. It didn’t lead to Scorsese knocking at my door, and I probably just alienated everyone we know.”
“Quit being such a drama queen. They’ll forgive you once you flash that Cherry Queen smile at them.”
“Ha. Maybe I should dig out my crown and start wearing it around town. Remind them they liked me once upon a time.”
“Does that mean you’re staying here for good?”
Picking up my drink, I took a slow sip. “I guess so, although I promised Mom I’d be out of this guest house by the end of the month. That gives me about three weeks to figure out where to live, or else move in with them.” I grimaced into the glass. “I’m such a loser. Moving in with my parents at twenty-seven.”
“You’re not, Sky. But if you still want to be an actress, why not go back to New York and try again? A lot of people don’t break out right away.”
How many times had I heard that over the last few years?
I swirled the ice around in the glass. Could I take the New York audition scene again? All the rejection was so disheartening. Then there was living in the city itself. New York had such frantic energy, at every time of day during every day of the week. Once upon a time I couldn’t wait to be a part of that. Of course, I’d romanticized it entirely—the life I’d imagined included actually getting the jobs I auditioned for, and being able to pay my rent with plenty left over for shoes, blowouts, and trendy nightclubs, where I’d clink glasses with elite theater people who called each other darling and invited me to summer with them in the Hamptons.
Needless to say, that’s not how it went.
I spent four full years in New York, and the last year I paid my rent solely by bartending, lying to my parents, my sisters, and anybody else who asked about going out on auditions.
How pathetic is that? I mean, plenty of people lie on their resumes about their successes, but there I was lying about my failures, making up jobs I didn’t get.
That beer commercial? They went younger.
That legal drama? Turns out they wanted a brunette.
That web series about vampire nannies? Never heard back.
So after spending my entire childhood dreaming of being an actress and being voted Most Likely to See Her Name in Lights, turns out I wasn’t cut out for it. Or maybe I just wasn’t good enough.
Either way, it was really depressing.
I was debating calling it quits when the opportunity to do Save a Horse came up, and since I hated the thought of coming back a failure, I figured I’d give it one last-ditch effort to find success.