The Tiger Catcher

A few minutes to one, he pulled up to a Paramount side gate off Gower. The guard there knew him. “Hey, C.J.,” he called out to the smiling security man.

Josephine was impressed. “You’re on a first name basis with the guard at Paramount?”

“How you doin’, Jules,” C.J. said, peering inside the Volvo. “And where’s our boy Ashton today?”

“Who’s Ashton?” Julian said with a wink.

A smirking C.J. was about to lift the gate, but Josephine leaned over Julian to flick her audition pass into the open window. Julian smelled her meadowsweet musky perfume, verbena mint soap, and the chocolate Milky Way on her breath. Pressed against the back of the driver’s seat, he inhaled her and tried not to get lightheaded—or worse.

“You’re fine, young lady,” the guard said, waving her on. “You’re with him, go on through. Do you know where you’re going?”

“Do any of us really know where we’re going, C.J.?” Josephine said cheerfully. They drove past. “Who’s Ashton?”

“My get-into-Paramount card,” Julian replied, looking for her soundstage. “Also, Warner’s, ABC, CBS, Universal, Fox. Really my get-into-life card. Run, it’s right here. Or you’ll be late.”

At the gray door to Soundstage 8 marked “Auditions,” Josephine said sheepishly, “Um, do you think you could wait? I won’t be but a minute. Five tops. I’ll buy you lunch after. As a thank you.”

“You don’t have to do that,” he said.

“I want to. But also”—she coughed with a beseeching smile—“maybe after I buy you lunch you could drop me off at Griffith Park? The stupid Greek Theatre is so far. And then that’s it, I promise.”

After she disappeared inside, Julian texted a rushed half-sentence apology to Ashton, switching the phone off again before he could get an outraged reply.

3 (#ulink_3b5c04f6-e65d-54b0-b271-1b911a91208d)

Lonely Hearts (#ulink_3b5c04f6-e65d-54b0-b271-1b911a91208d)

JOSEPHINE CAME OUT WELL OVER AN HOUR LATER, FELL INTO his Volvo, and said, “God, that took forever.”

“Did you get the part?”

“Who knows?” She was unenthusiastic. “One of the other girls said she knew Matthew McConaughey, Mr. Mountain Dew himself. I hate her.” Said without malice. “She’s got connections. What time is it? I’m starved, but the Greek is on the other side of town. Where can we grab something quick?”

He took her across Melrose to a place called Coffee Plus Food. It was almost closing time, so they were nearly out of coffee plus food. The joint was also blissfully empty of people. It was just the two of them and the cashier, a bored, unsmiling Australian chick. They sat at a round steel table by the tall windows. Josephine tried to pay, but Julian wouldn’t let her. She ordered three sausage rolls (“I told you I was famished”), an avocado salad, a coffee, and the last morning bun on the tray after he assured her that the morning buns were not to be missed, like an attraction at Disneyland.

“I’d like to go to Disneyland someday,” she said, devouring the pastry. Even Ashton’s Riley, who ate primarily kale, allowed herself the morning bun. It was crispy and caramelly, a cinnabun mated with a croissant and glazed with crunchy sugar. “It’s like love in a bun,” Josephine said, her happy mouth sticky. She said she’d have to come back for another one before flying back home, and Julian restrained himself from asking when such a hideous flight might take place.

“What do you do, Julian?” she asked as she started on the sausage rolls. “What do you teach?”

“Nothing, why do you keep saying that?”

She twinkled. “You left your house this morning dressed for school.”

Julian was going to tell her that he did indeed teach a story writing night class at the community college, but now wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. They were off for the summer anyway, so technically he wasn’t a teacher.

“Teaching is a noble profession,” she went on, the smile playing on her face.

“I know,” he said. “I come from a family of educators. I’m just not one of them.”

“So what do you do?”

“A bunch of things. I run a blog, I write a daily newsletter …”

“Ooh, a blog about what?” she said. “Teaching?”

Now Julian really didn’t want to tell her.

“Come on, what’s your blog called?” With buttery fingers, she took out her phone. “I’ll look it up.”

He wished he had named his blog, “Deep Thoughts from a Viking Lord.” Instead he was stuck with the truth. “From the Desk of Mr. Know-it-All.”

“I knew it! You tell other people how to live!” She laughed. “You have that look about you.”

“What look is that?”

“The fake-quiet-but-really-I-know-everything look.” She was delighted. “Is it like an advice column?” Grinning, she leaned forward. “Do people drown you in their suffering?”

Sometimes yes. “Mostly they write to ask how to get rid of birds that fly into their houses.”

“Not for advice on love, are you sure?”

He tried to keep a poker face. “It’s not that kind of blog. I’m not Mr. Lonely Hearts.”

“No?”

How could one maintain a poker face against such onslaught?

A few years ago, he started distilling his website into a daily newsletter. He picked a handful of questions, tied them up with a theme, and offered a handful of life hacks and pithy sayings to go along with them. The soul is a bird inside your house, Nathaniel West wrote. Better one live bird in a jungle than two stuffed birds in a library.

The young woman clapped. “I can’t wait to bookmark you,” she said. In her voice, even a word like bookmark sounded erotic. “Do you have advice for frustrated actresses?”

He wanted to impress her with his own inappropriateness by telling her to never go topless unless it was essential to the story. “Dress to the camera,” is what he said.

Flicking up the collar of her see-through blouse, she crossed and uncrossed her bare legs. “Done. Bring me my pasties and a fedora. What else?”

Did she just say pasties? Mon Dieu.

“Once,” Josephine said, “a casting director told me not to try so hard to be someone else. Just be yourself, she told me, and I’m like, you idiot. I’m auditioning for Young Nabby Adams on John Adams, isn’t the whole point to be someone else?”

Julian laughed.

“I get a ton of advice,” she went on, “especially after I don’t get the part. Don’t be so desperate, Josephine. Relax, Josephine. Have fun! Drop your shoulder! I’m like, where were you before my audition? If that’s all I had to do, I’d be winning a Tony by now.”

“How long have you been at it?”

“How old am I? Oh yeah—that long. I prefer stage to film,” she announced, like it was a badge of honor. “It’s more real. And I’m all about making it real.”

“So why do you come to L.A. then?” Not that Julian was complaining. But L.A. was a make-believe town.