Given Circumstances

That particular evening I’d opened the smudged glass door of a small theater in North Hollywood. A sign on the door advertised open casting.

A man took my name and asked for head shots. He was tall in the wrong kind of way–at least 6’4”– and I could tell by the way he turned up his eyebrows that he hugged shorter women for almost a minute and closed his eyes while he did it.

“I don’t have head shots. I have these.”

The only professional photographs of me were taken in San Francisco the year before. I’d had professional hair and makeup done as a way to shore up my fragile self-esteem after a stretch of bad dates. I stood in front of converted warehouses in a neighborhood called the Dog Patch, posing for a photographer in unstable shoes. Only two of the photographs turned out.

I slid one of them towards the too-tall man across a surface in the front room acting as both a refreshment table and a ticket desk. This photo was taken out on the grass somewhere. My face was less panicked and awkward in it than the others, but it was a seated full-body shot, the kind usually containing an entire family in rolled-up jeans.

The too-tall man introduced himself as Carl and asked what else I’d been in. He had tufts of scrunched black hair all around his large head and a goatee that looked painted on. 

“I haven’t really been in anything, except one or two things at school.”

I was good at acting but didn't like it, which was the reverse of how it usually went. I’d discovered my talent while taking a theater elective in college to overcome my shyness. When I expressed this to the class, a crowd of girls who worked at Victoria’s Secret and boys who spoke in fake English accents during all their monologues called me The Shy One for the remainder of the semester. 

Three things happened before the class ended in December. I discovered I could cry on command and had excellent comic timing, I made an enemy of the Westshore Mall Victoria’s Secret, and I landed a major part in the school's production of The Importance of Being Earnest.

Carl walked out from behind the ticket desk. His gait was slightly pigeontoed. He reminded me of the tallest man I’d ever dated. He’d walked with his feet turned in, as if walking normally placed too much of a burden on his toes. On our second date, he’d picked me up wearing clogs and socks, and the sight of the clog-heads pointing towards each other marked the end of our courtship. 

Carl sighed. He had a look about him that predicted, with heavy shoulders and arms, a terrible performance from me. He said, “That’s OK, we did say open casting, we’ve had a hard time finding someone for this part.”

He called out two people from an office on the other side of a narrow hallway. 

A man and a woman emerged. The woman had thick chestnut hair and eyes so large and round she looked permanently startled. The man was slim and tall in a normal, pleasant way. He had tightly coiled blond hair and blue eyes that crinkled. The whole effect was of a cherub who’d been up to something naughty. Curiously, considering the weather, he wore an oversized blue cardigan that draped over his knuckles and past his butt. 

The woman introduced herself as Carmen, she said she did the lights. “I used to act but I don’t anymore. Carl,” she batted her eyelashes at him, “was good enough to give me something to do.”

“Why don’t you act anymore?”

“I got the yips.” Her eyes grew even larger and rounder as she said it. She wore a rubber wedding band on her ring finger that matched Carl’s. I wondered how much she knew about, or tolerated, the long hugs. 

The naughty cherub introduced himself as Jo. “Just like that,” he added. “Just J-O. Like in Little Women.”

I knew immediately his name wasn’t Jo, or at least not his full name. I knew it the way I knew my shoe size and blood type. When we shook hands a feeling of small needles ran up my elbows and flushed through my ears.

“What’s it short for?”

I expected him to say Joseph, but I knew that wasn’t it either. It was something else.

“What’s what short for?”

“Jo.”

“Nothing.”

He pulled up his cardigan sleeves. His strong forearms were covered in blond hair. Suddenly I was back at the kid’s corral of a missionary conference in Mexico City. It was me and some other kids, all in secondhand clothes, playing with dented legos in a room with terrible acoustics. A man with forearms just like Jo’s walked in and led one of the children out by the hand. He was a little boy with tightly coiled blond hair. 

Carmen cleared her throat. “This way,” she said, leading me to the stage area just off the front room.

It was my first time in a community theater and I’d expected cinema-style seating and a raised stage. Instead the stage was a cracked cement floor flush with the rest of the building. Facing it were upholstered metal-frame chairs resting on tiered wooden risers. 

Carmen explained the production. She talked with long, expressive hands that had knobby knuckles and pointed fingernails. 

“This whole thing is going to be a bunch of little monologues–not even one-acts. Just a bunch of two to five minute scenes. There are twelve of them in total, written by the whole company. Carl–” she waved her arms towards him with a flourish, “will be directing.”

Jo had pulled so hard on his cardigan sleeves he looked like a handless man. 

He mumbled out, “I wrote this one. The one we’re going to be reading. We’ve had a hard time finding the other part.”

There was a small round table at the center of the stage with two stacks of stapled paper. Jo walked towards them, and as he picked one up he glanced up at me and scratched his head. His face was twisted up like he was trying to remember what he’d had for breakfast. 

