Lisa Goldstein: Fortune and Misfortune         
       First appeared in Asimov’s Science          
       Fiction, May 1997. Nominated for Best       
       Short Story.
                                                   
       ------------------------------------------

                                                    
       This is my story, but first I have to tell   
       you about Jessie.                             
                                                    
       Jessie and I met at an audition. My agent    
       had told me they were looking for someone    
       to play a contemporary high school kid so    
       I dressed the part–torn baggy jeans, white   
       T-shirt, red flannel shirt tied around my   
       waist.                                       
                                                    
       I’d been waiting for about five minutes      
       when Jessie walked in and gave her name to   
       the receptionist. She wore one of those      
       dress-for-success costumes that make women   
       look like clowns–skirt and jacket of         
       bright primary colors (hers were red), big
       buttons down the front, hugely padded        
       shoulders. She looked at me and then down
       at herself and laughed and grimaced at the    
       same time. It was an oddly endearing         
       expression, the gesture of someone who       
       knows how to poke fun at herself.

       "You’re so clever," she said. She glanced
       at her outfit again. "I’ve probably blown  
       it already."
                                                    
       She looked as if she wanted to talk          
       further, but just then the receptionist    
       called her name. I felt annoyed–I’d been     
       waiting longer than she had, though I knew    
       that that had nothing to do with              
       Hollywood’s pecking order. She was            
       closeted with the casting people for about   
       ten minutes. When she came out she looked    
       at me, held her palms up and shrugged        
       elaborately. Her gesture said, clearly as    
       words, I have no idea whether I made it or   
       not.                                         
                                                    
       I didn’t think about her until the next      
       cattle call, when I saw her again. She was  
       wearing the same clothes–I wondered if it     
       was the only decent outfit she owned. I      
       was reading a magazine, but she sat down     
       next to me anyway.                            
                                                    
       "Did you get called back for that high       
       school thing?" she asked.
                                                    
       "No," I said.
                                                     
       "Neither did I. I’m Jessie."
                                                    
       "I’m Pam."                                   
                                                     
       The receptionist called my name then. I       
       felt a rush of pleasure at being called       
       first–this woman wasn’t all that far above   
       me after all. "Listen," she said as I        
       stood up. "If I get called next, wait for   
       me and we’ll go to lunch. I don’t know too
       many people in this town."

       "Okay," I said.

       She did get called next. I waited, and
       when she came out she offered to drive us
       to a coffee shop in Westwood.

       I had already pegged her as someone very
       much like myself, just barely getting by
       on bit parts and commercials and
       waitressing jobs. So I was surprised to
       see her walk up to a white BMW and turn
       off the car alarm. She must have noticed
       my expression, because she laughed. "Oh,
       it’s not mine," she said. "I rent it for
       casting calls. You have to play the game,
       make them think you’re worth it."

       I’d heard this before, of course. In an
       image-conscious town like Hollywood every
       little bit helps. A fancy car isn’t enough
       to land you a part, though, and I wondered
       if she had any acting ability to back it
       up.

       I got in the car and she drove us to the
       restaurant. When we were seated she looked
       directly at me and said, "So. Where would
       I have seen you?"

       I told her about my few commercials and
       the made-for-cable movie I’d done. "I was
       Iras in Antony and Cleopatra at the San
       Diego Shakespeare festival," I said. "I
       was also the understudy for Rosalind in As
       You Like It, but the damned woman refused
       to get sick."

       She seemed a little puzzled at this.
       Wondering why I bothered with Shakespeare,
       maybe. "What about you?" I asked.

       "I had a bit part on a soap," she said.
       "It was a great gig, until they killed my
       character off."

       "I’m sorry," I said, and she laughed.

       Los Angeles, they say, is where the
       best-looking boy and the prettiest girl
       from every high school in the country end
       up. You can’t sneeze in this town without
       infecting a former high school beauty
       queen or football quarterback. Even so, I
       thought this woman astonishingly
       beautiful. She had deep sea-blue eyes,
       dark lashes, and a mass of dark hair. More
       than that, though, she had some subtle
       arrangement of bone structure that
       compelled you to look at her. She might
       just make it, I thought, and felt the envy
       that had dogged me ever since I had come
       to town. Next to her all my faults stood
       out in sharp relief–I was too short, too
       plain, my mouth too thin. I hate myself
       when I feel this petty, I struggle against
       it, but I don’t seem to be able to help
       it.

