Just Beachy

One

The whole cast of Murder 101 is sitting around a table doing a read-through when I turn the page and see the first hint of what's coming. I can barely breathe while I race through the bound pages. I know I'm in trouble. I mean, taking a beloved but wisecracking homicide detective and turning her into an alcoholic is, let's face it, the kiss of death.

"Cassie Everheart is going to develop a serious drinking problem and spiral out of control?" For the last five years, I've been playing Cassie, a heroic, plucky LAPD detective who came up the hard way. I owe pretty much everything to Cassie. She not only rescued me from waitressing, for which I have absolutely zero talent, but provides me with a home in Santa Monica, a regular paycheck, a reprieve from my parents' pleas to give up acting and "find a real job," and given the audience numbers we've been pulling, way more than my allotted fifteen minutes of fame.

Jerry Statler, who directs the show, shifts in his seat. "Yeah." He nods at a blonde seated at the foot of the table whom I've never seen before. "Right after Jason dumps her for the new rookie cop."

There's one of those silences that can only be described as deafening.

I stare back at him. "Cassie gets dumped and becomes an alcoholic?" It's a total nightmare. I close and open my eyes, trying to wake up.

"Um, yeah," Jerry says, clearly wondering why this is coming as a surprise. That makes two of us. "But she's got some Emmy-worthy scenes while she grapples with the rejection and loses her grip."

I look around the table. No one meets my eye. "Cassie Everheart, who has four commendations for bravery, and flew helicopters in Desert Storm, loses it over a man and shows up drunk during a career day talk at an elementary school? That's ridiculous." I tell myself my fans will tune out in droves. "Our audience will never buy it."

There is silence while everyone skims ahead to make sure Cassie is the only character disappearing into rehab.

"It's outrageous, isn't it? The audience will be talking about it for weeks." Jerry wavers between admiration and a growing awareness that I am not a happy camper. Sensitivity is not a requirement in the entertainment industry. In fact, it can be a liability. "In her last episode we see her being dragged into the facility shouting obscenities."

My mouth drops open. My brain is so full of the words "last episode," it's impossible to think.

Around me, my co-stars flip through the pages in earnest, trying to figure out if they have anything to worry about. Lacy Winters, who plays my partner and is not the sharpest tool in the shed, uses her fingers to skim the lines. Her lips move as she reads.

Jerry grows more animated, evidently counting on the presence of the rest of the cast to keep me from flipping out completely.

"So she has some great tear-jerking scenes in rehab then comes back to the force even stronger than before?" I ask, still searching for that silver lining.

"Actually . . . no. Some of the other characters will mention her now and again, but Cassie's career as a detective will be over."

I can see it. A disgraced Cassie leaving the police station for the last time, never to work in law enforcement again. Fade to black. End of episode.

End of Cassie and a regular paycheck. End of the actor who will forever be identified with a once dynamic character who turned so wussy, she couldn't even handle a breakup. "Who came up with this crap?"

Statler shrugs as the remedial readers in the group reach the last page and sigh little sighs of relief after realizing Cassie is the only one being set up for removal.

I take deep breaths and fight back the panic. As it turns out, it requires zero acting ability to play Cassie spiraling out of control.

When we finish the read-through, I sprint from the room to call my agent, Martin Green. A taller, Waspier, version of Ari Gold from Entourage, he worked his way up at CAA before leaving with a handful of important actors and directors to start his own eponymous agency. He has a ton of charisma and real personal warmth, which he turns on and off without warning. He's also every bit as attractive as some of the big names he represents, but then here in Southern California, even the baggers at Trader Joe's look like movie stars.

He likes to claim that his clients are like family, but I've seen him drop a big star for not listening to his advice and stare down a studio head at twenty paces. Which is why I was thrilled to sign with him when Murder 101 originally got picked up for the second season.

"He's not in." Elise Cranston, Martin's first line of defense, has been with him since he became an agent. I have no idea how old she is, but if she were a dog, she'd be a Doberman or possibly a Rottweiler. She handles a phone like some people handle money, with authority and reverence and a desire to make it her own. The slightest change of inflection can signal the opening of all kinds of doors. Or slam them shut in your face.

I know from experience that if you pause for breath or thought, Elise is completely capable of deciding the call is over and hanging up.

"I need to talk to Martin."

"I'll give him a message, Sydney. But I don't know when-"

I can feel her finger moving for the disconnect button. "They're writing Cassie off the show!" I blurt out. "She gets dumped by Jason and starts drinking so much, she disappears into rehab and never comes back! They're replacing me with someone younger."

Silence, not dial tone, on the other end. Under normal circumstances I'd be congratulating myself for sprinting past the guardian of the innermost cave, but I'm too freaked out to celebrate.

"Hold for a minute. I'll put him on."

I don't even bother to think about the fact that she lied about Martin not being in. I can't think about anything except Cassie's impending termination. And the end of life as I know it.

Martin comes on the line but doesn't waste time on patter or niceties. It's clear he already knew. "Sydney, I hate that they've made this decision." I imagine him mouthing one of the expensive Cohiba Behike cigars that he loves but never lights in his Century City office. "I told that new baby producer they didn't have to replace Cassie with the rookie, but he claimed the network is upset about losing the twenty-five to thirty-fours and they're worried about the advertisers."

Well, shit. Although Cassie is supposed to be thirty-five, I'm only thirty, which is way too young to be washed up even here in La-La Land. "You could have warned me that the contract negotiations were stalled out." Sometimes the obvious just begs to be stated. "I felt like a moron getting that kind of news in front of everybody."

"I'm sorry, Sydney. There was nothing I could do."

Translation: nothing he would do. Martin has two other actors on the show, and his primary loyalty lies with himself.

