Star Quality
“A hundred now, a hundred when the job is done.”
Roberto handed me the money and winked. A lot of my clients behaved as if “half now, half later” was a concept they’d created, rather than a stipulation of the contract they’d signed. If I had been in character I might have said something, but I tended to leave the dramatics for the job. Instead, I nodded wordlessly and stuffed the cash in my pocket. Roberto wanted someone to turn up at his brother Andrew’s wedding to accuse him of cheating. This would be the fifth wedding I’d screamed my way into, although it would be my first in a church, which gave me pause. I was raised Catholic, after all. What would my mother say? I suppose something along the lines of: “Don’t say I didn’t warn you—you never had the star quality to make it as a real actress.” My mother had never actually seen me on stage, though she did cringe when I entered a room, so I always knew I had a certain presence. Luckily, my mother thought I was a good little saleswoman at The Mattress King—and most of the time I was.
After Roberto left me in the park, I fingered the money and checked my phone. I had half a day to kill until the wedding and it wasn’t like I needed to dress up. Roberto said it would be more embarrassing for Andrew if I turned up exactly how I was. I decided to catch a bus into town to pass the time, see what was on at the cinema. Despite my own lack of success in Hollywood, I still enjoyed seeing the success of others on screen—it was a comfort to see that someone had managed to become a person worth watching.
At drama school, my tutor told me my posture would keep me from landing any leads. Even arching my back and shoving my chest toward the ceiling was not good enough. I simply had the aura of a hunched person—irreparably stooped, he called it. I quit not long after that. But drama school helped me find a place inside myself where I felt no shame. Whatever the scene needs, I can do. It was why I always got small, disgusting parts in the more “arthouse” performances. But I was never the star. In fact, most of my performances made people turn away. There always seemed to be something more interesting to focus on, like dirt under a fingernail, a loose thread on a shirt. I never quite got the hang of making people look at me.
This was how I ended up in the public humiliation game—I put an ad online listing my credentials (drama school drop-out, will degrade self for money) and watched the responses roll in. Sex stuff, mostly, as you can imagine. That wasn’t really my bag, since few of those requests required an audience. But there was also the occasional request for me to humiliate others. With these requests, audiences seemed to be mandatory. Turning up at a promotion meeting and accusing the celebrated employee of fraud. Ruining a classmate’s graduation dinner by laying out drugs he’d been selling on campus. Crashing a conservative birthday party to remind everybody that the wife used to be a call girl. I liked to think of my clients as my supporting actors, helping me get a reaction from the audience. And in these scenes, the eyes were finally on me—no one covered their face as I stormed into an anniversary party to announce I was a secret love child. No one pretended to check their phone when I detailed the gambling habits of a local politician. I was the one to watch. The requests were usually petty, and they always worked best when I wasn’t actually lying. But truth wasn’t the point. They had been disgraced, their moment ruined and gone forever. I charged a couple hundred plus expenses for the honors.
* * *
My Best Friend’s Wedding was the only film showing at the cinema—the one where Julia Roberts loves her best friend so much that she does everything she can to hurt him and his beautiful fiancée before the wedding day. Julia Roberts could never do what I do. She lets her emotions get the best of her. Her attempts to demean the fiancée backfire when she allows herself to feel guilty, her affection for the best friend clouds her judgement and she can’t see him for the worm he is. Julia makes a mess of it all and by the end the only person hurt and humiliated is herself. The film was quite frankly a disappointing hour and a half. It did give me one good idea for Andrew’s wedding, though.
I turned up to the church at the exact time given to me by Roberto. I was waiting outside, putting on lipstick I had found in the cinema bathroom. I cut off the top with my fingernail, so it wasn’t as gross as you might think. Usually, makeup was reserved for when clients specifically requested it, but the movie had gotten under my skin. I couldn’t risk feeling how Julia Roberts must have felt when she first saw Cameron Diaz—ugly and pathetic. Julia Roberts was girl-next-door gorgeous, sure. But then Cameron Diaz strides onto the screen. Blonde, shiny, bright. Suddenly Julia’s curly hair isn’t so charming. Suddenly those oversized suit jackets aren’t so cute. So I slapped on some lipstick to give myself an edge. I pursed my lips and did quiet vocal exercises to prepare for my entrance, mainly hissing and yawning. Then I yanked my chest as high as it would go and walked through the thick wooden doors.