       As penance I made an effort to like her.
       And really, it wasn’t that difficult. She
       had probably been told that she was
       beautiful since before she could
       understand the words, but for some reason
       she didn’t seem to believe it. She
       ridiculed herself, her ambitions, the idea
       that she could make it in Hollywood where
       so many others had failed.

       "My parents are sure I’ll come crawling
       home within the year," she said. "You
       wouldn’t believe the arguments I had
       before I left. Well, it’s the old story,
       isn’t it–young girl from the country goes
       to Hollywood."

       "Where are you from?"

       "A farming town in Wisconsin. You’ve never
       heard of it. What about you?"

       "Chicago."

       "And how did your parents take it?"

       "Actually, they’ve been pretty
       supportive," I said. "Especially my
       father. He did amateur theatricals in
       college. He said, ‘I think you’re good
       enough, but unfortunately what I think
       doesn’t count for much. You have my
       blessing.’ And then he laughed–he’d never
       said anything so old-fashioned in his
       life."

       "That’s great." She was silent for a
       while, no doubt thinking about the
       differences between us. "Listen, Pam," she
       said. "I’m going to an audition next week.
       It’s another high school student. Ask your
       agent about it."

       "Sure," I said, surprised. I would never
       tell a rival about an audition. Jessie was
       someone to keep, a caring, genuine person
       in a town full of hypocrites. "Thanks."

       "See you there," she said.

       We saw each other a lot after that. We
       went to plays and movies and critiqued the
       performances, took the white BMW to cattle
       calls, made cheap dinners for each other
       and shopped at outlet clothing stores. We
       took tap-dancing lessons together, from a
       woman who looked about as old as Hollywood
       itself. Jessie told me about auditions
       coming up and I began to tell her if I’d
       heard anything, though each time it was an
       effort for me.

       She got called back to her soap–they
       wanted her to do a dream sequence with the
       man who’d played her lover. We rehearsed
       the scene together, with me taking the
       lover’s part.

       It was the first time I’d seen her act.
       She was good, there was no question of
       that, but there was something she lacked,
       that spark that true geniuses have. The
       envious part of me rejoiced–this woman, I
       thought, would not be a threat. But there
       was another side of me that regretted she
       wasn’t better. I liked Jessie, I wanted to
       see her succeed. I felt almost protective
       toward her, like a mother toward a child.
       She was so innocent–I didn’t want her to
       get hurt.

       I was offered several parts at the
       Berkeley Shakespeare Festival and began to
       make arrangements to go up north. Jessie
       was pleased for me, but by this time she
       knew me well enough to speak her mind.
       "There aren’t going to be any casting
       directors up there, Pam," she said. "Those
       parts aren’t going to lead to anything.
       It’s an honor, I know that, but it might
       be better to stay in town, see what you
       can get here."

       "I need to stretch myself, see what I can
       do," I said. And when she seemed
       unconvinced I added, "It’ll look good on
       my résumé."

       We rehearsed together again. I had gotten
       the part of Emilia, Iago’s wife, in
       Othello, and I had her take the other
       roles. As we rehearsed I was amazed to
       realize that she didn’t have any idea what
       the play was about, that she stumbled
       speaking the old Elizabethan cadences. I
       had thought, naïvely I guess, that anyone
       who wanted to act had had at least some
       grounding in the classics.

       "So this Iago guy, he wants Othello to
       suspect his wife Desdemona," she said.
       "He’s really evil, isn’t he? Do that bit
       again, the one that starts ‘Villainy,
       villainy, villainy . . .’ "

       I did. "Hey, you’re good," she said. There
       was nothing but pure pleasure in her
       voice. "You’re really good. I bet you’ll
       make it. Don’t forget your old friends."

       She had an audition the day I was to
       leave, so she rented the BMW and drove me
       to the airport in the morning. We hugged
       at the curb in front of the terminal,
       careful not to wish each other good luck,
       smiling a little at our superstitions.

