The Internship

#1

I stood outsider her dressing room, too nervous to move. As film staff and on-set caterers continued their frantic runs up and down the backstage hallway, I couldn't help but absorb some of their secondhand anxiety. Only three days of filming, yet somehow already a week behind schedule. And the star of the show constantly disappearing to the sanctuary of her dressing room between every failed shot. It was annoying the first two times. By the third, the director was ready to scream. And by the fourth, it like seemed he was finally done playing hide and seek. He had thrown his clipboard and coffee onto the floor, storming out of the studio and declaring that the leading lady was now the responsibility of "whatever intern you could wrangle to do this shitty job." At first, I leapt at the opportunity to show everyone how dedicated I was to the production. Now I just felt a deep sense of regret. Suddenly, a production assistant snuck up behind me and broke my concentration on self-pity.

"You have 20 minutes to get her out of that room or we're going home for the day. Again."

I nodded, putting on a smile of fake confidence. She glared back with dead eyes, making no effort to hide her misery. Fuck it. If I'm gonna do this kind of shit for a living, better get used to being screamed at now. I cautiously approached the door, clamping my hand into a fist and ignoring the fact that my entire body was shaking. My knuckles pressed up against the heavily-decorated dressing room entrance. This is it. Taking one final deep breath, I read the name on the bright yellow tape and knocked three times.

"Lia Marie Johnson?"

"Go away." A voice called from the other side of the door.

I gulped and knocked again, hoping the answer might somehow miraculously change.

"Go away!" The voice repeated, louder this time and with a clear tone of agitation.

No such luck. Only one thing left to do. I went to turn the door handle, but it wouldn't budge. Yep, just like they said. This is gonna be rough. I reached into my pocket and retrieved a small silver key. Well… here we go. I pushed it slowly into the keyhole and turned it, trying to make as little noise as possible. Click! Unlocked at last. I tried to shake off any nerves I had left in me. It was the moment of reckoning. Taking in a deep breath, I swung the door open and quickly stepped into the dimly lit room, swinging it shut tightly behind me. I barely had time to take in my surroundings before I was greeted by an empty wine bottle being flung at my face.

Dodging it as best I could, I stepped out of the way mere seconds before impact, watching as it smashed into the door behind me and shattered into a thousand tiny pieces.

"So, umm, hey Lia, I'm…"

"Leaving? Okay cool, bye." She interrupted.

I looked up and saw her sitting on a chair by her vanity mirror across the room, legs pressed to her chest in a curled-up fetal position. The ground was covered in empty liquor bottles, dirty wine glasses, and all sorts of really expensive-looking clothes. I approached cautiously, making sure not to step on anything that looked too expensive.

"So, I'm an intern in the studio and we were just wondering…"

"I'm not going back out today. Feel free to leave any time."

My heart immediately sank in my chest. That was the answer everyone was afraid of hearing. The same answer we got yesterday. And the day before that. At first, I was angry, ready to just leap across the liquor-stained carpet and shake some goddamn sense into her. "Why did you even bother showing up then?!" I would've screamed. "Why are you making everyone's life so miserable?!"

Luckily, I had enough common sense not to go through with that plan. Instead, I just sort of stood there in the midst of the chaotic scene, letting reality sink in. My first real internship on a film project was probably going to end up getting canned before it had even started. I wondered if I could still put it on my resume anyway. I mean, does two days on the set of a failed TV pilot count as 'experience?' What skills would I even put on my resume as having learned from this? And what about-

Suddenly, my internal monologue about future job prospects was broken my another one of Lia's interjections.

"You're still standing there" She said.

"Yeah, I am," I replied without thinking.

"Why are you still standing there?"

At first, I tried to think of some witty comeback, as it was clearly just a rhetorical remark to get me to leave. But instead, something else came to mind. I didn't really know why I felt the urge to ask, but it was definitely a question I wanted answered.

"Well, why are you still sitting there?"

"What?" Lia's head immediately lifted up from its sulking position.