"I've played Cassie for five years now. If you couldn't get them to change their minds, couldn't you at least get them to let her leave honorably or choose to leave herself? Let me walk out with some dignity?"

Who am I kidding? There'll be a great ratings spike while everyone tunes in to see Cassie Everheart self-destruct. And then I'll be indelibly linked to a weak character who loses her shit just because a man dumped her.

"Relax, Sydney. It'll blow over. We'll find you something else. Maybe the time has come to make a move to the big screen like we've been talking about. Let me make some calls."

I try to pretend that even better things lie ahead. That Cassie and I had taken each other as far as we could and that when Martin calls back, he'll have some juicy role for me that I don't even have to audition for. Only, when I finally hear from him two weeks later, he has nothing. Make that worse than nothing. "I tried, Sydney. I called virtually everyone who might have anything suitable, and I didn't get a single nibble."

"How can that be? I've won two Emmys and a Golden Globe. I-"

"It's not that. It has nothing to do with your talent, Syd. Word is you pissed off somebody big. An A-lister. Any idea who that might be?"

I close my mouth and swallow back a groan. Because I stood up to Tonja Kay, an actress who is as high up the Hollywood alphabet as you can get. And who is married to megastar Daniel Deranian, who once hit on me and is the father of my good friend Kyra Singer's child, which does not endear her (or me!) to his wife.

"Look," Martin says. "It's not the end of the world. When you finish shooting, you take a break, leave town for a little while. There are lots of short attention spans out here."

"And how am I supposed to live while I'm on this break?" I've gotten an increasingly impressive salary for my ongoing role as Cassie, but I've plowed most of it into my house, which I love, the requisite Mercedes convertible with the vanity plate CASSIECOP, and the ongoing physical maintenance of my largest asset, which up until this moment has been me.

Cassie is going to disappear into rehab and never be heard from again. And I've managed to piss off an A-lister with serious clout and the vicious will to use it.

I hear Martin's shrug across the line. Details, if they don't involve decimal points, are not really his thing. "Maybe you could rent out the house for a while and go visit your family. They're in Atlanta, aren't they? There's a lot of film and television work in Georgia these days. And it may be far enough away to let you fly under the radar."


Somehow, I tough it out until my last episode airs. It takes that long to find a tenant I don’t think will trash my house, put the things I care about in storage, and finally accept that my career as Cassie is over.

I let my friend, Jill Connors, who plays a forensic scientist on one of the CSI programs, throw me a going-away party, even though it feels a lot more like a wake-and not the fun Irish kind my family throws. Determined to act as if my world hasn't ended, I (ironically!) drink too much and sleep with Jake Bodie one last time, even though he's already circling the blonde who's replacing me.

Hungover with no great memories to show for it, I cram my back seat full of clothing, pick up a venti cappuccino that I can't really afford, and get on I-10. As I point the Mercedes east, I tell myself it's all just grist for the acting mill. How can you emote humiliation and despair if you haven't really experienced them?

Two

I spend 10-hour days on the road still unable to focus on anything but the disaster my life has become. My mind plays it over and over in an endless loop. It doesn't help that everywhere I stop, I run into former fans, "former" being the operative word, who are either angry at or sorry for me.

Like the woman at the Chevron station outside of Las Cruces.

"Oh my God, it's Cassie Everheart." Her round face lights with excitement, a reaction I have to admit always gives me a little rush. So does her daughter's.

Over the last five years I've given tons of autographs; I think it goes with the territory. I've never understood the actors who court attention and want to be celebrities but don't think that should involve any personal contact with the people who made them famous in the first place.

I smile and take a step toward her, wiping my hands on my jeans as I approach. Which is when the woman's expression changes. "I'm glad to see they've let you out of rehab. I hope you can manage to stay sober. But such a shame that Jason moved on so quickly and is already dating that young rookie."

I stand frozen while she turns and heads back to her car. The other customers eye me with either disdain or pity and I slink back to my car and drive off, wishing for an adult-size invisibility cloak. There's never a wizard around when you need one.

I'm almost to Tallahassee, where my college roommate lives, when my phone lights up. I draw a deep breath and straighten my shoulders when the Psycho theme ringtone fills the car.

"Hi, Mom."

"Hello, darling. Where are you?" I'm pleasantly surprised and relieved that she doesn't immediately mention the loss of Murder 101, the boyfriend who defected to the winning team as soon as I was "released" from the show, or demand to know what I plan to do next. Natalie Anderson Ryan likes to "tackle problems head-on" and "discuss possible plans of attack" long before you've had a chance to absorb the problem in the first place. I developed the ability to tune out and remove myself from reality in self-defense. The fact that this survival skill helped me learn how to get into character quickly and become a better actor is a lucky by-product.

"I'm about an hour from Linda's. I've been promising to visit for a while."

"Well, you can stop off and say hello. But I need you here in Treasure Island before the end of the day."

"What? Why?"

"It's your grandmother."

"I don't understand. Why are you in Treasure Island? What does that have to do with Grand?" I swallow. "Is she okay?"

My grandmother's name is Lillian Louise Wilde. She's eighty-three now and has been a widow for almost six years. We call her Grand because she is.

"She came down to visit a friend on Treasure Island and has missed several flights home. Now that I'm here, she keeps going on about how much she loved family vacations on the west coast of Florida when she was a child. Yesterday, out of the blue, she announced that she wants to live here full-time, and I can't make her listen to reason."

I slow down for a semi that's turning off the highway. "There's really nothing unreasonable about someone in their eighties wanting to move to Florida," I venture. I don't add that Grand is an artist and "reason" is not her "go to" setting, because if anyone knows that, it's my mother.