“I have an objection, Father.” My voice echoed through the chapel as I walked down the aisle. The chapel was beautifully decorated—violet silk ribbons on the end of every pew, little white flowers hanging from the altar. “I cannot stand idly by as the man I love marries another woman.” I watched Roberto’s face, his brow furrowing slightly. We hadn’t much discussed the topic of love—his suggestions for my declarations were more sexual in nature, as they often were. But after watching Dermot Mulroney squirm awkwardly in a gazebo as Julia Roberts confessed her feelings, I realized that true humiliation comes from love, not lust. “Andrew, you told me you loved me and I know that’s the truth. I don’t believe you could ever love someone like her.” I paused for effect and pointed to the bride. She matched the decorations perfectly, with tiny daisies in her hair and a purple ribbon tied around her waist. She was already crying and the tears were ruining her lilac eyeshadow. Tears this early were never a good sign—usually the sense of shock tended to linger a little longer, giving me more time to captivate my audience. Then one of the bridesmaids started to barrel towards me—a sure sign to wrap things up. “I’ll always love you, Andrew. Always.”
I ran out of the church to the courtyard, stumbling a couple of times to ensure Roberto had time to catch up with me. This was all planned, of course. He wanted to be a hero, to forgive his brother in front of the crowd. Some of my clients were like this. Not enough to destroy someone else’s life, they wanted to inject themselves into the possible redemption. I once had a client who wanted his brother’s kinks to be made public at a picnic just so he could deliver a speech about tolerance.
“Don’t ever come back here, you hear me?” This wasn’t in the script I’d planned, but sometimes my clients went off-book in the moment. Annoying, yes, but I couldn’t let that distract me from my own performance. A crowd had gathered outside of the church, watching with gaping mouths and clasped hands. The attention was thrilling, as always. It felt like when I played the human embodiment of menstrual cramps in a play about puberty, a magenta spotlight following me as I writhed along the floor doing my best impression of uterine lining. For the few rare seconds I slid across the stage, the crowd was enthralled. Now, even the groom couldn’t take his eyes off me.
I started to respond, per Roberto’s request, “Okay, I’ll go, but know this…,” when he smacked me across the face. Hard. Not part of the plan. My legs wobbled as Roberto shoved me to the ground. The crowd was staring at Roberto now. I tried to think of something to say to get their eyes back on me, something like, “Big mistake, huge!” But that was the wrong Julia Roberts movie.
“No one here believes your lies. Go home.” Roberto spat on the ground next to me, then walked back towards the church. I felt flecks of spit ricochet onto my face and I bit my tongue to stop the sob rising in my throat. It was no use.
I hadn’t had an unrehearsed cry in years, the kind where you aren’t monitoring the tear fall or guarding against snot running out of your nose. When I looked up at the crowd, no one was looking at me. Most had turned their backs. An older couple let themselves glimpse at me for a moment before pretending they were looking at the tree to my left.
* * *
An acting coach gave me a diet tip that always stayed with me—whatever you’re eating, halve it, then add peas. It was genius, really. Take pasta, for example. I’d put pasta on the boil, scoop out half with a ladle, then add an inordinate amount of peas. I’ve never had a taste for peas, but the simplicity of the tip always stuck with me. Needless to say, I had many bags of frozen peas on hand to rest on my potential bruise.
