To better myself

When I first got hired to work at the museum. My biggest concern was how was I going to go through the whole day just standing. My poor black leather coach loafers. My poor feet. One week into working, it felt like labour at its finest. 

My manager was a crude. She was also five foot four, skinny, whiny and an alcoholic. I was an actress paving the way for myself. During the job interview, when she asked me why I wanted the job, I paused for a slight second. I could tell her the truth, tell her I’m just here for a short time, to pay off my acting debts and then I’m off to make it in LA. But then I thought again. I could also lie and not tell her anything. Well, what would that do for me, it could it get me the job. Yes, yes, it could get me the job. Lying was the answer. “To better myself” I told her. I could tell she was intrigued by what I said. “Tell me more” she looked up from her note pad and started to pay attention. “Well, I like to work” I told her. “Working keeps my brain occupied, working brings routine and stability into my life, when I am not working I no longer feel challenged, I get comfortable, I don’t want to be comfortable”. Lie after lie after lie, I lied myself through out the whole interview.

“To better myself…hmm” she mumbled to herself. That phrase seemed to get her attention. She offered me the job and a cigarette on the spot. She was ethnic. I knew for this reason I had already won her over. Ethnic managers always hire ethnic people, they know they can get away with more shit. “It’s not abuse, it’s just us Latinas, it’s how we speak” my last manager said to me as I chucked my apron on my way out of my last shift. 

My first day working at the MCA - the Museum of Contemporary Art, she looked me up and down when I walked in. “What’s that perfume, you got on”. 

“Armani” I stood in front of her with my water bottle in my hands and sunglasses on. “Huh” she replied agitatedly. I took my chanel shades off of my face and responded politely “Si by Georgio Armani” I smiled. Truth was, she scared the living shit out of me. I wasn’t one to get scared by anything, especially humans. But there was a certain level of angst inside of her. On my first shift there, she walked into our 12pm meeting which we would have daily with what looked like vodka in her bottle and started the meeting off with “when are you guys going to start acting like you work here, this is a museum, not a circus. Especially you Clark, yeh you. She pointed at him. Stop flirting with the girls, if it hasn’t worked till now, it’s not going to work, period.” All of sudden I was taken back to all conversations I’d had with my mother right before she took her life in the fresh food isle in Woolworths. I would say things like that to her. “Stop acting like you are white, you’re brown. Your name is Martina. You are spanish. There is no need to change it to Sue when you speak to white people”.  She would change her entire name just to please others. She was always one for attention. Always wanting people to like her. Always wanting to be seen. When I got the call it was suicide. I knew it wasn’t because she was done with her life. It was because she was so tired of being a nobody, she knew at least this way she would be remembered.

Five hours into my shift and standing amongst the art works of many accomplished artists. I began to question all my choices. Was acting really my dream, was it really necessary to suffer my way through it. I had a choice. I’ve always had a choice. I could leave it all behind, move to another city and start something fresh. “Malinda” I heard my name from behind me. She was quite loud for such a small person. “Yes, Darcy” her name was Darcy. My bosses name was Darcy. To be honest, I didn’t believe her when she told me. She just didn’t look like a Darcy.

“What’s for lunch” she asked me. 

I struggled to come up with an answer, lunch, I don’t eat lunch. 

“I didnt bring lunch”. I told her. 

“Good, when you go for lunch, bring me a chicken and avocado sandwich” 

“Yes, sure” I replied.  

“When are you going to go for lunch” she stared at me through out the whole conversation not blinking once. 

“I’m not sure, I’m not too hungry” I replied. 

“Yes, yes you are, you are going now” she took her credit card out of her blazer and passed it to me. 

I took the lift from the ground level up to the forth floor and grabbed my bag and took the lift back down and was on my way out of the museum. I ordered myself an iced coffee with almond milk from the cafe nearest and sat in a booth. I stared outside the window, to a brown skinned man and what looked like a Spanish lady with their infant sharing a club sandwich. 

It only took a few seconds for this vision to bring tears to my eyes. I started to feel shame. Regret and disappointment. The last thing I wanted was to become like my manager. I bet she went home to no one. She probably has three cats, that she’s named thing 1 thing 2 and thing 3. She probably doesn’t even care that it’s just her. Where was I. Who was I. I took my sunglasses out of my bag, put them on and silently weeped. 

