Reckoning Daze

By Michael Beaulieu

“An actress is always a starving artist,” so says Lindsay Harmon-Foster, a talented but struggling Los Angeles actress in Michael Beaulieu’s gripping debut novel Reckoning Daze.  

Lindsay, 19, a former star of a critically acclaimed but canceled series, is now doing the pilot in what might prove to be the role of a lifetime, but her anorexia and other habits could kill her before she’s cast for the full series.  Although she has long been self-destructive, she’s never been more so than now, making her a threat to herself and others.  Aside from losing the show she loved, she thought she had found her soulmate in a  rising music star named Jesse, but he committed suicide and she blames herself.  Will she land the new series and allow herself to find love again with an actor named Marc or will addictions – and suppressed family secrets –  make her die hard?  
    
While Lindsay’s demons are portrayed with unflinching honesty, the way she views Los Angeles and the business is often comical.  If you like Bret Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk, you’ll find Reckoning Daze’s blend of high drama and satire to be a perfect mix of laughs and suspense.  Get it today and find out whether or not Lindsay's dreams ultimately come true.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Beaulieu
• Release date: Feb 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9781540155269

Book preview

LOS ANGELES, 2005

Chapter One

I’m at Zentropa. We filmed here. Three times. The show was called 818-EDEN. About struggling actresses in the valley. Overly complicated misfits. My character, Susan Fitzpatrick, thought she could fuck her way to the top. Maybe she would have; the plot was full of surprises. We were axed almost a year ago, April 2004. Only twelve of the sixteen episodes we’d shot had aired. We were in the middle of filming the seventeenth when they told us we were finished. Security escorted us off of the Marquis Bros. lot that morning. Sometimes I go back there though. To score drugs. It’s in Burbank, just a few miles away from chez moi. Not far from the airport.

My body is moving, but I’m swaying more than dancing. I’m so thirsty. The Jacques Lu Cont remix of Breathe on Me by Britney is throbbing away. At least I think that’s what the DJ is spinning right now. That’s DJ Dreadz. A pale white boy who looks like Eminem with black hair and a pierced chin. His eyes are such a dark shade of brown that you barely notice the color. It just looks like he has gigantic pupils. People must think he’s high all the time. He probably is.

I didn’t drive myself here, but I can’t remember who drove. I think there were three of us in the car. It was red, but then we all have red cars. Me and my girls. I’m confused. To think I used to have a photographic memory. It went away though. Funny how you can lose a gift like that. You treasure it like a pet and then it dies and creates an empty feeling inside you that can never be filled.

This is the place to be, ever since it first appeared in our show. They say we had a cult following. Critics loved us, I know that much. But the ratings, they just weren’t there. The network wanted better. So did their advertisers. So did I. I’m still starving. Always hungry, that’s me.

When I get this hungry, I can feel my blood pressure dropping. Literally. It’s as though it can’t quite make it up the arteries to my brain, so my brain starts to lose oxygen and begins having contractions, like a lung inhaling and exhaling. Forcefully, exhausted. My heart beats harder, skipping every other beat to conserve energy for the hard ones, then it pounds, loud as a gunshot, trying to get the blood up to my brain. Even standing up becomes so difficult.

I’m not quite dancing, not anymore. I have to sit down, or lie down. Lying down is always better, makes it easier for the blood to get to my brain and give it the oxygen it craves. Maybe that’s just my imagination. Sometimes the headache still lingers for hours, but at least I know I won’t die. I’m just famished and thirsty. So thirsty. So lost.

I’m high, but drugs don’t increase my appetite. Not even weed. Not anymore. I might be hungry enough to eat now though. I’m not sure. It’s so hot in here. I wish I had a glass of cold water. Cold water on ice. Maybe something to nibble on. I wonder if my brain is eating itself. I’ve been like this for years. My friend Liz says that my muscles are devouring themselves. Even my heart could be eating itself, she says. I know it’s true. I’ve read all about it on websites with fancy, mystical names like Blue Dragonfly and House of Sins. All hail our goddess ana. Whether we want to or not. I’ve been like this for years. You don’t know when it becomes involuntary, but it does.

Praise Ana.

Nothing tastes as good as thin feels.

Physical pain masks the emotional.

Weakness does not make for perfection.

Nothing in moderation.

Hunger means you’re in control.

Embrace the metallic taste.

Delicious = disaster.

Starvation makes perfection.

Above all, restrict calories.

Don’t ever go over 500.

Ana is your only friend.