I’d never been smacked before, and I wasn’t sure what would happen to my face. I switched on a lamp in the kitchen and looked in the mirror. The lipstick had smudged along my chin and my left cheek was blotchy and warm. I’d cried the whole way home, mostly out of shock, and something else too. The smack seemed to have shaken something unwanted back into my body, something I’d forgotten—lying on the floor, all backs turned, an occasional glance of pity tossed my way—the shame I’d worked so hard to spread to others crawling back into my body, making me invisible. I remembered what it was like to be one the other side of the wall I’d built up. I wasn’t a spectacle or a star or at the center of anything at all. I was low and ordinary and rotten, existing only in the margins of their beautiful day. I tried to imagine the day as it should have gone, the feelings I should have had walking away from that courtyard—glorious, triumphant. But I can’t force those feelings. If I could, I wouldn’t need to do this kind of work. I pulled the frozen peas out of the freezer and pushed the wet bag into my face. I took the bag of frozen peas into bed with me, where it took up exactly one half of my pillow.
* * *
Work was slow at The Mattress King. No customers, no boss. People don’t buy beds on Tuesdays. I made myself useful by rearranging the show beds. Most of the mattresses were pretty terrible, but we fancied them up with quilts and pillows for customers. I was plumping up a set of cushions when Roberto entered the shop. He stood across the bed I was primping, holding an envelope of cash in his hands. I had texted him to bring the money to The Mattress King because I couldn’t shake the final image I had of him looming over me in the courtyard, the shadow of his body covering mine. I needed him to be smaller. Whenever I’d bump into a client after a performance, they always seemed so small.
“A hundred, right? It’s all there. Thanks.” He didn’t look at me. I climbed over the mattress between us and grabbed his arm, pulling him down toward my face.
“What was that in the courtyard? That wasn’t the agreement.” Roberto shook his arm away, rubbed his hands over his face.
“Right, yeah. Sorry about that. Andrew said a bunch of nice stuff about me when we were getting ready for the wedding, like a toast, you know? And then I saw my parents at the church, and… I couldn’t go through with it all. It’s a sentimental day, all right? And then in the courtyard… I just panicked.”
“But why didn’t you just cancel?”
“I mean, I’d already paid half the money, and I guess, to be honest, I still wanted something to happen. I still wanted to be the good guy, you know, save the day? And it worked. People I don’t even know want to shake my hand, it’s like I’m a celebrity or something.” Roberto smiled, then looked down at his feet.
“So what? All that for a pat on that back from some guy you barely know? Now that is fucking sad. You need attention that badly?” I laughed now too, trying to make it as pointed and sharp as I could. I shook my head and looked Roberto up and down. I was hoping for a flushed cheek, a stutter, any sign of shrinking. I noticed the underarms of his shirt were damp. Good enough. Roberto shrugged and passed me the money. The envelope felt warm in my hands. He walked out of the shop and I lay down on the mattress.
My first ever client had asked me to turn up at a fundraiser for an animal shelter and accuse the organizer of siphoning cash. When I got up on stage and listed the ways the organizer had used the money, the audience clutched their little mutts and gasped. I felt their indignation all around me, the raw and palpable anger. The organizer looked like he was about to cry, and I felt that too. His shame, his sadness, regret. I’d caused those feelings. I created them, and in that moment I controlled them.
After that, I tried to take more jobs involving a stage—anything for full focus. Maybe that’s where I went wrong with the courtyard. Flat ground, no hierarchy. If I’d stood on a bench maybe things would have been different.
I pulled out my phone to update my online listing: no location changes, no ad-libbing. All cash, upfront. My shoulders relaxed as I typed out my new conditions. When I rolled off the mattress to read through my list, a woman came into the shop and waved me over. She opened her mouth to speak and I turned away, walking instead toward the back office. I hoped she looked around to see if anyone else saw my performance. I hoped she had to pretend to turn her words into a yawn. I typed out a final prerequisite to the listing: I get the final word.
Caitlin Lydon (@caitlydon) has an MA in Professional Writing from Falmouth University and lives in London, England. She was shortlisted for the London Independent Story Prize, and her work has appeared in places such as Passengers Journal and Sonder Magazine. She is slowly but surely working on a novel.