Chapter 9
There’s an interview before the audition that Johnny blows. He can’t concentrate—his ears ring with shouts and every time he blinks, he sees the afterimage of a dozen flashes of light. His eyes are dry, his retinas burn. He sits next to Lou at a conference table, facing three people whose names he didn’t catch. Two women and one man, the guy so flaming, Johnny’s surprised he doesn’t spontaneously combust. And Lou’s worried about him?
Every other question, Johnny glances at his manager, fielding them his way. He doesn’t know what the execs across from them want to hear. What’s he been doing since his last acting gig? Working at a tanning salon, he starts to say, but Lou interrupts, glossing over that one to move onto the next. And the next. And the next. Damn, it’s worse than a