Ana is the only one who understands.

Amen.

Forgive my bad poetry/prayer/mantras.

I don’t pray though. Or at least I try not to, whenever I can help it. Sometimes I think praying is like touching a butterfly’s delicate wings; it always ends badly, but it’s so beautiful – so tempting – that we still can’t help but touch it. Masturbation for the mind. I did it a lot when I was younger, but then I basically stopped. I don’t remember why. I think my mother prayed, probably to Oscar, as in The Oscars, alias The Academy Awards. We only went to church on Christmas and Easter, which would piss me off more than if you didn’t go at all, if I were god. I’m not sure whether I do or don’t believe in the almighty. She was probably une actrice. And a bitch. When I’m this hungry, sometimes I want to believe. Mother was jealous of the rave reviews I was getting. Sometimes I wish god would save me. Sometimes when I’m freaking out on coke, I ask him to. (Him, her, small g, capital G, what’s it matter?) She hadn’t done a series in years. I wish god would make it ok for me to eat... something. Rebecca Harmon, a movie-of-the-week starlet who’d failed on the big screen. A slice of pineapple pizza maybe. I used to love that. She always wanted an Oscar and an Emmy. One of each. I can’t remember the last time I had it. She never got either, never will. She killed herself last July. The fourth, actually. Mostly, I’m just thirsty. Libertine. Cause for celebration. She rejoiced when we were cancelled, threw a party to relish in my failure. La Fête du Diable. I don’t talk to my father anymore. That stopped a few months before mother’s suicide. I started seeing a therapist.

Did I have those cherries this morning, or was that yesterday? Maybe it’s better if god doesn’t exist. I’m slipping away, headed for a fall. What’s this for? To be thin. That’s what it’s all about. Always about being thin. Thin, thin, thin. Thinner than my mother. To be a better actress. Thinner is the winner, you know. I need to feel the bones of my hips with nothing but skin between them and my little fingertips. I’m proud of my small hands. Tiny. Petite. But it’s so confusing, being here right now. The way a girl should be. Thinner than my mother. To be a better person. When I was chubby, she called me fatty. Those who indulge, bulge. I haven’t had a period in four months. I don’t miss her. My therapist hates me. My mother has been dead for over six months already. Serves her right. So hungry. I think he blames me. I thirst. My dry throat hurts. It needs to be quenched.

There’s just too much happening. So hard to stay focused. And I need to. Stay focused. I have to be a success. Be the better actress.

I’m nineteen, if anyone’s wondering whether or not I’m legal, but my fake I.D. comes from the actual D.M.V. Not that it matters. We filmed here, made it the place to be.

I don’t know what song Dreadz is bringing in. Is that my heart skipping a beat or the bass? Boom, boom, boom. Is it Madonna? I Want You, maybe? That’s the song with Massive Attack, right? This place is... intense. I think I know this remix.

Where in da club is Sonia-Maria? I can’t believe she still hasn’t come back from the restroom. She was on the show. She’s probably doing coke. I can’t believe I let her dye my beautiful blonde hair blue today. So blue. She played Tanya Wellington, a bulimic who did a lot of drugs, constantly overindulging in everything. Cerulean blue. Is Liz here with us tonight? I can’t remember. Liz doesn’t act. She used to be a model. Someone said that my hair matches my eyes now. I’m not sure who. Liz has a baby, Carlie. I think Liz was with me the last time I ate pineapple pizza. I’m too hungry to remember. Who called me – that’s Lindsay Harmon-Foster – a scenester the other day? Jesse? He isn’t here tonight, is he? I don’t think I’m dancing again, yet I feel like I am. Maybe I had pizza with him. No, probably just sex. I forget. I try to forget. There are things I’d be better off just forgetting. I wonder what pizza would taste like with pineapple and cherries. Maybe I just drank too much red wine. Fucking Coppola Merlot. My middle name is Corina. That’s what Jesse calls me sometimes. There are some things I can’t remember. Is that why my fingers are tingling? Does my currently blue hair actually match my eyes? Cerulean?

Cerulean Blue, that’s your new name, someone shouts in my ear from behind just before I collapse and she catches my fall. I recognize her pretty hands – long crimson fingernails – then I’m out. Again.

Chapter Two

I’m on a bed. Or is a futon? I don’t know. I can’t even tell if the sheets are dark blue or black. Not enough light coming through the closed blinds. Damn it, I know I was at Zentropa. That’s the last thing I remember. I guess I blacked out. Again. My jeans are unbuttoned. Old habits. I think I was there with Liz and Sonia-Maria. I really shouldn’t get drunk on an empty stomach. I was drinking merlot again last night, that’s right. It made the copper taste in my mouth worse. I remember that much. Getting old already. One of them must have brought me home. Again.

