It hurt my pride. More than I thought it would. But that's what I get for choosing to go to an Arts-exclusive school, and for allowing myself to become qualified for little else. Four years of intense theatre classes, combined with a strict helping of summer-stock, and I had absolutely no skills necessary for getting a "real" job above the most primary level. I never thought that I would need to.

I suppose I had always expected to just "take-off." After all, I was cast as a lead two years in a row in the only high school productions I was ballsy enough to actually audition for (freshman and sophomore years being before I… "found myself") and I was always at the top of my acting classes in college. If you could even call it college. As much as I loved the Academy (and the partial scholarship they gave me), and as wonderful, and truly useful as the courses were, they were definitely somewhat… limited, range wise.

For four years: Always at least two basic acting-based courses, always one direction-based course, and always one specialty class – in musical theatre, or dance, or character development, or working with an acting partner. My schedule was almost exactly the same my whole way through school (not that the courses offered gave me much other choice).

I loved it. But looking back, two years after graduation, and many, many auditions later (some more successful than others, and most not very successful at all) it might have been wise for me to, at some point, have taken classes in writing, or analyzing, or crunching numbers, or cooking, or, well… something. Because, I'm telling you: being an actress in New York City is HARD.

I did a commercial the year after I graduated. It was a national, and my parents were "so-proud." I was pretty proud too, until "Sunny-Hill Bleach, the only bleach that will make your whites as bright as the sun!" was found to contain chemicals that turned the applied-to clothing into rather nasty irritants. People were getting rashes in horrible places, and the product was taken off the market, with the commercial (later put on the internet under such titles as "Lulzy Poison Bleach Ad") dying right along with it.

Since then I've done a few plays (before you ask, no, they did not make it to the Broad Way, but I was reviewed fabulously… once. In a local…) by my career has far from "taken-off."

So there I was. Having worked as over-qualified waitress (I quit because the hours were awful, and my boss was even worse), and under-qualified secretary (I was fired from that one. No surprise – it's honestly more shocking that I got the job, than that I lost it), and lots of horrible little gift-shop employees, pushing over-priced "I Heart New York" shirts at passerby, I was currently in what seemed to be my natural state, to which I was destined to always return: unemployed.

It's not that I had given up on acting – oh, no. I was still completely convinced that my big-break just hadn't quite found me yet. But I couldn't just go on being unemployed. My dad and my step-mom always told me that the minute I felt the need, I could move back in with them. Just until I "got back on my feet." But that was the thing: I wasn't yet willing to admit to having lost my footing.

Though that instance was probably a new low. Ha. Definitely. Looking through the job-section of a ratty semi-local paper, knowing that I wouldn't stand a chance with any of the jobs being advertised in a more legitimate publication, was not exactly a proud moment for me.

So I sat cross legged on my futon – shoved into the corner of a small loft that two roommates and myself could barely afford to rent – scanning such unappetizing job-offers as "fish-tank washer" (pet store, not aquarium) and "test-subjects wanted for new hair-dye formula." I lingered briefly over a small-business owner asking for a "sidewalk sweeper" to make his location more presentable, but I decided it wasn't steady enough sounding work. Not to mention, "Eddie's Rat-House" didn't really strike me as the best place to be looking for employment.

Then something caught my eye. Down, right near the bottom of the page, between a wanted ad for a surrogate mother and a sizable mustard stain (of unknown origin) was a peculiarly neat-looking post. It was slightly larger than its neighbors – though the mustard was its best competitor – and somehow much more serious seeming. The type font was even and clear, and no discouraging photographs had been badly shopped into it. Just a faint watermark in the shape of a simple town-house, laid behind the words:

MAID WANTED.

No Experience Required –

Just hard work, and a sunny-attitude.

six bedroom home

(single caretaker of several lovely children)

Currently Offering 30$ per hour/work

And a phone number. Somehow I doubted that the "simple town-house" depicted was actually the one being advertised. I knew immediately that the job was likely to be scooped up likety-split (for lack of a better term), but part of me hoped that most of the people subscribing to this particular publication were far too innately bizarre to actually get the job. So I was scrambling for my cell phone in seconds.

But as this thought hit me, and as my eyes grazed across a wanted-ad for an "experienced pole-cleaner," another thought crossed into my mind. Maybe this "single caretaker of several lovely children" was just such a weirdo as "Laughing Larry," in search of the experienced... cleaner. It honestly seemed likely. But, after pausing and worrying for about ten seconds – what if I was walking right into a horror-movie? It sure seemed like the set up to a low-budget fright-fest – decided that, already owing Tracy for paying my share of the past two months' rent, I could take a chance. I mean, if I was careful, what was the risk, really?

