April 19 - Debut

"You ready?"
"Just about."
"You need anything? Water?"
"No, I'm fine. Just give me another minute."
"OK. Everybody's on the set. Whenever you're ready."
"Right, I know. Sorry. Just, um. Nerves."
"That's fine. Just come when you're ready."
The production assistant closed the door and Linda took another look in the mirror.
The face looking back at her was her own, but it was hidden by what looked like a mask of caked on make-up. Everyone promised her it would make her look pretty, but she thought she didn't even look like herself and that maybe that wasn't such a bad thing. She just wanted to get through it and get her money and forget it ever happened and pray that everyone else would forget about it too. She couldn't believe how many young actresses ended up doing this kind of work thinking it would get them recognition, that it would lead to something real. Recognition from who? The lonely pathetic weirdos who watched this crap? The casting directors that scoured the city for "talent" to flesh it out?
As for Linda, she was doing it for the money, plain and simple. She and Dale had moved to LA almost a year ago with the same get famous dreams everybody else had. And she knew it wouldn't be easy, she'd heard the stories about how hard it was to get an audition or representation or call backs, and she knew everybody took their knocks and that the industry was cruel and heartless. She knew all that, but she also knew it would work out and she would make it because there was no way she couldn't. She was too talented and special not to.
But the work wasn't coming in and the bills were, and so Dale had suggested this gig as a one time only thing and he was quick to assure her that he would do it himself if he thought for a minute they would be interested in him, but he knew they wouldn't, not with the way he looked.
"Do it for us," he'd told her.
She wiped away a tear.
So this is it. Nineteen years old and broke in LA. This is where I've ended up. I have parents. I have grandparents who sent me birthday cards when I was growing up. I was the captain of my softball team. I played the lead in Godspell in high school. Hell, I graduated from high school and I could have gone to college, but I came here instead. I promised my parents I would be OK, that I wouldn't do anything that I would be ashamed of later. I told them I would be good.
There was a knock on the door.
"OK, I'm coming," she said.
Run. Just leave. You don't have to do this. You're better than this. You can just go home. You can. You can just leave. It'll be OK.
But instead, she took another look in the mirror, turned off the light, and went down to the set for the first day of filming for the new Thighmaster infomercial.