Betsy’s Risk by Delaina Hlavin

“Are you gonna do it?” Ava Gardner’s clone leans against the wall, her black tube top indifferent to gravity.

“Do what?” Betsy asks, even though she knows.

Ava Gardner Jr. (nom de scene) drove her home last week in a cherry-red Cabriolet after Aaron’s acting class. Betsy still doesn’t know her real name, which feels embarrassing now that they’re sharing air in this musty waiting room. It smells like crushed dreams and rental fabric.

“You know, a risk,” Ava smoothes the band of her top like it’s a runway model with feelings.

Aaron’s always talking about risks, apparently. Maybe he saves his fortune-cookie wisdom for the students who pay extra for private coaching. Ava Gardner Jr. strips in Vegas on weekends. That’s how she can afford it. Meanwhile, Betsy barely scraped together gas money to get here. But she’s here, dammit, because this HBO audition is everything.

When she told her boyfriend Jeff about it, he said, “That’s huge,” like a dad watching his kid make a macaroni necklace. This was after pouring wine over the ruins of their takeout dinner, his desk a battleground of red sauce and screenplay notes. Jeff’s third spec script sold last month. He tried to downplay it with his Aw, shucks, I’m just lucky routine, but Betsy read the subtext—luck befalls better people. Special people.

She met Jeff when she first landed in LA. He had two roommates and a job answering phones at CAA. Back then, he said if she got tape, he’d show his boss her reel. So, Betsy got tape. Student films, but tape is tape, right? Wrong. Jeff said student films didn’t count. She needed network credits. So, she got six under-fives on shows where her name was sandwiched between “Waitress #2” and “Dead Body (Uncredited).” Jeff still couldn’t show his boss.

“Sadly, this doesn’t move the needle.” he explained, fork-deep in cannolo. He took her to Angelini’s to celebrate, discount, and discard her first guest star credit. “Your role had no arc.”

This HBO role has an arc. A whole dramatic parabola. Betsy kept the details of the scene to herself when she told him about the audition. She didn’t need him mansplaining the stakes to her. HBO wasn’t a credit—it was her salvation.

“Mind if I run it real quick? Just to get my nerves out?” Ava asks.

“Of course,” Betsy holds a frozen smile on her face.

KRISTA

Shut up, Arliss.

Ava nails it. Timing, delivery, and, without missing a beat, she yanks down her tube top. Two breasts emerge, flawless and unapologetic, nipples deserving of their own SAG cards. Jeff would love these boobs.

“That helped,” Ava says, adjusting her top like it’s no big deal. “Thank you.”

“Sure. Break a leg,” Betsy’s voice is wet paper.

Betsy sees it now. The boobs are the blow. The areolas the twist that make the scene pop.

She retreats to her corner of the room; self-loathing tightens around her ribs like a cheap corset. Betsy’s pair aren’t HBO material. They’re basic cable, at best.

She pops a Peach Ring into her mouth. The gummy sweetness floods her senses. Peach Rings are Betsy’s talisman. They got her through her first on-camera line on Frasier and the time she bombed a 90210 audition so hard she drove to Griffith Park and screamed at a tree. She chews slowly, reviewing her sides.

“Betsy Friss?” calls the casting assistant, a blur of pricey sneakers and big hair energy.

“That’s me,” Betsy follows her down the hall.

The audition room is full of writer-producers smushed on couches like hostages.

“You’ll be reading with Gene,” one of them says, gesturing to a man who looks like he hasn’t slept since Bush Sr. was President.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Gene says.

Betsy begins, focused solely on the how and when of her great denude-ing instead of the scene or Krista’s intention.

KRISTA

Blah, blah, blah.

ARLISS

Blah, blah, blah.

She summons the flavor of her last Peach Ring and imagines Aaron’s voice in her head, as if she had private coaching. No risk no reward. No traffic jams on the extra mile.

KRISTA

Shut up, Arliss.

She grabs her tight polyester scoop neck top and yanks. It won’t go beneath her boobs. The left boob is half-in and half-out—the upper portion of her left nipple revealed. Betsy pulls her right boob out and it squeezes over the top of her shirt like a half empty pastry bag.

The room freezes. One producer furrows their brow. Another chuckles, then fakes a cough. Gene drops his pen and looks for it on the ground.

“Thank you,” Betsy shoves her boobs back inside. One nipple points NW, the other SE. She passes Ava in the hall. “Break a leg.” Betsy widens her eyes to keep the tears in.

She runs across the lot under a bright, blue sky. After exiting the studio gates, she trips on the dirty sidewalk. Her knee bleeds as she pulls the parking ticket from the window of her ancient Miata. Betsy collapses against the steering wheel and sobs into her lap.

Her Blackberry buzzes. It’s Jeff: Crush it, babe?

Betsy types back: Didn’t get it. Guess I was wrong that this time would be different.

She hesitates, then deletes the message. Instead, she types: No

For fun, she shifts the hate from herself to Jeff. What a relief. She drops the Blackberry into her bag and drives to CBTL for an ice-blended mocha, extra whip.

Delaina Hlavin holds a master’s degree in psychology and worked as a film and television actor, finance executive, and stilt-walking circus performer. Native to California, she has lived in New York, Sydney, London, and now resides in Los Angeles with her husband, two kids, and two dogs.

7 November 2025