Parallel

application, I convinced my parents to let me try out.
    The whole thing happened so fast. Alain offered me the role on the spot. He and the producers knew about my college plans and assured me that production would wrap by late July, leaving me plenty of time to get to Northwestern before classes started in September. Stunned and more than a little flattered, I took the part.
    Life just kind of sped up from there. By February, I was flying from Atlanta to L.A. for fittings, table reads (super exciting when you have no lines), and weapons training. I missed spring break. I missed prom. Production was scheduled to start the third week of May, so while the rest of my class was enjoying all the end-of-high-school festivities, I was holed up in a hotel room, poring over revised drafts of the increasingly convoluted script (there was a new one every day), intensely aware of the fact that I had NO CLUE what I was doing. One semester of Drama Methods does not an actor make.
    At this point, I still thought the film would wrap before fall semester, so I focused on making the best of it. So what if I didn’t get to walk with my class at graduation? I was sharing Vitaminwater with Cosmo ’s Sexiest Guy Alive. There are worse ways to spend a summer. The thought never crossed my mind that I’d have to postpone college, or do anything other than what I’d always planned to do. But then production got pushed to June . . . then July . . . then August . . . at which point we were politely informed by our producers that we’d be filming through October. Thanks to a very well-drafted talent contract, I was stuck there for the duration. And just like that, my meticulously constructed Plan—(a) four years writing for an award-winning college daily, (b) a fabulous summer internship, (c) a degree from the best journalism program in the country and, ultimately, (d) a job at a major national newspaper, all before my twenty-second birthday—died a very quick death.
    It’s hard not to blame Mr. Simmons. If he hadn’t canceled History of Music last September, everything would’ve gone the way it was supposed to, and yesterday would’ve been my first day of classes at Northwestern. Instead I’m here, trapped on a studio back lot in Hollywood, wearing a jumpsuit so tight my butt has gone numb.
    Yes, I know it’s the kind of thing people dream about, the kind of thing Ilana Cassidy would’ve given both nipples for: the chance to be in a big-budget movie with an A-list actor and an award-winning director, and to have it all just fall into place without even trying. Stuff like this never happens to me. I’ve had to work for the things I’ve accomplished—every grade, every award, every victory on the track. Which was part of the problem, I guess. When this came so easily, I couldn’t pass it up.
    But I never wanted an acting career or anything close to one, so this dream I’m living isn’t my dream. Which is why, in these moments—when I’m tired and hot and hungry, and we’re on the thirty-ninth take of a scene that, if it makes it into the movie at all, will amount to a whopping six seconds of screen time—it’s harder to ignore that little voice in my head reminding me that “once in a lifetime” isn’t always enough.
    When we finally wrap for the day, I head back to my room. The producers put everyone up at the Culver, this completely cool, old Hollywood hotel that was once owned by John Wayne. Everyone from Greta Garbo to Ronald Reagan has stayed here. Somehow, the fact that the studio is paying for me to live here feels like a bigger deal than the fact that they’re putting me in their movie.
    The sun is low in the sky as I cross the street to the hotel. The smog in L.A. makes for some pretty funky sky colors, but this evening’s palette is especially unskylike. The horizon is streaked with fiery reds and oranges, swirled with shimmering shades of bronze and gold. But that’s not the unusual part. Amid the unusually bright colors, there are darker patches—places where the colors are so deep that they nearly disappear into black. It’s almost as if night has already fallen in these spots, while it’s still daylight everywhere else. Despite the balmy weather, I shiver.
    As I’m walking through the Culver’s black-and-white-tiled lobby, my cell phone rings. Every night at eight, like clockwork.
    “Hi, Mom.” I pass the elevators and enter the stairwell, picking up the pace as I hit the stairs. The three