Open: An Autobiography

We walk to the set, a purple apartment with secondhand furniture. We stand around, killing time, while large men fuss with lights and the director confers with writers. Someone is telling jokes, trying to warm up the crowd. I find a seat in the front row, close to a fake door Brooke is supposed to enter. The crowd is buzzing, as is the crew. There is a sense of building anticipation. I can’t stop yawning. I feel like Pete, forced to watch Grease. I wonder why I have so much respect for Broadway, and such disdain for this.

Someone yells: Quiet! Someone else yells: Action! Brooke steps forward and knocks at the fake door. It swings open, and Brooke delivers her first line. The audience laughs and cheers. The director yells, Cut! A woman several rows behind me yells: You’re doing great, Brooke!

The director praises Brooke. She listens to the praise, nodding. Thank you, she says, but I can do it better. She wants to do it again, she wants another chance. OK, the director says.

While they set up for the next take, Perry gives Brooke pointers. He doesn’t know the first thing about acting, but Brooke is feeling so insecure that she’d take notes from anyone right now. She listens and nods. They’re standing just below me, and he’s lecturing her as if he’s the head of the Actors Studio.

Places, please!

Brooke thanks Perry and runs to the door.

Quiet, everybody!

Brooke closes her eyes.

Action!

She knocks at the fake door, does the scene exactly the same way.

Cut!

Fantastic, the director tells Brooke.

She hurries over to me and asks what I thought. Terrific, I say, and I’m not lying. She was.

Even if TV annoys me, even if the atmosphere and the fakery turn me off, I respect hard work.

I admire her dedication. She’s giving her all. I kiss her and tell her I’m proud.

Are you finished?

No, I have another scene.

Oh.

We move to a different set, a restaurant. Brooke’s stalker character is on a date with the object of her affection, Joey. She’s seated at a table across from the actor playing Joey Another interminable wait. More notes from Perry. At last the director yells, Action!

The actor playing Joey seems like a nice enough guy. When the scene starts, however, I realize I’m going to have to kick his ass. Apparently the script calls for Brooke to grab Joey’s hand and lick it. But she takes it one step further, devouring his hand like an ice cream cone.

Cut! That was great, the director says. But let’s try it once more. Brooke is laughing. Joey is laughing - wiping his hand on a napkin. I’m staring, wide-eyed. Brooke didn’t mention anything about hand licking. She knew what my reaction would be.

This is not my life, this cannot be my life. I’m not really here, I’m not really sitting with two hundred people and watching my girlfriend lick another man’s hand.

I look up at the ceiling, directly into the lights.

They’re going to do it again.

Quiet, please!

Action!

Brooke takes Joey’s hand and puts it in her mouth, up to the knuckles. This time she rolls her eyes back and runs her tongue along -

I jump out of my seat, run downstairs, push through a side door. It’s dark. How did it get dark so fast? Right outside the door is my rented Lincoln. Behind me come Perry and Brooke.

Perry’s mystified. Brooke’s frantic. She grabs my arm and asks, Where are you going? You can’t be going!

Perry says, What’s wrong? What’s the matter?

You know. You both know.

Brooke is begging me to stay. So is Perry. I tell them there’s no chance, I don’t want to watch her lick that man’s hand.

Don’t do this, Brooke says.

Me? Me? I’m not doing anything. Go back and enjoy yourselves. Break a leg. Have some more hand. I’m out of here.

I’M DRIVING FAST ON THE FREEWAY, weaving in and out of traffic. I’m not sure where I’m going, except that I’m not going back to Brooke’s. Fuck that. Suddenly I realize that I’m going all the way to Vegas, and I’m not stopping until I get there, and I feel great about this decision. I open up the engine and roar past the city limits, on into the desert, nothing between me and my bed but a stretch of wasteland and a swirl of stars.

When the radio turns to static, I try to tune in my emotions. I felt jealous, yes, but also dis-located, out of touch with myself. Like Brooke, I was playing a part, the role of the Dopey Boyfriend, and I thought I was pulling it off. But when the hand licking started I couldn’t stay in character any longer. Of course, I’ve watched Brooke kiss men onstage before. I’ve also had the experience of meeting a perv who couldn’t wait to tell me about making out with my girlfriend on a movie set when she was fifteen. This is different. This is over the line. I don’t pretend to know where the line is, but hand licking is definitely over it.

I pull up to the bachelor pad at two a.m. The driving has tired me, taken the edge off my anger. I’m still angry, but also contrite. I dial Brooke.

I’m sorry. I just - I needed to get out of there.