Plan C: Chapter I

Plan C: The Meeting

Lizzie took a deep breath and looked at the clock. It was almost time to meet with her agent via Zoom and yet her father, Chuck, still sat at the kitchen table. Working on a crossword puzzle. It was as if he had no intention of moving from his spot. Yet, she needed him to move so that she could talk to her agent without an audience. She was nervous enough, she didn’t need an extra pair of eyes watching or ears hearing. Guilt about shooing him out of his own house prevented her from speaking up. Especially after the doctor’s news they received yesterday. But she just could not do this meeting with him in earshot and he was the one that insisted that she keep the meeting.

“Dad,” she finally said. “What are you doing?”

“Working the crossword,” he replied with his eyeglasses on the tip of his nose.

“I know what you’re doing, but why are you doing it right here?”

He looked at her. “Because this is my house. This is my table. This is where I always do this.”

She bit her bottom lip. “Fine, I will just cancel this meeting. I don’t want to meet anyway. I mean it’s probably just another rejection.”

He looked at her. “Fine, I will move.”

“Where?” she asked.

“The living room.”

She scrunched up her nose. “How about you go get some breakfast? Or, maybe, go see Sharon? Or even, I happen to know we have a fine library downtown. It’s peaceful and quiet. You can go there.”

“Are you kicking me out of my own house?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “For maybe 30 minutes or an hour?”

He looked at her.

“This was your idea,” she said. “You are the one who said I should meet with my agent.”

Chuck stroked his beard a couple of times. “Fine, I’ll go.”

“Thank you,” she said relieved and a little shocked this wasn’t the plan the whole time.

It felt like he moved super slow but he finally walked out of the house. She heard his truck start up and she inhaled. Technically, he wasn’t supposed to drive anymore but he still did on short trips around town. It always made her nervous whenever he drove himself somewhere but she didn’t have time to worry. She needed to get back into her tough New York actress mindset to prepare for the rejection she was sure was coming.

Her phone dinged and she saw a text from Matt. “Good luck!”

She smiled and closed her eyes. It was time to get this over with.

She turned on her computer and waited for the Zoom app to connect. The first person she saw onscreen was a middle-aged woman. This was not what Lizzie expected to see. It had been so long since she had met with her agent, she couldn’t exactly remember what he looked like. But she did know one thing, her agent was a man. And probably much younger.

“Lisabeth Cartier?” the woman asked.

“Yes,” Lizzie responded. “That is me.”

“I have Harold Beckinworth on the line for your meeting,” the woman droned. The camera switched to a well-dressed man sitting behind a desk.

“Lisabeth,” he said enthusiastically. “How are you doing?”

“I am fine,” she said automatically. “How are you?”

“I am great,” he said. “Thanks for asking. Listen, I don’t know if you have heard but I have recently left the Creative Plus Agency.”

“I hadn’t heard,” she said. “I figured you just dropped me.”

He smiled. “Don’t be ridiculous!” He talked so fast. She had become acclimated again to the slower speech in Wyoming. His rapid-fire talk was wearing her out to keep up. “You come highly recommended from your acting coach. He is a close personal friend of mine and I value his judgment.”

“He is a good guy,” she said. “He has always believed in me.”

“He has a good eye for talent and when he talks, I listen. Which is why I want to keep you as one of my clients.”

“You still want to be my agent?” she asked slowly.

He was reading a tablet on his desk. “It says here, you are currently in Wyoming.” He looked up into the camera and made direct eye contact with her. “Pennsylvania?”

“No,” she said. “The state.”

“What’s that again?”

“I’m in the state of Wyoming.”

He quickly typed something into his phone in his other hand. “Oh!” he said. “That’s a little different.” He looked up at her and she nodded. “That’s a little farther away. That’s great! You taking some kind of,” he looked down at his phone again and used his fingers to zoom the screen out, “mid-western, western, westly, way-out-west vacation?”

“No, I moved back home,” she sighed. As usual, this business really knows how to completely annihilate you. He wasn’t going to keep her as a client. Not now. And what did it matter anyway? She definitely couldn’t move back east now. Not with her dad being sick. Suddenly, she felt guilty about shooing her dad out of his own house. For what? For this rejection that was coming in about 3 seconds.

“Oh,” he said again and looked down at his phone. “Any chance you’d move back here?”

“No,” she said and her words were stronger than she felt. “I can’t. I have some family issues I need to tend to.”

“Okay, okay, okay.” He continued to study his phone. “Are you close to Denver?” he asked.

“It’s about 5 hours away. I’m closer to Salt Lake.”

“Okay,” he said slowly. There was a moment of silence while Lizzie waited for him to drop his rejection bomb. “Look, I have a buddy that actually just opened a regional agency in Salt Lake. He is signing clients now. Let me talk to him and see if we can work out some kind of deal.”

It seemed as if he just slipped into a foreign language. She leaned closer to the screen. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, I might be able to get you some local commercial work. It won’t be national level but it could keep you busy and get you some work. That will keep your file open. Are you interested?”

“I,” she wanted to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. Yesterday had been a pretty intense day. Maybe her exhaustion was causing cruel dreams. “Yes,” she managed to say. Her voice wasn’t quite as strong as when she thought she was being rejected. “I am interested.”

“Good!” he said. “Let me work out the details but the important thing is to keep you working and in the system. “Then if your,” he cleared his throat, “family issues clear up we can get you back here and working. How does that sound?”

“That sounds good,” she said and as the words came out the thought struck her. Was it too good to be true? Maybe. But it’s funny how that little amount of hope changed her whole perspective. If Harold was only letting her down easy she was going to take it. Today of all days she needed this ray of hope to keep going. If it did turn out this was all some sort of joke she wouldn’t know until later. Later sounded like a better option to her today.

“All right,” Harold said. “Thank you for your time. We will be in touch.”

And with that, the call ended. Lizzie took a deep breath. “We will see about that,” she said jumping back into reality and the task at hand. The longer she thought about the conversation, the more she doubted she’d ever hear from Harold again. But it didn’t matter. Since she had moved back she felt like she had been on sand. Sand that was giving out from under her. And then yesterday’s news totally knocked her down.

But today? Today she felt like she was finally able to stand on some solid ground. At least for a moment. And that helped her get things in focus and she could finally see a plan coming into view. It might change tomorrow but today she had some rock to stand on.

She finally could see a plan coming into view. She knew what she needed to do.