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Miller Briggs is a dashing Scottish actor caught in a hurricane of his own making -- a drug problem, an unfulfilling career, friends who use him for photo opportunities, and a complicated engagement with...
As he stepped from the shower, Miller's phone was ringing. As he towel-dried his shaggy, dark curls, his phone was ringing. As he pulled on his navy pants and crisp white Oxford shirt, his phone was ringing. As he angled the first of the platinum cufflink into the holes at his wrist, the phone was ringing still.
Taking a deep breath, he swiped the screen on his phone. Two hundred and eight missed calls from Summer. He didn't know his phone could count that high. Two calls from Mum. That was a bad sign. The phone vibrated in his hand and the screen revealed his favorite photo of his mother. She was laughing on the beach of their home in Scotland. The wind was whipping her dark hair around and she looked delighted. It was rare. He was glad he had the photo to remember her that way.
He swiped to answer, but before he could speak, his mother barked, "He lives! If only you'd answered my call before I turned onto Doheny." He could hear the sound of cars rushing past. She was driving with the top down.
"You don't have to come by," Miller said.
"Summer is frantic. She thinks you've died."
Miller sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on his socks and shiny Italian shoes. He didn't even like them. They made his feet look elongated and pointy, like little, leather canoes. "I'm not dead, Mum."
"They do amazing things with voice technology," she chuckled. "This might be an imposter."
"Sounds like I can't change your mind."
"I'm in full Mummy Bear mode, darling, and I can't turn it off." Click.
**
Oh, there was nothing like Dame Mavis Paterson in full Mummy Bear mode. He had learned it was futile to stop her; the best one could do was mitigate the damage and make apologies afterward, if necessary. And it was generally necessary.
When his career was beginning and he was too young to drive, she drove him to casting calls and waited in the car as he read for the parts of Lad #2 or Glasgow Ruffian. After his try-out, he would invariably receive pointers from the casting agent to "project more" or "feel the character."
"They said I didn't connect with the audience," he said, sinking into the passenger seat of her silver convertible after torpedoing another audition. His mother sat with her dark hair tucked under a bold floral scarf, trying to look inconspicuous, but only drawing attention. As she listened, she withdrew a tube of coral-colored lipstick from her prim purse and applied it, gazing at herself in the vanity mirror. Without a word, she exited the car and strode into the office building where auditions were held.
Miller trotted in her wake up the sidewalk, across the lobby, and past the star-struck security guard to the talent agency's office. "Please, Mum," he hissed. "It's nothing." As she crossed the threshold into the sparsely decorated suite, the agents and assistants gasped. They gasped. Miller assumed very few Academy Award-winning actresses had stood in the office of Cinema Lux Talent before.
"Please," Miller said, reaching for her wrist.
"Which one said you didn't... darling, what was it?"
His cheeks blazing, Miller stammered, "Connect with the audience."
The casting director, a round man in a bright red polo shirt, stepped between office girls who were stunned immobile. The director also seemed dazed, his mouth flapping like a fish, open, close, open, close, no sound. He continued stepping forward until he was before her. In his hand, he held a Styrofoam cup of black coffee. He peered into its dark depths as if searching for guidance. Finding no answers, he offered her the cup with a trembling hand.
She scowled at it and then at him. "I assume you are the proprietor?" Her British accent was crisp and chic, dripping with refinement and hinting of nobility. When Red Shirt nodded, she said, "I shall speak to you alone." As they retreated to the conference room where auditions were held, two more casting agents and an aspiring actor hurried out and the door shut behind them.
The silence of the waiting area was quickly replaced with hushed exclamations of "holy shit" and "oh, my God." A young man, holding his headshot and resume, asked, "Dude, is she your mom?" Miller returned to the car and, had he been a cartoon, there would have been a dark scribble bobbing over his head. Having two famous parents meant privilege; he understood and valued that. The money, the houses, the travel, and the best schools: Miller was living a rarified life. But there were disadvantages, too: their shadows were long and, no matter which direction he stepped, he would forever feel the chill of their legendary shade.
His mother emerged from the building with Red Shirt. Miller couldn't hear what they were saying, but they smiled and, before parting, Mavis offered a daintily bent hand for him to shake. If the fat man could have executed a curtsy, Miller knew he might.
As she slid into the driver's seat, Mummy Bear said, "He realized he'd misjudged you. You got the part."
