Chapter 6

I didn’t see Cal again that weekend and the following week was taken up with school, homework and reading the first couple of scripts for the proposed show. It turned out that the character I was being offered was the pivot character for the show, which was tentatively titled Starting Over, and looking at George’s comments on the contract there weren’t any clauses in there to trip us up. We did manage to get a ‘subject to availability’ clause added into the studio’s option for a second series. We also managed to negotiate them round to holding the audition in New York rather than LA, since that would save me having to do an overnight flight from Heathrow after school on Friday, spending Saturday auditioning and spending all day flying back on the Sunday.

As it turned out, because of flight schedules, I had to take the day off school on Friday and Monday, which is why at eight-thirty on the morning of Friday October the tenth, I was buckling myself into a business class seat on the United Boeing 777-300ER flight from Manchester to Newark Liberty International airport in New Jersey, alone.

“Good morning, Mr Barker,” the cabin attendant, a very pretty blonde greeted me as she stopped beside my seat, “would you like a drink before take-off?”

“Thank you,” I replied looking at her name badge, honest, it wasn’t my fault it was pinned where it was, “Cindy, could I have orange juice please?”

She removed a glass from her tray and handed it to me.

“Are you travelling to meet your parents?” she asked.

“No,” I replied, “travelling to an audition in New York.”

“Oh, that’s interesting,” she said, “what are you auditioning for?”

“It’s a TV sitcom,” I replied, “I’m sorry I can’t tell you any more about it, there’s a non-disclosure agreement.”

“Oh, you’re an actor,” she said, before a light bulb went off above her head, “oh, David Barker. You’re the man who played Greg Paradise, aren’t you?”

“That’s right,” I said, “and please, Mr Barker is my Dad, and he’s not here, call me David.”

Forty minutes later, and only ten minutes after our scheduled take-off time we pushed back from the stand and began our taxi round to the runway. I don’t know why it always feels like it’s at least thirty miles from the stand to the take-off queue, but it does, perhaps that’s just me. We were fourth in line and ten minutes later, our wheels left the ground, and we started our climb.

I have to admit that spending eight hours cooped up in a tin box eleven kilometres up in the air is not my favourite occupation, or at least, it wasn’t then, I might have changed a bit since.

Once the seat belt sign was off, I stood and stretched while I opened the overhead locker and got my laptop from my bag. The scripts for the series were on my hard drive and I decided to go through the first one and see how much of it I could learn in eight hours. Fortunately, business class was lightly populated that day, so I had two seats to myself, I spread out.

Half an hour into the flight they served what passed for breakfast, rubber omelette, rock hard sausage and half-cooked bacon. I hate to think what the poor souls in cattle class got. I ate what I could stand of it, and drank the coffee, which was of a much higher standard, then lowered the seat-back tray on the adjacent seat, transferred the tray and cup to it, and carried on reading. The basic plotline of the show had my character, I already thought of it as my character, even though I hadn’t yet auditioned, as the love child of an American businessman and a young English woman. She had died and the boy had been sent off to Chicago, to his alleged father. The comedy came from his attempts to integrate into a foreign society, and the father’s other children’s attempts to dislodge him. I was hoping that they wouldn’t be filming in Chicago, apparently it gets very cold there in Winter.

Unfortunately, I only had a three-hour battery in my laptop, so I couldn’t use it for the whole trip, I ended up doing an hour on and an hour off, which managed to eke it out. I even managed to doze, on and off, which at least caught me up on some of the sleep that I’d missed from having to be in Manchester by six-thirty.

We touched down in Newark at just before twelve-thirty. Just in time for lunch, I’d turned down the one offered on the flight.

It took an hour and a half after touchdown to get through immigration and customs, and as I walked out onto the crowded concourse, I looked around for someone waiting with a board with my name on it.

I finally spotted her, a short, slim brunette around, well, somewhere in her early twenties, carrying a clip board with a sheet of paper bearing the legend David J Barker.

I didn’t need to introduce myself as I approached her, she looked at me and said.

“You’re David.”

“Got me in one,” I said, “and you are?”

“Sandy,” she said, “short for Sandra Dunham.”

“I’m David, short for, well, David,” I replied, holding my hand out to shake.

Her hands were soft and warm, but her shake was firm and business like.

“The car’s in the parking garage,” she said, just outside.

