Free Someday, Someday, Maybe by Lauren Graham

watched on TV the night before and I’ll say, “You know, I tried to be an actress for a while.”
    No one will blame me for giving up. Everyone says it’s impossible anyway. I’ll be normal and maybe that’s fine. Maybe my life story is to be a person with a normal job and a normal life. That’s what most people have. I was wrong to believe I was any different. I’ll call Clark. I’ll explain to him that I’m finally ready to get married like everyone always thought we would. In fact, I kind of want to call him right now. Maybe I’ll book a flight to go see him in Chicago after my shift tomorrow. My backup plan is looking pretty appealing right now.
    I think of all the goodbyes I’ll have to say. I’ll miss my dad, and big, clumpy Dan, in a weird way. It will be hard to be without Jane, but Chicago isn’t too far away.
    It’s the right decision. I know that now.
    Slowly, I take the last few steps down the hallway toward the closed door of Stavros’s windowless office in the back corner of the theater. I take a deep breath, then knock three times.
    (Goodbye, New York.)

6
 
    You know, Frances, you did really well tonight. You have two callbacks and they’re both with respected agencies but if I had my way you’d just study for another year and not start auditioning yet. It’s such a different skill than the work we do here and you can develop some bad habits so please whatever happens don’t stop training. The business will take your energy and class will be more necessary than ever; you have to keep filling up the well. You’re so young and God this business can be so draining. I wish it wasn’t the way but try to work in the theater. Don’t forget the goals you had for yourself. It’s so easy to give in to a paycheck but if you aren’t doing work that feeds you and feeds the audience you’re only contributing to the worst in us as a society. We need to see the human condition reflected by artists—that’s what this calling is—and don’t forget that you have real ability and you’re a gifted comedienne, and that can have the worst traps of all. It’s such a talent to be able to make people laugh but God forbid you end up on something joyless and soul-crushing like that show with all the nurses .
(Hello, New York!)
    T he first person I spot outside the theater is Deena, smoking with a few other classmates. Deena is one of the older members of our class, in her forties maybe, and is still sort of famous from a show she did in the ’80s called There’s Pierre , which I remember watching all the time growing up. But she never mentions it, so I don’t either. She’s one of my best friends in class, but I wonder sometimes how she feels about having gone from the lead of a hit TV show to commercials, which is mainly what she does now. And not the kind where she’s playing Deena Shannon, formerly of the hit show There’s Pierre , but just a regular actor pretending to like one brand of orange juice over another.
    “Anything?” she asks, flicking an ash on the ground.
    “Um, yeah, actually. I got two callbacks, with agencies.”
    “Yeah!” she says. “You only need one.”
    “I almost quit show business tonight,” I say, a little breathless, still astonished to have gone from complete despair to something like euphoria in such a short time.
    “Again? You just quit two weeks ago.”
    “I did?”
    “You’re a sensitive kid,” she says, laughing. “That’s okay. You’ll get tougher. Let’s have non-farewell-to-show-business drinks instead. I’m meeting Leighton at Joe Allen. Want to join?”
    Deena and I sit at the glossy wood bar at Joe Allen, crowded with actors whose shows have just let out and patrons who’ve come from the theater. I almost feel as though I belong in this crowd tonight, or that it’s possible I could someday.
    “Absolute Agency! You’re kidding me! Look at you.” Deena hugs me hard when I tell her the news, her perfectly polished red nails squeezing my