Monstress Read Free Page A

home.
    I got dressed and went into the kitchen. Gaz was already there, sunglasses on, wearing a tiger-print robe. “Now that,” he said, standing by the window, “is a Hollywood morning.” I looked out. Everything was hazy and bright at the same time.
    Suddenly I realized Gaz was staring at me. “What?”
    â€œIt’s weird to see you this way. In the human flesh, I mean.” He removed his sunglasses. “I remember you in Checkers’ movies, all fancy with your tentacles and boils and lobster claws. Chex got lucky when he found you. You make a good monster. You’re a mistress of monsters.” He chuckled. “You’re a monstress.”
    â€œI am not monstrous,” I said.
    â€œMon stress, ” he said. “Not mon strous . See for yourself.” He looked behind and above me. I turned around, and then I saw it, tacked to the wall: a poster for The Squid Children of Cebu . “I swiped it from CocoLoco, hung it up this morning. Thought it might make you two feel at home.”
    The edges had yellowed, but the picture was still clear: a dozen Squid Children on the edge of a lagoon, and behind them, lying on the shore, is the Squid Mother, her belly bloated with squid eggs yet to be spawned, tentacles flailing. That costume was sticky and rubbery, but by the end of the day it felt like my own skin. For hours I would roll along the dirty sand, moaning, “Grraarggh, grraargh,” and I remember thinking, This is it, this is my life, as Checkers filmed me from afar. I hadn’t seen the poster since the president of CocoLoco showed it to us, as an example of our failure.

    A t noon, we returned to the set to meet the cast. It was trash collection day in Pasadena; garbage cans lined the street, and in front of Gaz’s mother’s house, the parts of a dismantled mannequin lay in a pile on the sidewalk. “We can use this,” Gaz said. “Help me out, Chex.”
    I walked ahead of them, toward the back of the house. The basement door was open. “Hello?” I called out. I stepped inside, heard giggling coming from the bridge. When I turned the corner I found Captain Banner and Ace Trevor leaning against the helm, their arms around each other. They might have been kissing. “Sorry,” I said, my face warm from embarrassment.
    They let go of each other, stood up straight. “We were just going over lines.” The man who played Captain Banner held out his hand. “Everett Noel Dubois. But friends call me E. Noel. This is Prescott St. John, a.k.a. Ace Trevor.” Prescott smiled, straightening his collar. They were the first professional actors I’d met in years, and I worried they would ask about my own acting history; a list of my roles and movies formed in my head, and they made me feel meager, shameful. I wanted to avoid the subject altogether, focus only on the good parts of my life. “I work for a dentist in Manila” was all I could think to say.
    Gaz and Checkers walked in, carrying legs, arms, a torso. They set the mannequin parts on the ground, and Gaz made formal introductions. “Where’s our Lorena?” he asked, looking at his watch. “If it’s one thing I demand from my actors,” he said, “it’s punctuality. Be back in a flash.” He went upstairs to call her at home. E. Noel and Prescott went outside to go over lines.
    Checkers knelt to the floor and started rebuilding the mannequin. He said he was genuinely impressed by what he’d seen so far, but then he whispered his disappointments in Tagalog. “His camera work is unsteady,” he said. “And his composition is so-so. But I have some suggestions for him. Lucky for him I have the experience, right?” He looked up at me. “What? Why is your face like that?”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œLike this.” He scrunched up his face into a girlish pout and rolled his eyes. “What’s wrong