Just in case Hollywood calls me . . .

So, this is how my first on-screen kiss came to be.

I was painting my kitchen cabinets, a task thrust upon on me because I could not adequately explain my vision of Country French distressed to others nor was I willing to pay the exorbitant price for their vision of what I knew was not what I wanted.

There I was, completely content to listen to satellite radio while painting and pondering those inconsequential things of which you never think until you have nothing to do but piddle and paint.

Dixie Dew, my dachshund, occasionally wandered in from her comfortable perch on the back porch to supervise my progress, brush her tail against the paint then saunter lazily back to her place of disinterested rest.

That is to say that it was all basically routine when the phone rang and quickly I segued from mundane to out-of-the-ordinary. Funny how things like that can happen. How one moment you can be tucked away in an oh-so-typical-day then plucked away and plopped down into a nothing-about-this-resembles-any-other-day-I’ve-ever-known-day.

One of my several agents called. This specifically is the one assigned with the responsibility of finding movie roles for me. Not that she has found any movie roles for me and not that I think I’m destined to be a movie star. But just in the event that one day there is one role that no one else was born to play except for me.

I guess you could call her my just-in-case-agent.

“I have a client who wants you to test for a television commercial,” said my just-in-case-agent. “She saw your head shot and thinks you’d be perfect. It’s tomorrow morning.”

I laid aside my paint brush and sat down on the step leading down to my living room. I wasn’t one bit interested. I didn’t want to quit my painting to drive in to Atlanta for 10 minutes of unwanted scrutiny.

Studying the green paint under fingernails, I replied. “I don’t think so. I’m in the midst of a demanding creative project right now.”

“Please?” asked my just-in-case-agent. “It won’t take much time.”

When she told me the shooting schedule, I said, “I’m unavailable one of those days. I have a speaking engagement.” I thought that would get me off the hook. It didn’t.

“Tell her that you can only shoot one day.”

I relented. I thought that just in case that movie role comes along that I was born to play, I didn’t want my just-in-case-agent to be mad at me and not call.

So, I decided to waste half a day of my time. Just in case.

I was not prepared for what happened. When I got there, the casting agent paired me off with a guy I had never seen then led us to the studio.

“You’re in love so be very romantic,” she instructed. “Walk across, holding hands then stop, embrace and kiss.”

I blinked hard.

But just in case, my big movie break includes a kiss, I plunged in.

Apparently, I’m not a good on-screen kisser because I didn’t get part. But should a Hollywood casting agent call my just-in-case-agent and ask for a red-headed Southern woman with on-screen kissing experience, I’ll be ready.

Just in case.