Page 1 of Lights, Camera, Omega

Another Monday. As always, I am up before the sun—shimmying into a wetsuit over my sporty bikini, the top half unzipped to my belly button and folded over with the loose, floppy arms tied around my waist.

I climb over my mismatched shoes in a pile by the door to my apartment and slip my worn leather flip flops on, grabbing my longboard from its precarious position wedged against my rickety old bike rack.

It’s early enough that Rupert, my large orange cat, is still curled in a ball, sleeping in his bed on the nearby windowsill. Quietly, so that I wake neither Rupert nor my neighbors, I open the door to my tiny apartment, propping my longboard against the wall in the hallway outside until I can negotiate my old banana-seat cruiser with it’s chipping gold fleck paint job off of the bike rack and out of the apartment.

Though you’d hardly guess it, I can carry both down the stairs without hitting the walls or even getting too winded.

When I get to the bottom, I carefully swing my leg over the white leather banana seat with one hand gripping the upward curve of the handlebars while I steady my longboard underneath the other arm.

It’s a short ride from my place to the beach. Excellent for catching morning surf, but hell on commuting traffic to set.

Mom says it’s because of choices like this that I can’t get a man. I don’t think she’s ever stopped to consider that my priorities may have never included getting myself said ‘man’.

As a matter of fact, as a sweet, home-making beta from the smoky mountains in Tennessee, I don’t think my mother has ever considered what I might get out of paddling out past the breaks and watching the water curl and churn into white foam before it crashes against the sand or about using one’s body to do nothing more than commune with the waves. It brings me a sense of peace I can find nowhere else.

While the idea is romantic, and all that I say still holds true… there just isn’t very much viable surf this morning. I enjoy my moment of sublime calm, of mind and body harmony, before heading back toward the shore, getting back on my bike and heading home for a shower and a coffee.

“Good morning little man,” I yawn, fresh out of the shower and doing my best to clear the cloud of golden yellow waves from my face so that I might actually be able to see where I’m going.

Using his singular braincell, Rupert manages to scurry out of my way as I stumble to the little vanity beside my bedroom door. I snatch up a satin scrunchie for my rat’s nest of damp blonde hair and slip into the tie dyed bathrobe slung over the vanity’s matching chair with the pink ruffled cushion.

I make my way into the kitchen, Rupert stopping every few feet to look back and confirm that I’m following him into the kitchen to provide him with his coveted breakfast.

On the way, I stop to pay homage to the line of posters along the cramped hallway of my one bedroom apartment. I clasp a hand over my heart, swooning as golden age film star Wanda Price pouts at me in sepia tones from her place, lounging on a sofa and wrapped in a feather boa. Beside her, I let my fingers trace over a colorized photo of Clark Benton and Sylvia Beaumont, locked in one another’s arms in the rain.

The poster is a famous scene from the classic film Maison-Blanche, a favorite of mine since I was a kid. Benton and Beaumont were possibly the biggest on screen alpha-omega couple of the golden age of cinema.

Even as Maison-Blanche prepares to celebrate the big 8-0 and I approach my twenty-seventh birthday, I still think Benton and Lamont are too dreamy.

I pass the row of cheesy, nostalgic teen movie posters I’ve held onto since high school and nearly trip over Rupert as I arrive at the newest edition to the hall of fame poster wall, Cosmo Lamont.

Tall, dark, and brooding with a jawline that could cut diamonds—Cosmo stands under a single streetlight in a double breasted suit, his coal black hair tousled, his fingers pinching the windsor knot in his silk tie.

One of the most famous eligible alphas in Hollywood, after his boss, Director and celebrated auteur Magnus Wagner. I know that I’m as bad as a daydreaming teenager as I press onto my tip-toes and place a sleepy kiss on his face in the glossy photo.

If no one is here to see me be cringeworthy, is it really even happening?

I can’t be bothered to care.

“I was talking to the cat, but you’re pretty handsome yourself,” I flirt heavy-handedly with the still image of my silver-screen-crush.

Rupert yowls his displeasure, upset that I’ve made him wait through my delusional morning rituals.

“I know, I know!” I call to the ornery ball of orange fluff as I shuffle into the kitchen and flip on my electric kettle before serving a can of cat food to the impatient Rupert.

I grind my coffee beans and check my phone while Rupert loudly tucks into his plate of low-tide-scented breakfast.

As usual, my agent Martha has lined up a few auditions for small parts on some new primetime sitcoms. All of them are pretty standard beta roles, which makes perfect sense—as I am a pretty standard beta actor. I’m lucky to have the recurring role of Annie, the plucky comic relief beta on the daytime drama One of the Pack, but Martha is always telling me about how I should be booking better roles since I’m at the incredibly marketable intersection of takes direction extremely well and ‘cute as a button’, beta.

I scoop my cheap coffee into the paper filter of my beat-up little drip brewer and jam a pair of freezer waffles into the pink and white toaster that burns a wonky little picture of Kelly Kitten, the popular 80’s cartoon character, into whatever it is toasting.

I pick at the pale blue glitter nail polish on my thumb as I check my text messages for the location of the first audition of the day. I have two auditions at the same studio that produces One of the Pack (OotP for short) this morning before I begin shooting episodes for the second half of the airing season. The auditions are on Sound Stage C, on the opposite side of the studio lot, so I’m going to have to hope that I can scam lunch off of craft services for one of the other standing TV productions on my way from audition number two to hair and makeup on the OotP set.

I leave my message inbox and start my morning doom scroll.

There’s the usual celebrity gossip headlines: omega pop-star, Aurora Fowler bonds with several members of the all-star hockey team the Liberty City Silver Stars. Celebrity alpha Tony Mencoboni and his Mate Geena, expecting twins. New film by Magnus Wagner to star longtime collaborator Cosmo Lamont—and already industry fixtures are abuzz about its likely mammoth critical and box-office success.

My heart does a funny little flutter and my gaze is pulled toward Cosmo’s glossy face, cold and beautiful from its place in the hallway beyond.

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