The Struggling Actress - Short Story

She was so close. Two call backs. And she rocked the audition. It was the best one she gave. But then time passed. Days. Weeks. She didn't get another call. The role went to someone else. Amanda spent the day in bed. She had been trying for years with little success. A student film. A couple of small (really small) plays. But that was it. Not much to put on her resume. Not much of a career.

Her boyfriend sat with her and tried to cheer her up. He told jokes. Told her if was them and not her. And how, when they see her beautiful smile, she will get booked in an instant. She gave him a look. She did not feel like smiling. Then she slunk back under the covers.

Suddenly her boyfriend had an idea. He went to the other room and grabbed his laptop. He found the footage of her audition and then, going through his digital movie collection, found scenes with Maryl Streep. It took him hours. He had not edited since high school. But once he got the hang of it, he was flying.

He returned to the bedroom carrying the laptop. He had to wait a moment before she stuck her head out of the covers.

"Can you sit up a second?" he asked.

She shifted her body upward.

"You have five seconds before I go back under."

"I will need thirty."

He handed her the laptop. It was loaded on a video. He pushed play and took a step back. Amanda watched. The first thing that came up was her auditioning.

"I don't want to watch this." she said.

"Keep watching."

Then there was an edit to Meryl Streep. She responded to the things Amanda was saying in her audition as if they were doing the scene together. It was clips from different movies and Meryl was playing different characters each time, but the responses matched the words of Amanda.

"How long did this take?" she asked.

"A few hours... I just thought you should know what you have to look forward to."

"I guess I can go to a couple more auditions..."

"So what is it like working with Meryl?"

Amanda laughed. She pressed play to watch it again. Then she looked at him and smiled.