This is when I saw her face for the first time. I mean, I had seen it online during stuff like Kid's React on YouTube and other internet-garbage I used to watch in middle school, but never in real life. Not even when she was wandering around on set for the few brief hours she had spent outside her dressing room. But now she was staring directly at me, like a predator ready to leap across the room and tear its prey to shreds.

For some reason, the only thing I could think about were her eyes. I had always remembered them as being bright blue. Nope. They were a dark greenish-brown, barely visible in the dim lights of the vanity mirror. Didn't help that there were runny black splotches under both of them. Jeez, I started to think to myself. She must've been crying for a while before I got here. Suddenly, I started to feel sympathy for the girl that was ruining everyone else's day. Something was clearly going wrong here.

"What did you say?" She repeated, probably realizing how long I had been awkwardly gawking at her. I finally came to my senses.

"I, uhh, asked why you were still here," I restated, swallowing nervously. "Like, I mean, if you don't want to be here, why stay on set? Why not just go home?"

She looked away from me and back towards the mirror halfway through my question. I glanced over my shoulder, knowing I could just walk away now and let everyone know the bad news. It would be easy to just go stumble back out of this dressing room, waltz my way onto set, and tell everyone that the star was spending another day to herself. And that she had wasted all our time yet again. All I had to do was leave. But for some reason, I didn't. Instead, I approached her, slowly making my way across the field of sickly-sweet debris until eventually I was standing a mere few feet behind her. She stayed in her fetal position, head curled up behind her knees, staring blankly into the mirror.

"So, you're an intern?" She suddenly asked. A few seconds of awkward silence ensued as I processed the question.

"Yeah."

"You're like, the guy they send to do all the stuff nobody else wants to do."

"I mean, kind of."

"And you don't even get paid?"

"Not with money…"

"Then why are you still here? Like, why even do this?"

I took a moment to wonder that myself. I wasn't being paid to talk to this girl or coax her out of her dressing room to go film a shitty TV pilot. I wasn't even being paid to sit in LA traffic for 40 minutes on my day-to-day drive to and from the studio. And that gas money adds up quick. Finally, I formulated a response.

"I guess I just, you know, care?"

Lia cracked a smile. "About what?"

"I'm not sure. Just making something good that will have my name on it. Something that will make other people happy and something I can actually be proud of."

"You're proud of this TV show?" She asked sarcastically. I couldn't help but chuckle to myself. It seemed we both knew it was going to be terrible.

"I mean, maybe not this TV show" I admitted as she giggled to herself. "But that doesn't mean I have to stop trying! This is just sort of like a stepping stone to other, better stuff, you know?"

"Yeah, seems like a lot of people go their whole lives saying that sort of thing about everything they do," She replied halfheartedly.

"I didn't realize you were so full of wisdom," I snarked.

"Hey man, you don't believe me now, but give it a few years. I've been acting since I was 14 and I'm still doing trash shows."

"Yeah, but, you haven't given up yet, right? Otherwise you wouldn't be here."

"If I hadn't given up yet, they wouldn't have sent you to come fish me out of my dressing room."

"But you're still here. I mean, here as in on-set. You haven't left."

"Yeah," She admitted. "Guess I haven't."

We both stood in silence for a few seconds, pondering the awkwardly-deep conversation we had just shared. Lia was no longer curled into a little ball. She finally seemed comfortable enough to just sit normally in her chair. Her hair was a total mess, and her makeup seemed to have taken a beating from however long she had spent wallowing in tears. But all of that was suddenly nullified by the strange aura of confidence she now had. Her California sun-soaked skin was practically glowing under the lights of the vanity mirror, and as she stood to face me, I suddenly felt a gnawing in the back of my mind. Like there was something I wanted to tell this girl. Something that made me feel like I had known her a lot longer than I really have. Instead, she made the first move.

"What's your name?" She asked.

"James."

"Okay James. Want a drink?"

"Sure."

(Continued in Part 2)