       I had fun in Berkeley. I liked some of the
       cast, disliked others, felt indifferent to
       the rest, the way it usually goes. We were
       busy first with rehearsals and then with
       the performances themselves, and I didn’t
       have time to get lonely. Every week,
       though, I’d call Jessie or she’d call me
       and we’d exchange news.

       Finally we settled into a routine and I
       had time to catch my breath. The man
       playing Iago told me about an audition in
       San Francisco, a company that was going to
       do Sophocles’ Oedipus. "Almost no money,
       of course," he said. "But all the prestige
       you can eat. It’ll look good on your
       résumé."

       I called, got an appointment for an
       audition. Iago loaned me his Berkeley
       university library card, and I took the
       BART train over to campus to study up on
       my Sophocles.

       All the way there I could hear Jessie, as
       clearly as if she were sitting next to me.
       "Why are you doing this? What possible
       good can it do you? This isn’t going to
       lead to anything, you know that."

       In my mind I told her, firmly, to shut up.

       I was a bit overawed by the graduate
       library stacks at Berkeley: I’d never seen
       anything quite like them. There’s no space
       between the bookshelves–they sit on tracks
       and have to be cranked apart by hand. It’s
       the only way they can keep their huge
       amount of books in one space.

       I found the Oedipus trilogy fairly easily.
       While I was in the Greek drama section I
       decided to look around, see if there were
       any books that might help with an
       interpretation of the play. I took down a
       few that looked interesting, then reached
       for the crank.

       I stopped. There was a book on the shelf
       called Fortune and Misfortune, grimy with
       dust. I don’t know why it caught my
       attention–it looked as if no one had
       opened it for years, maybe decades. I
       pulled it down and read at random.

       "And he who reads the following words will
       be plagued by ill fortune for all his
       life," it said.

       This is my story, as I said, but now I’m
       going to talk about you. Are you
       comfortable? Probably you are, sitting and
       reading in your living room, leaning back
       in your recliner, a pleasant record in the
       CD player, iced tea or coffee or beer or
       wine beside you. Or maybe you’re sitting
       in your family van, waiting to pick up
       your child from school or ballet practice
       or the orthodontist. The sun is shining,
       birds are singing.

       One of the books I picked up in the
       library was Aristotle’s Poetics. Aristotle
       says that when we watch a tragedy we feel
       pity and terror as the protagonist falls,
       and that when the play is over we feel
       cleansed, pure, a catharsis.

       But what about the guy on stage? What
       about Oedipus, standing there with the
       gore running down his cheeks after he’s
       plunged Jocasta’s brooches into his eyes?
       Aristotle goes home, whistling, feeling
       better, feeling glad the tragedy happened
       to some other poor schmuck, but how does
       Oedipus feel?

       What if the shepherd bringing the final
       message hadn’t said, Oedipus, the reason
       all the crops are failing and everything
       is going to shit is because you killed
       your father and married your mother, you
       poor fool? What if instead he had looked
       out into the audience, pointed to, say,
       Aristotle, and said, "You–you’re the
       reason we’re in such a mess. You don’t
       know it, but you’ve killed your father and
       married your mother, and now we’re all
       doomed." Would Aristotle have gone home
       whistling then?

       I don’t think so. We feel better when we
       watch someone else suffer. But Oedipus, if
       there really was an Oedipus, and I think
       there must have been, he doesn’t feel
       better at all.

       The first thing that happened was that I
       didn’t get the part of the Messenger in
       Oedipus. Well, I thought, I don’t get most
       of the roles I audition for–you could
       hardly call this ill fortune.

       The second thing was far worse. My mother
       called the hotel I was staying at and told
       me that my father had been diagnosed with
       pancreatic cancer. He’d had stomach aches
       and nausea for months, but by the time
       he’d finally gone to the doctor it was too
       late. They gave him a day or two at the
       most. I took the next flight out.

       He died before I could reach him–I never
       even got the chance to say goodbye. My
       father, my funny, caring, supportive
       father, the man who gave me his blessing
       when I said I wanted to be an actress. I
       called the company in Berkeley, told them
       I was staying for the funeral.

