Sleeping Beauty Read Free Page A

Charmant slips in behind us and takes a chair closest to the door, like he’s going to bolt the first chance he gets.
    “Any family history of sleep disorders?” she says, closing the door. “Narcolepsy, insomnia, sleep-walking?”
    “No, none.”
    “Neurological disorders? Manic depression, schizophrenia, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s?”
    “Nope, nothing like that.”
    “Ah. Well that complicates things.”
    “Why?”
    She tilts back in her leather chair. “Well, for starters I’m not convinced that you have narcolepsy.”
    I sit up straighter. “Really? I mean, what else could it be?”
    “Oh, there’s lots of stuff it could be. The question isn’t what it is , the question is what it’s not . And I don’t think that’s been answered definitively. Once we eliminate what it’s not, we can discuss a diagnosis and how we’ll move forward with treatment. It’s just sometimes easier to nail down if there’s a family history of a related disorder.”
    She jots a few things down on a pad of legal paper while she’s speaking. I lean forward and see “Beau, Claire, 29” in nearly horizontal scrawl at the top of the page.
    “Are you married, Claire?” she asks.
    “No, I’m not.”
    “Have a significant other?”
    “Nope.”
    She nods. “Do you work? Are you able to work?”
    “When I’m not in the middle of an episode, I do work.”
    “What do you do?”
    “What else do people in Los Angeles do?” I say with a smile.
    “You’re a waitress?”
    I laugh. “Close. I’m an actor.”
    “Really? We don’t meet a lot of actors in a pediatric hospital. That’s amazing. Do you stay busy? What kind of roles do you play? Do you do movies or TV?”
    “I stay pretty busy. In the last couple of years I’ve had some regular parts in a few TV sit-coms and dramas, just small parts. I do a lot of steady work as a background actor.”
    She tilts her head almost imperceptibly at the term “background actor.” Figuring that a pediatric neurologist probably doesn’t spend a lot of her time staying abreast of the latest and greatest Hollywood terminology, I explain: “An extra.” She lights up with comprehension at the outdated term. “Anyway, I had a decent part in Sophia Coppola’s next movie, but then I had an episode and they gave it to someone else.”
    “Oh, that’s too bad. What were you going to play?”
    I shift in my chair, knowing my answer is going to resurrect a lot of ill-will from Dr. Charmant’s side of the room. “Um, I have, uh, an appearance and abilities that cater to a very much in-demand market niche.”
    Dead silence all around, and I realize I’ve just made everything worse. They probably think my “niche market” is, like, fetish pornography. I sigh. “Studios try to avoid hiring minors if they can help it. If you’re under eighteen, the studios can only work you a certain number of hours, and there are all sorts of rules they have to follow that make it really expensive for the production, so if they can find someone over eighteen to play a teenager they’ll do it.”
    I shrug. “It’s a pretty common thing. I’m short and I look young, so I end up getting cast in a lot of roles as an older teenager…sort of like Ellen Paige in Juno .”
    I refuse to look in Charmant’s direction. He probably feels vindicated.
    “Well, overall things look good for you,” says Wendy. “That must be really exciting!” She leans back in her office chair, a look of almost parental pride on her face.
    It’s nice for someone to look proud. My parents never did recover from the horror of a daughter graduating from college with a perfectly serviceable English literature degree only to “run off with the circus” (as my dad called it). Fortunately for me, I was spared any long-term disapproval when my brother one-upped me shortly thereafter, informing my parents that not only was he gay, but he was going to forego college altogether to join an alternative rock band. My dad’s response