“Maybe we should read another one. There’s one other one we haven’t fully cast yet.”

His name was something Biblical, like Jonas. I hadn’t known him very well, but I remembered him now. During another missionary conference where his dad was a keynote speaker we sat towards the back and played thumb war. He’d beaten me twice. 

Carl shook his head. “This girl–what was your name again? Sorry, we’ve done a lot of these. She’s perfect for Dolores.”

“My name is Essie,” I said. 

Jo cocked his head like a labrador. His curls bounced over his eyebrows. “Is it short for something?”

I wasn’t going to lie like he had. “Yes, it’s short for Esther.”

His face blanched. “Oh, I see.”

Was it Joshua? Maybe it was Joshua. I’d seen him one more time, when we were ten years old. We were being baptised, and he was in line in front of me. When they dunked him in the small pool I’d watched water drip off the back of his white t-shirt. Afterwards we sat next to each other wrapped in threadbare towels, eating wafers and communion grape juice. I knew if we saw each other again he’d be my first kiss, but we hadn't. Something had happened with his family, some tragedy or scandal. 

I scanned over the script. It was a two-hander, a man and a woman. The man, Erik, was described as blond and broad shouldered. Dolores was described as petite, with dark hair and bird-like features. I understood now why Carl said I was perfect for it. A few people had used the word bird to describe me.

 “What’s the context for the scene?” I asked Jo.

He put his hands together and placed them against his chin like a film director giving an interview.

“Well, you don’t need to know that.” His voice had an edge of nervousness. “Not for this scene. In fact, it’s better if you don’t.”

I scanned the script again. The small needle feeling increased. I walked a little closer to him, taking the cautious steps of a nature photographer.

“I want to know my given circumstances.”

“Given circumstances?” 

“Yes.” I paced around the table and summoned the exercise from my acting class in college. It was one of the only ones I’d liked. The others included getting on your haunches like a monkey, or throwing a beach ball around and saying the first thing that sprang into your mind. The boys in class who spoke in a fake British accent during their monologues never knew what to say when they caught the ball.

But Given Circumstances was a useful exercise. 

“Where am I, what just happened, what relationships exist, what pressures am I under?” 

We were standing close enough to each other now that the small needle feeling was a current passing between both our stomachs. I caught snatches of his last name. It was something Dutch, de or van something. I remembered asking my mother why the man who spoke at the conference had a funny accent. She said he was Dutch. My next question was why a Dutch man spoke in tongues like the other Baptist Missionaries. 

Carmen and Carl sat on two of the metal-framed chairs. Carl pointed at his Apple Watch. Carmen asked if we knew each other.

“I think so.” “I don’t think so.” We said in unison. 

Carmen laughed. 

“Jo, what are my given circumstances?” I asked again.

He held his script with trembling hands and scratched his neck. “The given circumstances are–this is a man and a woman who–” 

He cut himself off. 

I scanned the lines again. The scene took place in a ditch somewhere. Erik and Dolores had ropes around their wrists and ankles. Dolores wasn’t Erik's wife. Her mother made tamales, which her father sold in a cart with a dinging bell. Erik was a preacher who spoke at missionary conferences. He’d been taken by Dolores's smile and the elegant way she sat. 

I read the first few speaking lines, mouthing and finger tracking as if I were learning to read. They were talking about what they’d miss most when the kidnappers came back and finished the job. 

DOLORES: The smell of masa steamed in a pot.

ERIK: My son. My little boy.

It wasn’t my mother who’d told me about the tragedy and scandal, it was my father. He’d been friends Jo's father. He’d said something like, “We think they got in the wrong cab, like one of our other missionary friends did. But maybe he wasn’t as lucky as our other friend.”

All they’d found was his empty wallet.

Jo looked at me with misty eyes. I placed my fingers around his wrist, then dropped them.

“It’s OK, actually. I don’t need to know the given circumstances.” 

Carl asked if we were already in character.

“I don’t think so.” “I think so.” We said in unison. 

“Well,” Carl said. “Then read it or move on, OK?”

I read my part without a fake, insulting accent and said the Spanish words perfectly. 

Carmen looked even more startled. Her eyebrows were so high they appeared to be on fishhooks. “Wow, that was very good. What was your name again?” 

“Essie,” I said. I was still looking at Jo.

Carl said, “Why don’t you have headshots?” He looked indignant about it. His goatee twitched under the spotlights Carmen had keyed up for the day’s auditions.

I placed the script back on the table and smoothed it out carefully, straightening the corners worn by the six or seven dark haired girls who read for Dolores before me. 

Jo and I stared at each other for a long time. 

“We’ll be in touch.” He pulled on his sleeves again. “We’ll be in touch about the part.”

I nodded at him. “It was really good to see you again, Josiah.”

I closed the glass door on my way out.

I wasn’t getting the part.