       My mother wanted a closed casket. Because
       of this, and because I’d never seen him
       ill, I couldn’t really bring myself to
       believe he was dead. I had dreams where
       I’d talk to him, laugh at one of his silly
       jokes, and then suddenly realize that he
       wasn’t supposed to be there. "But you’re
       dead," I’d say, horrified. Sometimes he’d
       disappear at that moment, sometimes he’d
       put his finger to his lips, as if to tell
       me that these were things that shouldn’t
       be spoken of. Once he told me that he
       wasn’t really dead, he’d just been away on
       a secret mission somewhere. And every time
       when I’d wake up my cheeks would be wet
       with tears. I hadn’t known you could cry
       in your sleep.

       The third thing that happened–well, it
       wasn’t as bad, I guess. Certainly no one
       died, I didn’t lose anyone I loved. I got
       back to Los Angeles to find out that
       Jessie had auditioned for a part in a
       major motion picture, and that the
       director wanted to see her again.

       We rehearsed together. I took the part of
       the boyfriend, which Jessie told me would
       be played by Harrison Ford. I barely
       remember what the movie was about, to tell
       you the truth. I was numb with grief,
       still coming to terms with all the holes
       in my life left by my father’s death. And
       I was depressed over my career, the way it
       seemed that everyone was getting ahead but
       me.

       Jessie tried to be supportive, but she was
       too excited about the direction her own
       career had taken. I couldn’t blame her,
       really. The morning of her audition she
       rented the white BMW and left for the
       studio. I didn’t hear from her until she
       called at five o’clock that evening.

       "I got the part!" she said, a little
       breathless. "They all loved me, said I was
       perfect. I did those scenes we practiced
       with Harrison–what a sweetie he is!"

       "That’s nice," I said. "Listen, I’ve got
       to go–I’ve got some reading to do."

       "Sure," she said. She sounded a little
       puzzled. Did she really not understand my
       jealousy? Was she really that naïve?

       So I got to watch as Jessie became the
       next hot actress–this year’s blonde, she
       joked, brushing back her masses of dark
       hair. Her conversation became thick with
       the names of famous actors, directors,
       producers. She rented a condo in Malibu. I
       thought for sure she would buy that damned
       BMW she was so proud of but she went one
       better and showed up at my apartment
       complex in a silver Jaguar.

       "I couldn’t resist," she said. "Do you
       like it? You know how the British
       pronounce Jaguar? They say Jay-gu-ar," and
       she told me which famous British actor had
       taught her that.

       "It is not enough to succeed," someone in
       Hollywood had once said, I think Gore
       Vidal. "Others must fail." I tried to feel
       happy over Jessie’s success, I really did,
       but I was sunk so deep in misery I
       couldn’t do it.

       It all started with that damn book, I
       thought. It’s all because I took that book
       down and opened it. "And he who reads the
       following words will be plagued by ill
       fortune for all his life," it had said.
       "Trogro. Trogrogrether. Ord, mord, drord.
       Coho, trogrogrether."

       You look up a moment. The birds have
       stopped singing, a cloud has moved in
       front of the sun. You thought you were
       reading a story about someone struggling
       with death, with bad luck, with her own
       inner demons–Hamlet’s outrageous fortune.
       You certainly had no idea you would become
       involved this way. It’s too late,
       though–you’ve read the words, just as I
       have.

       No, you think. She’s imagined the whole
       thing. Sure, a lot of bad things have
       happened to her, but it’s probably all
       just coincidence. A bunch of words in an
       old book–how could that possibly affect
       me?

       It can, though, take my word for it. It
       happened to me. I know my life went
       downhill just as soon as I read those
       words.

       You thought you were reading about someone
       going through a hard time. One of two
       things would happen–either things would
       get better for her, or they wouldn’t. You
       were prepared to follow the story from the
       beginning through the middle to the end,
       and then you were going to put it down and
       get on with your life. You were prepared
       to feel better after it was all over–if it
       ended happily you’d feel good, of course,
       but if it didn’t you’d still experience
       the catharsis Aristotle talked about. You
       were going to feel good watching me
       suffer.

       And now you’re the one who’s going to
       suffer. What do you think of that?

