Nancy
Colbert
Mid-day light streamed in through the lone window in the
tiny studio apartment. It shimmered off of the golden hair of the young woman
fast asleep on the second-hand futon that took up much of the room.
The
leather mini-skirt and bustier that comprised her uniform at the Deuces Wild
nightclub were wadded in a heap next to the futon, and a roll of one dollar
bills as well a twenty (a tip from Matt Damon) were laying on the top shelf of
a bookcase squeezed into the corner. The shelves were lined with old drama
textbooks, romance novels and Tennessee Williams plays. The floor was stacked with outdated copies
of Cosmo, some notebooks with poetry, others with just random thoughts
scribbled inside, and neon pink flyers touting the “Starlight Community
Theatre’s Production of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ starring Kaitlin Harvey and
Marty Roth.”
The
kitchen was long and narrow. The
refrigerator at the far end was covered with pages ripped out of the Daily
Variety with ads for open calls circled, and with photographs of a few smiling
girls and an older woman who resembled the one in the futon. Empty Diet Coke cans and rinsed out yogurt
containers were in a paper bag on the floor, ready to go out to the recycling
bin. Two barstools were pulled up to
the counter, serving as a dining table.
There really was no space on the counter, though; past due phone bills,
cut-off notices for the electricity and statements for maxed out credit cards
were piled up next to the letters she kept from her family back home in
Virginia.