No, wait, this isn’t my place. I recognize that poster of Britney Spears. It’s the cover of the Me Against The Music single. Fuck, that song sucked. Madonna and Britney, they could’ve done something magical together. I don’t know what happened. Sometimes things, they just fall apart. Like when the show was cancelled. I guess it was just one of those things. Hot poster though. Whose wall am I looking at? I liked one of the remixes.

Was last night Friday or Saturday night? I wonder. I’d like to know what day it is today. It’s amazing, how often I get the days confused. They melt away into one long day that never ends sometimes. Or one long, hungry night. It gets so lonely on those nights, you’d do anything to escape your self-imposed sensory deprivation. It doesn’t even matter whose place you wake up at, what color the sheets are. Or if you ever get any sleep. Or who you sleep with. Or don’t sleep with. Sometimes you deserve to be punished. Doesn’t matter how depraved.

It doesn’t matter where you end up, who you fuck. Just as long as you’re a star in the end. That’s what my mother used to say. Now her life is celebrated at Green Grass Memorial Park, a posh cemetery. Only not so posh. I heart their billboards though. So surreal. They make death sound so blissful, like Soylent Green. My therapist says that you simply cease to be. Sensory deprivation.

Sometimes you get so hungry, you just do things. I call it ketostasis, after ketosis, the bodily state during which you lose weight. You get so confused. But you just need to focus. And stay focused. It doesn’t matter if your photographic memory is shot, you can still be a success. Focus.

I guess these sheets are dark blue. I must be looking at Sonia-Maria’s wall. She bought that poster mostly to taunt me. Must be in her house in Pasadena. That’s where Zentropa is. Pasadena, California. Colorado Boulevard, in the area they call Old Town. Or is it on Fair Oaks? I don’t remember. It’s relatively lame. Old already, like they say. Zentropa rocks though. Well, for a dance club. We made it the place to be. I hope they didn’t make me eat anything last night. I’m thirsty though. So thirsty. I have that horrible metallic taste in my mouth again. Where is she anyway? I live in Burbank. I own a condo there.

My neck is incredibly stiff and I get so dizzy as I get up from the futon, I almost fall back down. I have to pee. I do and it burns a little, been doing that lately. I wonder if it’d stop if my period would come back. Maybe my appetite would come back if my period would return. I might be able to eat a little something. A little something more than the little something I’ve been barely getting by on. Maybe my period would come back if I could eat. Can’t say that I miss it though. I like the power I have over my body to stop it.

I have a tall glass of ice water. It feels so good, going down my throat, even if that awful metallic taste doesn’t quite go away. Anorexia nervosa is a bitter pill to swallow, I know, with so many side effects. I tolerate it well enough though. I have to. Actresses have to be thin. Starving artists.

So hungry.

She left me a note on the refrigerator, Sonia-Maria. To Cerulean Blue. She signed it SM, but it looks like S&M to my dry eyes at first. I guess my contacts are still in. Shit. It’s so hard to get them out sometimes, especially when I leave them in all night. It’s been over 24 hours now. Oh well, you can supposedly keep these in for thirty days and thirty nights. Sonia-Maria wrote that she was going to an audition, back around three. It’s barely after ten right now. I’m sure she took her car with her and I don’t see mine outside. Fuck. I hate the bus. I guess I’ll hang out here.

I wonder what she’s auditioning for. My agent, Brian Wirschington at The McGregor Group, never calls. Not often enough anyway. Nice guy though. I suppose it’s not his fault entirely if nobody wants me.

I turn the stereo on. I don’t know what’s in the CD player, but I press play and listen to it anyway. All I can hear is the bass as I take a long, hot shower. I think it’s DJ Encore featuring Engelina. A bit too optimistic for my tastes and slightly passe at this point, but Sonia-Maria is in the habit of listening to things until they become cool again. That’s when she loses interest, but just for a while. It’s only music, but what would we listen to without it?

My muscles are so sore. All of them. Still, I sing a little in the shower. A bit of One Song Glory from Rent. An obscure ballad called

Reviews for Reckoning Daze

[Amy Shanahan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked it and it kept my attention. Very weird but in a unique and intriguing way. I will say it felt unfinished.. but it’s making me think that was the point. Would recommend