       I stopped going out. I skipped auditions.
       I sat on my floor and stared at my carpet,
       which was a truly hideous shade of brown.
       I spent a lot of time wondering why anyone
       would make a carpet that color. And when I
       wasn’t worrying about my carpet I thought
       about Jessie.

       I couldn’t turn on the television without
       seeing her. There were ads for her movie,
       there was Jessie herself being featured on
       some entertainment show or talking to Jay
       Leno about what a sweetie Harrison was.
       And when her movie came out it got worse.
       I didn’t go see it, of course–there was my
       carpet to think of–but just about all the
       critics liked it. The skinny guy on that
       Sunday evening movie review program
       practically fell in love with her, though
       the fat guy didn’t go that far. No one
       noticed that she wasn’t a very good
       actress, that she was missing something. I
       wondered if, in addition to all my other
       problems, I was going crazy.

       Whenever I went to the supermarket, there
       was her picture waiting for me, on the
       cover of People or some tabloid. One month
       she was even featured in a house and
       garden magazine, with pictures of the
       interior of her Malibu condo. I couldn’t
       help myself–I paged through the article
       while standing in the check-out line.
       She’d told the reporter that she wanted to
       create a space filled with light. I
       doubted it–she had terrible taste, could
       barely even dress herself. Probably that
       was something her interior decorator had
       said.

       I’d been invited to that condo, not once
       but dozens of times. She urged me to come
       along with her to parties, told me about
       the directors and producers who would be
       there. She offered to take me to dinner. I
       made excuses, stopped returning her calls.
       All I needed, I thought, was to owe Jessie
       my career. No, I’ll be honest here–I just
       didn’t want to see her.

       I thought a lot about envy. In college I
       had been in a production of Marlowe’s Dr.
       Faustus, in the scene with the seven
       deadly sins. I’d played Envy: "I am Envy,
       begotten of a chimney-sweeper and an
       oyster-wife . . . I am lean with seeing
       others eat. Oh, that there would come a
       famine over all the world, that all might
       die, and I live alone, then thou should’st
       see how fat I’d be!"

       If I tried I could remember the six other
       sins–pride, anger, gluttony, sloth,
       lechery, and greed. Envy was definitely my
       sin, though. I thought I would have taken
       almost any of the others: pride, lechery,
       even gluttony. Sloth would be good. Here I
       was, I thought bitterly, envying other
       people their sins.

       The phone rang. I worried that it was
       Jessie, full of more cheerful good news,
       but for some reason I answered it. It
       turned out to be Ellen, a friend of mine
       from college, and I relaxed.

       "Hey, isn’t that woman in the movie Jessie
       What’s-her-name?" Ellen asked after we’d
       caught up on news. "I met her once at your
       house, didn’t I?"

       "Yeah," I said.

       "Well, give her my congratulations. It
       must be exciting for her."

       "Yeah," I said again. There was silence–a
       puzzled silence, I thought–at the other
       end of the line. "I guess this proves
       beyond a doubt that Hollywood values looks
       over talent," I said finally.

       Ellen laughed. "I thought she was a friend
       of yours," she said. "I guess not."

       "I guess not," I said.

       I felt briefly better, and then a whole
       lot worse. What was I saying? Jessie was a
       friend, wasn’t she? Didn’t she deserve
       better from me? What was wrong with me?

       Envy. Envy was wrong with me. I realized
       when I hung up that I couldn’t get rid of
       it, that it was part of me, the way the
       other sins were part of other people.
       That’s why people in the Middle Ages had
       named them, why the terms had stayed
       around for so long. No one was perfect. I
       would have to come to terms with my sin,
       domesticate it. I would have to make it
       mine.

       It felt like hard-won wisdom. I would call
       Jessie, I thought, meet her somewhere for
       lunch. I’d even congratulate
       her–congratulations were long overdue. I
       reached toward the phone I had just hung
       up.

       I stopped. This wasn’t taming my envy.
       This was covering it up, sweeping it under
       the rug, pretending it didn’t exist. I
       knew what I had to do. I opened my phone
       book and looked up Jessie’s new number.

       I got her secretary. I should have
       expected that. The secretary had me wait
       while she looked through a list of
       approved callers. I was on the list, she
       told me, in a voice that suggested I’d
       just won a car. I felt absurdly grateful.