I no longer knew, if getting hired at the museum was the universes way of showing me that acting was a no go. That it’s better to get out whilst I still can. Whilst I still have no wrinkles on my face and can rock a crop top and be told I look 7 years younger than my age and save what was left of me for something else. Something that may bring some peace into my life. 

I no longer knew what I wanted anymore. 

The 45 mins of my break was up. I went to the register, asked them for a take away avocado and chicken sandwich to go and walked back into the museum. 

The museum was an interesting place. It was quiet and peaceful unlike the acting world. There was life in a museum and hollowness in an acting class. Sure the museum also had a certain kind of darkness, but it was a different kind. It never felt real in an acting class, it always felt like we were all living a fantasy, a lie. I always felt like a pawn. A pawn to someone else’s story. “Yes Elizabeth, I’ve always loved you” it took me 3 weeks to say that exact line with tears streaming down my cheeks and still it wasn’t good enough for my mentor. “The tears are good, yes keep the tears, now more passion, more anger, get deep Melinda” he was fucking 3 of his students. I never respected him. 

But he loved me.

“You’re my protégé” he said to me during my first class. He never remembered anybody else’s name besides mine. “You’re going to win an Oscar for me one day - he would say this to me in front of everyone” So proudly. With so much conviction. I loved him too. When I lost my father from a heart attack shortly after my mother killed herself, he became like a father figure. He was tough on me, most times he would challenge me in front of everyone, say things like “what was that? rubbish, rubbish work Malinda go, sit down” and then once the class was over and everyone left he would tell me to stay back for a second, look me in the eyes and hold my cheeks “you’re better than this”. He’d tell me.

A week into working at the museum, I quickly realised the truth of my existence. That I was just like my mother. Wanting validation, approval from those around me, not caring who it came from, as long as it came. As long as someone saw me as something great, something special.  One month working at the museum - I realised we were no different we just went about it different ways, but it was still the same thing. Darcy, was the only person not wanting to give it to me. She’d never say hello, always asked me to get her lunch and never paid me back. She was the only person who met me and never called me pretty. 

Three months working into the museum, I had saved up enough to pay off my debt and also book a one way flight to LA. 

Darcy called me into her office and asked me to take a seat. “So, your 3 month probation is over, how do you feel about your position here” her eyes gazing right through me. 

Not long after I started working, I learnt, yes - she was rude and at most times quite selfish and inconsiderate but she was always honest.

All of a sudden, I couldn’t lie, not to myself and not to her. “I like it here and I hope you’ll keep me”. 

She giggled and leant forward from her charcoal leather chair. “You know Malinda, you lied through out your whole job interview, you’re terrible at this job, you said you have attention to detail, which you don’t and you don’t care about routine or stability, sometimes you’re late and you never iron your shirt, you are an actress and im telling you, a terrible one. Rule number 1 - you don’t tell a 40 year old woman in an interview that you’re an actress and then bullshit your way through it” 

I was stunned. I didn’t know what to say. I was always great with my words and yet all of a sudden, I was caught red handed. I couldn’t even find one word.  Not one word to save me.

“And after that cringy interview you gave me saying things like I want to better myself, bla bla bla, do you want to know why I hired you” 

I nodded with no words to follow. 

“I hired you because when you walked into the interview, instantly I smelt desperation, I couldn’t smell it from anyone else, you think it were your words that got the job, it wasn’t, it was your fire. The fire that came with you when you walked in and stayed till you walked out. I thought to myself - wow she could go on for hours. That you could go on bullshitting me the whole day if you had to. You just didn’t crack - and after all that. I thought, she has stamina. it takes work to keep a lie up and I just wanted someone who was willing to work. I mean most of the time, your version of work is weak, messy and you’re never really here. I see you so often staring off somewhere, thinking about things, never really present. But whatever, no matter what happened or how you were during work, you never missed a day and that was good enough for me”

I felt guilty, ashamed, a little disappointed in myself. Even though, everything she said could have been a compliment, I still felt regret. I felt like a failure, like I had worked six years of my life to achieve one goal miserably to find myself finally happy working at just a museum. 

“So you still want to stay or did you get what you wanted from this job” she asked me. 

I stayed silent and thought about it. There I was given a choice to give acting another crack or to start a new life here. Here at this museum. 

We got up from our chairs and walked out of her office. I took a lift to the top floor to grab all my things.

I felt a tap on my shoulder as I got a hold of my drink bottle. A hefty hand followed by a woody scent overwhelmed me. Something a little like Tom Ford. I turned around and there he was. My next chapter. The beginning of what I knew was going to be my happy ending.