I hastily dialed the number, leaning back on an arm and gnawing on my lip as the ring rolled by once, twice, three times. I sighed. At the influence of Tracy and Jim, I'd formed the rather silly habit of never letting a phone ring more than three times before hanging up. It was stupid – something about never sounding like you wanted it too much (after all, what was a person who'd let it ring seven times without answering supposed to think of their caller?) I realized how dumb it was, I really did. But still, in an almost compulsory fashion, I was about to hang up when I heard the click, and that voice.

"Hello." There were two things that I noticed about the voice, right off. The first thing was that it was definitely familiar. And British. I didn't know many British people, so the familiarity was particularly odd. The second thing was that the person on the other end of the phone – the man, I noticed after a moment as a sort of half-formed third-thing, having instinctively expected the ad-poster to be female – was one of those people who, when saying "Hello," into a telephone, said it as statement, instead of the usual question. As though he'd called me.

"Um… Yes. Hello." I'd seemed to have somehow lost my bearings. I'd heard one word from the person that my mind was slowly sculpting into a twisted, maniacal movie-villain who kidnaps maids and locks them in one of his unnecessarily numerous bedrooms, and I was already turning his accent and self-assured manner of greeting into frightening character traits, rather than the inconsequential qualities that they most likely were. Damn all those character building classes.

After I wordlessly flapped my jaw in front of the phone for several seconds, Familiar-Sounding-British-Man spoke again. "Hello?"

This time it was a question, which seemed to be exactly what I needed: immediately after he said it, I forgot about that fact that he was a scary, eye-patch wearing, raw-meat eating, criminal lunatic with pet rabbits that he hasn'd fed in years, and all of my acting training kicked right in.

"Hello, yes. Hello Sir. I'm calling about your ad in the…" I glanced at the cover of the paper, just to be sure, "…Weekly Wonderbust. For the maid. Is the position still available?" I found myself sitting stick-straight and grinning, my whole body mirroring the chipper voice I'd managed. In-character from head to toe, even when he couldn't see me (tell me, why wasn't I famous yet?)

There was a very brief pause, and for some reason I felt sure I could hear him smiling. "Yes. Yes, in fact, it is."

"R-really?" I hadn't actually expected it (unless, as my subconscious was muttering, the position already been filled, several times over, and none of others hired had yet survived).

"Indeed," I could definitely hear him smiling now, "which is particularly surprising when one considers that that issue of the Wonderbust," he spoke the name laughingly, "was published over a month and half ago."

Um… Oh? I flipped again to the front of the paper (sold to me by a rather sad looking teen outside my building that very morning) and checked the date. It was, in fact, from early December. "Um…" my chipper, you-should-hire-me air seemed to have slightly deflated, "Oh."

The man chuckled (at which point the level of familiarity in his voice went from interesting to annoyingly-definite, very, very quickly) "But, as I already said, the post is still available. So no bother."

Still staring down at the date, and accidentally allowing myself to wonder, momentarily, about the mustard, I shook my head. "Well," I said, sucking the chipperness back in as best as I could, "why on Earth is it still available? I mean, it… sounds like a great job. Like… I've never been a maid, but that sounds like a pretty decent paycheck, for by-the-hour work."

"Well," Familiar-Sounding-British-Man-Who-Was-Becoming-Increasingly-Suspicious answered, "I wasn't exactly… completely forth-coming in that ad." Yep. Increasingly suspicious alright. Before I could actually ask what he meant (though I considered just hanging up at that point) he explained, in his annoyingly-familiar-British way, "I don't actually live quite in the city, and the commute, for what would likely be a very regular job – what with my… children – would be terribly unreasonable. So I'm proposing that whoever I hire come and stay, at my expense, in one of my bedrooms. I have several extra."

So. Increasingly creepy. Even worse was the fact that I was becoming increasingly less creeped-out. Something in the familiarity of the voice was, though frustrating… reassuring? No. Comforting? …Not at all. Maybe it was just… Intruiging… in the right way. But the more words he put together, the more horrible facial scars he lost. With his next sentence, he even lost the eye-patch.

"I'm thinking that it would only be a four-day a week job – I don't believe in working on Fridays – and please understand that I'm not asking for a nanny – just someone to clean, and perhaps to help the cook a little if their able."

"Oh." I said yet again. "That… sounds reasonable. But I don't suppose many people are willing to move out of town, and live with a stranger…"

He chuckled again. "No, not many."

So I thought: What was I really doing in the city, at that point? I barely had an audition a month, and I hadn't held down a job for more than a week since Halloween. If it was really within some semblance of commuting-distance, then I could still come into town on some weekends for auditions, and if I got anything good, then I could simply quit. Right? (Right?)

I hated the idea of leaving my roommates, but I loved the idea of leaving that room. And even if I wasn't living with her, I could definitely at least pay Tracy back that way. 30 dollars per hour worked, plus room and board. Sounded good to me. Sounded great. Sounded unrealistic.

But I was an actor. So I was used to things being unrealistic.