SENIOR COLUMN: There Is Life Outside of Spec; It Ain't Pretty

This is the story of the summer before I gave my life to Spectator. Everything you're about to read is 100 percent true.

The summer after my first year of college, I lucked into an internship at a talent agency in the city. More Broadway Danny Rose than Entourage, it was a three-room office perched over Broadway at 44th Street in the gold-doored Paramount building. To avoid some kind of boutique agency blacklist, let's call it the Waxner Office.

I went in every day-unpaid, of course-and answered phones, typed up submission letters, pulled résumés, compiled submissions, sent submissions, took appointments, gave appointments, rescheduled appointments, ordered toner, fixed the photocopy machine-basically, I did everything.

From my seat at the door, greeting eager clients desperate for an audition (I wanted to scream at them, "Run away! Go to L.A.! You will never get work from these people!"), I had a clear view of both agents: Larry Waxner, the balding, cantankerous, and gossipy manager/owner/head-of-everything, and his "junior" agent, Norma.

Six feet tall, well past 50, single, and in possession of a large pouf of gray hair, Norma Jebbings is the kind of woman who pins pictures of cats, Rupert Everett, and Michael Bublé around her cubicle. Equally at ease grabbing you into a giant bear hug or waxing nostalgic about last night's sex dream ("Jerry Garcia. And I don't even like the Grateful Dead!"), she was at once the most tragic and comforting figure I knew. Maybe that's why I agreed to attend a Fourth of July barbecue at her house in Montclair, N.J. Maybe also because she said I could bring a friend and that she'd invited some of the actors (per Larry's standards, mostly cute, young guys).

At 10 a.m., my best and most long-suffering friend Kate and I met actor Matt, his girlfriend, and their 60-pound hound dog in a duffel bag at the Port Authority DeCamp bus gate. Twenty dollars' worth of bus tickets later, we jumped off the neon DeCamp and onto Norma's lawn. Literally, the bus stop was on her lawn.

Greeting us in a lilac muumuu and house slippers, Norma began the grand tour. At the door to the dilapidated mini-Victorian house, she cooed, "This quarter of the downstairs is mine." Stacks of dusty newspapers and résumés created a foyer that pointed directly to the cats' litter-box room-five boxes for 11 cats-and, beyond that, the bathroom. To the left was a mattress on the floor, covered by a plastic sheet. "Tiger pees all over the bed if I don't set up the tarp!"

Beyond the bedroom stood a securely latched door. Norma explained, "Thumper has kitty AIDS, so he stays in the kitchen."

Slapping a hand to her forehead, Norma almost yelled, "And I forgot! If you need to pee, let me know. The bathroom door is off its hinges, so we'll all turn around when anyone needs to go."

On our way out to the porch for barbecue festivities, we passed the bathroom door, propped up on stacks of newspapers and posing as a coffee table.

There, Norma introduced us to the other guests: her 20-something niece from Ohio and her niece's five-foot, 300-pound boyfriend, Joe. Norma gushed, "He's a parole officer!"

As if anticipating my next question, she assured us that Cindy-a regional theater casting director-might also be stopping by, if we were lucky!

Suddenly aware that I was trapped in Montclair, and more troublingly, literally trapped in the corner of the porch by Joe, I grimaced and decided to make the best of it.

"So, you're a parole officer?" I asked, hoping for something juicy.

"Yeah." Silence. The niece chimed in.

"You ever been to a Mongolian barbecue?"

"No." Silence. She trudged on.

"It's real good. You can choose from olive oil, sesame oil, peanut oil, vegetable oil-"

"Teriyaki sauce," Joe chimed in.

She gave him a quick look and continued, "No, that's a sauce. I haven't even gotten to the sauces yet."

As we sat sipping soda from chipped coffee mugs, I whispered to Kate, "I think I need to pee." She looked at me in horror.

"Hey, everybody, I'm going in-so turn around!" Back through the newspaper tunnel and through the cat playground, I sat on the toilet. Slung over the tub in front of me hung three gargantuan, threadbare brassieres. Glancing quickly around, I realized I was only 10 feet from the open front door and only 20 from the DeCamp bus stop. As a lumbering coach pulled to a halt and a few people landed on Norma's lawn, Puma the cat-so named for her massive frame-leapt onto my bare lap and propelled herself onto a three-inch-wide windowsill, two feet above my head. Missing her mark, she fell back, screeching, onto my lap as the bus barreled off.

Determined to get the hell out of there, I grabbed Kate and told Norma we better get on the next bus.

"Oh, that's too bad!" Turning to face the group, she announced, "Before everyone goes, the meat was on sale today so it will just be about 10 bucks per person for food."

Stunned, handing over $10 bills, Kate and I stood awkwardly on the lawn, waiting for the bus.

At work the next week, Norma-in a particularly chipper mood-leaned over the desk, a familiar bra strap peeping out from under her shirt, and laughed. "You know, Julia, 30 years ago, I started right where you are." In that moment, I knew I would never be an agent. I knew I would not go to school at nights and stay on at the Waxner Office like they wanted me to. I knew I was going to have to get busy with something else, fast.