Lost Along the Way Read Online Free Page B
Author: Erin Duffy
an actress in New York City, and so she took the odd jobs that she needed to take while she passed around head shots to anyone who would take one and performed in small plays in tiny basements in the outer boroughs that she thought were beneath her. She couldnât imagine how sheâd ever be able to make enoughmoney to live in one of the awesome apartments she saw on TV, which were somehow always occupied by characters who didnât really have proper jobs themselves. No matter how much she tried to save, she couldnât afford anything other than the tiny apartment downtown that she shared with three other girls she barely knew, despite the fact that there were only two bedrooms. Not the cool Tribeca lofts with floor-to-ceiling windows and views of the Hudson River. Not the luxurious Upper West Side condos with exposed brick walls and working fireplaces. Not the immaculately decorated East Side co-ops with thirty-foot-high ceilings and Waterford vases overflowing with calla lilies sitting on heavy mahogany tables in the foyer. There were no tasseled window treatments, no Sub-Zero refrigerators, no doormen, and no shiny parquet floors so polished they actually looked wet. None of that. Instead, she had furniture from tag sales that she tried to pass off as retro or quirky or effortlessly eclectic, but she never managed to get it right. She spent most of her twenties feeling that way about her entire life. It was exhausting.
Sheâd continued to try to act, but as she approached thirty, sheâd accepted that she was never going to be good enough to make a living at it. As much as she hated to admit it, she wasnât talented enough. Slowly, her dreams of telling James Lipton on Inside the Actors Studio about how sheâd struggled downtown with all the other artists until someone plucked her from obscurity and made her a millionaire began to fade away. Jane felt that life owed her more than what she was born with, but she didnât really want to work the way girls had to work to break into the business. She didnât like being a waitress and she still refused to take naked pictures, and after a certain point what else was she supposed to do? At what point would it have been okay to give up?
Then she met Doug.
She hadnât been looking to meet anyone that afternoon, which was funny because most of the time, all she was doing was looking to meet a guy who could rescue her. She was sitting in a dive bar down by the South Street Seaport, lamenting the loss of another low-paying, bullshit job (walking dogs for a spoiled bitch of a woman who didnât work but for some reason found it impossible to make time to take care of her own pets), when Doug entered. He took the stool next to her and removed a file from the leather briefcase heâd set at his feet. He glanced over at the glass of liquor in front of her and whistled.
December 2004
âWhat is that? Scotch?â he asked, revealing a thick British accent.
âBourbon, actually.â
âWow. You must have had one hell of a morning to be hitting the hard stuff this early.â He shouldâve been turned off by the concept of a girl slugging hard alcohol in the middle of the day, but it seemed as if it actually intrigued him. That shouldâve been her first clue that something was seriously wrong with him.
The truth was, she didnât even like the taste of bourbon, but she didnât have the money to buy multiple drinks, and beer wasnât strong enough. She thought one glass of the hard stuff would provide the most bang for her buck.
âOr maybe Iâm just a raging alcoholic,â she joked, though even then she had her concerns that if she didnât start making some changes, and soon, she might actually become just that.
âAre you?â he asked.
âNo,â she admitted.
âSo what are you then?â
âAn actress,â she said. âWhich means Iâll probably wind up being a
Sheâd continued to try to act, but as she approached thirty, sheâd accepted that she was never going to be good enough to make a living at it. As much as she hated to admit it, she wasnât talented enough. Slowly, her dreams of telling James Lipton on Inside the Actors Studio about how sheâd struggled downtown with all the other artists until someone plucked her from obscurity and made her a millionaire began to fade away. Jane felt that life owed her more than what she was born with, but she didnât really want to work the way girls had to work to break into the business. She didnât like being a waitress and she still refused to take naked pictures, and after a certain point what else was she supposed to do? At what point would it have been okay to give up?
Then she met Doug.
She hadnât been looking to meet anyone that afternoon, which was funny because most of the time, all she was doing was looking to meet a guy who could rescue her. She was sitting in a dive bar down by the South Street Seaport, lamenting the loss of another low-paying, bullshit job (walking dogs for a spoiled bitch of a woman who didnât work but for some reason found it impossible to make time to take care of her own pets), when Doug entered. He took the stool next to her and removed a file from the leather briefcase heâd set at his feet. He glanced over at the glass of liquor in front of her and whistled.
December 2004
âWhat is that? Scotch?â he asked, revealing a thick British accent.
âBourbon, actually.â
âWow. You must have had one hell of a morning to be hitting the hard stuff this early.â He shouldâve been turned off by the concept of a girl slugging hard alcohol in the middle of the day, but it seemed as if it actually intrigued him. That shouldâve been her first clue that something was seriously wrong with him.
The truth was, she didnât even like the taste of bourbon, but she didnât have the money to buy multiple drinks, and beer wasnât strong enough. She thought one glass of the hard stuff would provide the most bang for her buck.
âOr maybe Iâm just a raging alcoholic,â she joked, though even then she had her concerns that if she didnât start making some changes, and soon, she might actually become just that.
âAre you?â he asked.
âNo,â she admitted.
âSo what are you then?â
âAn actress,â she said. âWhich means Iâll probably wind up being a
Readers choose
Kemmie Michaels
Stuart Woods
Mark Richard Zubro
Randy Wayne White
William Faulkner
Gemma Halliday
Chris Carter
Vonna Harper
Dara Nelson