       She put me on hold and then Jessie came
       on. "Hi, how are you doing?" she said.
       "It’s been far too long." She sounded
       cheerful, happy to hear from me.

       "Not too good," I said. I told her the
       whole story, the book in the library, the
       calamities that had happened soon after,
       the terrible envy I had felt over her
       success. I very nearly recited the words
       from the book to her, but something
       stopped me. That wouldn’t be coming to
       terms with envy–that would be giving it
       free rein.

       "You ninny," she said when I finished.

       My heart sank. She hadn’t understood. She
       had never been bothered by envy–she
       couldn’t know how devastating it could be.
       Any minute now she would say, "Why on
       earth should you envy me?" or something
       equally inane.

       Instead she said, "What about the book?"

       "What?" I said stupidly. I couldn’t
       imagine what she might be talking about.

       "The book in the library. You said it was
       called Fortune and Misfortune. If it has a
       phrase that brings bad luck, it probably
       has one for good luck as well."

       I stood still for long seconds,
       dumbfounded. "Oh my God," I said finally.
       "Listen, I’ve got to go."

       "Tell me what happens," she said. "And
       good luck!"

       I called a cab to take me to the Los
       Angeles airport. I got a stand-by flight
       to Oakland, and took BART from Oakland to
       the Berkeley campus. I didn’t have time to
       call Iago, the guy with the library card,
       so I bought my own.

       I cranked apart the shelves in the Greek
       drama section. The book wasn’t there. It
       had probably been misfiled, I thought. It
       certainly wasn’t about Greek drama. I ran
       out of the stacks and waited to use a
       computer terminal.

       Nothing with that title was listed in
       either GLADIS or MELVYL, the two
       university catalogues. I went back to the
       stacks, looked on the shelf above and the
       one below. Nothing.

       I’m going to stay here until I find it, I
       thought. I turned the crank to get to the
       next shelf, then the one after that.
       Fortune and Misfortune, I thought. A black
       book, covered with dust.

       I looked at books until my eyes blurred,
       turned the crank until my muscles ached. I
       waited impatiently while someone perused a
       shelf I had already looked at, eager and
       anxious to turn the crank and move on. I
       was still carrying my overnight bag,
       hastily packed with a change of clothes,
       and I set it down to concentrate on my
       task. A black book, covered with dust.

       After a few hours the lights, already dim,
       darkened further like the signal to return
       to a play after intermission. The library
       was closing. I left the stacks, asked one
       of the librarians if he could recommend a
       cheap place to stay.

       I returned the next day, without the
       overnight bag. And the day after that, and
       the one after that. I had packed only one
       change of clothes, and I needed a
       laundromat very badly. But I couldn’t take
       the time.

       Finally, on the fifth day, I found it. I
       couldn’t believe it at first–I had to read
       the title at least three or four times to
       make sure. But this was definitely the
       book. The dust was spotted with
       fingerprints, my own and those of whoever
       had misshelved it.

       My hands were trembling. I opened the book
       and read the headings at the top of the
       pages. Phrases for health, love, money,
       beauty, knowledge. All these things would
       have interested me once but I rifled past
       them, looking for the section I wanted,
       hoping it would be there.

       It was. "And the following words will
       bring good fortune forever, and are proof
       against all words of ill fortune," I read.
       "Tay, tay, tray. Tiralanta, tiralall. All,
       call, lall. Tiralanta, tiralall."

       So. Those are the words–the bad luck you
       had begun to fear will not strike, and
       maybe even something truly wonderful is
       about to happen to you. Maybe the phone is
       ringing right now, maybe it’s good news. I
       won’t tell you what happened to me after I
       read these words–it’s outside the scope of
       this story, and anyway I think I’ve
       already done enough for you. I will say
       that I was sick and bitter for a long time
       but that now I’m better, though I’ll never
       be entirely free of these awful feelings.
       And that the change in my fortune did not
       start when I read the book the second
       time, but when Jessie reached out her hand
       to me and started to pull me toward
       health. It’s because of her friendship,
       and my father’s love, that I can pass
       along these words to you. It’s still
       difficult for me, but I give you–I give
       you all–my blessing.