“Lead on,” I said, lifting my bag again and following her, not a difficult job, with a nice rear view like she had, it wiggled attractively.

“I’m your minder while you’re here,” she said, “anything you want, just let me know.”

“Thank you,” I said, “right now what I want more than anything is a decent meal. All I’ve had since last night’s tea is half an airline breakfast.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, of course, you left the UK at like four am our time didn’t you.”

“Yes, and I left home four hours before that,” I said.

“Well, if you don’t mind a slight detour, I know a really nice place for lunch,” she said.

“I don’t mind,” I said, “and your local knowledge is better than mine. How long have you worked for CBS?”

“Actually, I’m a student at CUNY film school,” she said, “I’m interning with them.”

“CUNY?” I asked.

“City University of New York.”

“Ah, I see,” I said, “what are you studying to be?”

“I want to produce,” she said, “what about you, are you going to spend the rest of your life acting?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “I have another two years of school yet, then three of University.”

“Really?” she said, “can I ask how old you are?”

“Yes, of course,” I replied, “I’m sixteen. So where are you taking me?”

“A little place I know in Hoboken,” she said.

“The home of Frank Sinatra,” I said.

“You know about him?” she asked.

“I grew up with him,” I said, “my Dad’s a fan.”

When we reached Hoboken, we turned onto the riverside road, which she told me was Sinatra Drive and eventually pulled into a parking space outside a row of shops. She got out of the car, gestured to me to join her, walked to a meter, paid the parking fee, then she led me, not into one of the shops, but into the entrance of what was labelled as 333 River Street apartments.

She must have noticed the puzzled look on my face.

“You’re going to have the best lasagne in Hoboken, that’s cooked by a non-Italian,” she said.

“You?” I asked.

“No, my Mom,” she replied.

Her Mom turned out to be a tall, dark-haired olive-skinned woman, of Greek descent, who did, indeed cook a very good lasagne.

As I pushed my plate away following my second helping, I sat back and sighed.

“Mrs. Dunham,” I said, “not only do you have a very beautiful daughter, but you do cook the best lasagne it has ever been my pleasure to overeat.”

She laughed softly.

“This one is funny,” she said to her daughter, “this one you should keep.”

“Mom!” she protested, “he’s not a boyfriend, and he’s only here until Sunday.”

“Do you think my daughter is pretty, David?” she asked.

“Very Mrs Dunham,” I replied.

“Oh, why so formal, call me Maria,” she answered, “and yet she is twenty-one and unmarried, not even betrothed.”

Sandy rolled her eyes, I recognised the ‘my mother’s off again’ look on her face.

She addressed her parent rapidly in a language I didn’t recognise, presumably Greek. Then Maria turned to me.

“I am sorry David,” she said, “I think perhaps I was too much the pushy Greek mother.”

I laughed.

“If you think you’re pushy Maria, you should meet my Mum,” I said, “I’m sure she’s the world’s reigning pushy champion.”

She laughed at that.

“She sounds interesting, your mother, perhaps I shall meet her one day,” she said.

“Yes, Mom, perhaps,” Sandy said, “but now we need to get on, I have to take David to his hotel.”

“Oh, you are staying in an hotel?” Maria asked.

“Yes, Mom,” she said, “David is here to audition for a part.”

“Oh,” She said, “and did you go to drama school before becoming an actor?”

“Mom, David is still at school, he’s sixteen,” Sandy said, “David I think we should get out of here, before my mother starts wedding planning.”

Thirty minutes later, after experiencing the Holland Tunnel for the first time, we pulled into the parking garage by my hotel on West 55^th street, I retrieved my bag from the back seat and we took the lift up to the ground floor and reception.

Once I had signed the relevant form, and let the receptionist take an imprint of my card, I rejected the offer of assistance with my bag, and we took the lift up to the sixth floor and room 602.

“Nice,” Sandy said as we entered the room. It wasn’t the presidential suite, but it was large, with a separate bathroom, twin queen sized beds, a sofa, desk and a round table with two chairs, all of them comfortable looking. A basket of fruit and two bottles of wine stood on the table.

“I don’t think anybody told the hotel how old Mr Barker is,” Sandy said.

“Well, I’ve been allowed to have a glass of wine with dinner occasionally,” I said, “so perhaps I’ll indulge. Or maybe you could take them home for you and your parents.”