JOHN AND ROSE
Chapter Thirty-Nine
When she had finished showing her screenplay
to Rose, Nadia walked casually to the janitor’s closet at the back of the
building, hoping that Sam was still around. In spite of her embarrassment over
knocking over the bucket and falling in front of him, she wanted to apologize
for disrupting his work.
As she walked, she counseled herself on what
to say. She wasn’t going to be rude or overly forward, and she certainly wasn’t
going to stand there and stare at him, her mouth snapping open and shut like a
beached fish. Those were actions that she could expect out of Mary—and she had
always prided herself on being more dignified than her sister. Even if I
made a fool of myself earlier, there’s no reason to keep on acting that way,
she thought, straightening her back as she headed down the long hallway.
When she reached the janitor’s closet,
though, and saw Sam rinsing out the mop and bucket, her resolve left her.
Nervously, she watched him work, staring at him in spite of her best intentions.
After a moment, he seemed to sense that she
was there and turned around. Nodding to her, he finished his work and turned
off the water, drying his hands on a dirty towel. "Can I help you, Miss
Calvert?"
"N-Nadia. Please, call me Nadia."
Her faced turned red as she stuttered, wondering what was wrong with her, that
she became so flustered in front of a man she had hardly met.
"All right. Nadia. What can I do for
you?"
"Uh…Mr...uh…Sam…I…I wanted to apologize
for—for getting in the way of your work earlier. I should have been watching
where I was going."
He stepped out into the hallway, careful to
keep his distance from her. "Don’t worry about it. I shouldn’t have left
the bucket in the middle of the floor."
"No…no, I should have been paying more
attention. I wasn’t thinking about anything but what was in my hands…and I
could have run into someone or tripped over something, if your bucket hadn’t
met my foot first."
"There was no harm done. You just…spread
the water around a little. Made my job a little easier."
"Only because my mom…Mrs. Calvert…was
nice about it. Somebody else might have gotten mad."
"Well, she didn’t get mad, so there’s
nothing to worry about. Were you hurt when you slipped?"
"Aside from a sore…uh…well, landing
hard, nothing was bruised but my pride. I just don’t like messing up something
that someone else is doing."
He raised an eyebrow. "Now, that’s
unusual. Most girls like you wouldn’t notice someone like me."
"What do you mean, most girls like me?
I’m no better and no worse than anyone else. And I’m not a girl. I’ll be
graduating from college in a year. Besides, I couldn’t help but notice you. If
you hadn’t been cleaning, I would have thought you were an aspiring
actor."
"Why would you think that?"
"Well, this is a movie studio."
"Your mother wouldn’t hire me, you
know."
"Why not? Would you make a fool of
yourself on camera? Even if you couldn’t act, I bet she’d take you as an
extra."
He looked at her patiently as they left the
hall and walked into the waiting room. "In case you didn’t notice, I’m
black."
"I noticed. So what?"
"Do you really think your mother would
hire someone for a movie who wasn’t white?"
"She’s done it before. She once said
that she didn’t care if someone was purple, as long as they could act. Did you
even ask her about it?"
"I just asked for a job, and I was
grateful to get it. Or maybe you don’t know how things are out there."
"I know. I go to college in Mississippi,
and I was afraid I’d have to leave for a while, because it’s so hard to get
enough money for things like that."
Sam raised his eyebrow again, looking at her
with more respect. She wasn’t an ordinary, rich, white girl, that was for sure.
"Why don’t you ask for an
audition?" Nadia went on. "Mom’s casting for her next picture, and
she might need someone like you. You look good enough," she blurted out,
then slapped her hand over her mouth, unable to believe what she had just said.
"Thanks. I don’t know about…what was it
you said? Audition?"
"Auditioning. You’d just read a part of
the script, and she’d tell you what she thought, and hire you if you seemed
right for the part."
"That counts me out right there. I can’t
read."
"You can’t read? Oh…oh, I’m sorry."
Nadia had forgotten something that she had learned, but hadn’t paid much
attention to…many black children never really had the chance to learn to read.
It was something she had learned in her studies to be a teacher, but had never
really thought about until now.
"Well…but you could still see about
being an extra. Mom’s next picture is set in Los Angeles, so you’d probably fit
it just fine…"
"And if I prefer the job I have?"
Nadia wrinkled her nose. She couldn’t imagine
anyone wanting to clean for a living…at least, it didn’t appeal to her.
"Well, if it makes you happy…"
"You really think she’d hire me?"
"If you were right for the part, yes.
Just ask her about it when you go to work tomorrow…she’s going to be in the
movie as well as directing it, so she’ll know what she needs."
Sam rubbed his chin, considering. "I’ll
think about it."
"If not this picture, then another.
Sometimes she has two or three filming at once. If you were really good at
acting, she might even give you a contract, to keep you from going off to
Hollywood."
He laughed. "No chance of that."
"You never know. I bet she’d rather hire
a good actor than a janitor…janitors are easier to find, and she can do her own
cleaning if she has to."
"Or make you do it."
"Yeah." Nadia looked dismayed at
the idea.
"Well, don’t tell her about me, because
I can’t make any promises, but I’ll think about it."
"I can’t ask for more."
Slowly, Nadia put her hand out, and the two
shook hands, grinning conspiratorially.