English for advanced learners

Unsolved mysteries - a short story

                 

Megan's acting career began one morning a couple of years ago, when a woman approached her in the parking lot of her neighborhood grocery store. "Excuse me," she said, "but have you ever taken acting lessons?"
    "No," she answered hesitantly.
    The woman reached into her pocket and handed Megan a card. "I'm a casting director for Unsolved Mysteries, " she said, shaking her hand. 
   Megan had always been stage-struck. For years she'd fantasized about being an actor, sure that deep within her lurked a brilliant chameleon like Meryl Streep or Julia Roberts. Maybe this was her big break. Maybe she was being discovered!
    "The show's doing a feature about a woman who was kidnapped," the lady continued, "and you look exactly like her. The resemblance is amazing. Would you be interested in auditioning?" She explained that the part was worth a couple of thousand dollars for two days' work, plus travel, lodging, and food expenses. "You can help somebody and get paid, too!" she exclaimed.

    All her life Megan had been mistaken for other people. She reminded everyone of his or her sister, college roommate, ex-girlfriend. For once, the fact that she looked like someone else could actually work to her advantage. Although she was busy with school and couldn't really afford to lose a day of studying, she figured, why not?

    Millions of people would see her on TV. She would earn a nice piece of change, but more than anything, she might be instrumental in helping return a kidnap victim to her family. Perhaps, because of Megan, she would be wrested from the clutches of a depraved criminal and her life would be saved.
    Megan practiced with a friend. He grabbed her from behind and she screamed, begging for help. "Please let me go," she pleaded. "What about my poor children?" 
    "Shut up," he growled.

     On the appointed Sunday morning, Megan set out for Houston. Stopping for gas at a Texaco station, she wondered if the victim had been there, too, and what desperate and ultimately unsuccessful plans for escape she might have concocted. "Oh, please, please, let me call my husband and let him know I'm still alive!" she might have begged.  Ignoring her tearful pleas, he would have stood guard, prohibiting escape, beside the door to the bathroom.
    By the time Megan reached the Galleria , her excitement was at fever pitch.
    On the hotel's second floor, a woman took her picture on a phone, then led her into a room where the other hopefuls were already waiting. Coolly, she glanced at her peers, multiple copies of the story's characters: five prisoners, five husbands, ten children, five mothers. The members of each group bore an uncanny resemblance to each other. At first she couldn't find her own group, the victims. And then she noticed, here and there, a few women her age and younger, sitting alone, nervously checking their makeup. None of them looked like Megan, none had the same blue eyes and thick, long hair. Megan felt her confidence grow.
    After a long wait, five potential victims were ushered in to see the director. He was much as one might imagine a TV director to be -- wiry, intense, jaded in a successful sort of way.
    Apparently, there would be no actual audition, since he was running late.
    Her voice trembling, a young hopeful sporting a big red bow in her black hair spoke passionately of her love of acting.  "I moved to L.A. just in time for the Big One!" she gushed. "It was really scary, but worth it, because a few weeks later I got the best part I've ever had." 
    When it was Megan's turn, she told the truth. "I've never taken acting lessons." Her competitors turned and looked at her, curious, amused. She told her captive audience the fascinating story of how she had been tapped by a stranger, as if by fate, as being a lookalike for the missing woman. Surely such a thing wouldn't happen unless it were meant to be, she laughed. Fumbling for something to say, the director pulled out the photograph of the kidnapped woman and looked back and forth from it to Megan several times. Yes! she thought, that's me! But all he said was, "You've never taken acting lessons."
    "No," she replied, giving him a big smile, hoping to communicate that she'd been so busy pursuing her other talents that she just hadn't yet got around to being a successful actress. "But I've always wanted to. I know I can act." And she realized that her life as an actress had begun. She was acting right then, as she begged him with her eyes
    The last woman interviewed was  younger than Megan, and perkier. "Oh, I just love to act," she gushed. "And I can cry at the drop of a hat. For instance, driving here today, I thought about something sad and just burst into tears." Well, I did that too, Megan thought, looking at her with hatred. Just east of Austin, she'd cried over a dead cat on the road. Me too, she wanted to tell the director. Me too. But it wasn't her turn anymore.
    After the interview, the five hopefuls huddled in the hallway, suddenly comrades, exchanging little intimacies. "You know, when I first saw you,  I thought you were my best friend from high school,"  the weeper-on-demand told Megan. "You look exactly like her, it's uncanny!"
    The director of Unsolved Mysteries must have liked the weeper's skills. She got the part.

WORD GUIDE:
lurk - be hidden - wrest: snatch, pull - clutches: grasp, hold - concoct: invent -  plea: request - bathroom: American word for toilet - peer: people of the same age or social group - uncanny: strange - usher: guide, invite - jaded: blasé, indifferent - Big One: major earthquake - gush: talk with enthusiasm - perky: assertive, bright


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Short story: Unsolved Mysteries

 Comprehension questions.

    1) What is really meant by the first four words of the story, "Megan's acting career began"?
    2) Why was the casting director interested in Megan?
    3) How did she try encourage Megan to audition?
    4) Why was Megan attracted by the proposal?
    5) What made her hesitate?
    6) Why did Megan feel confident when she saw the other candidates for the job?
    7) What, apparently, distinguished Megan from the other candidates?
    8) Why, apparently, did the director not choose Megan?

 Creative writing.

2. Memory test - nouns

Here is an extract from the story, from which most of the nouns have been omitted. Try to remember which noun was used in the story, from the dropdown list of options :

Teacher tips

Vocabulary
The memory exercise, based on nouns, is designed to test both memory and vocabulary. In some cases students need to choose between synonyms, in others between similar words or expresions, in others between logically possible options.

Grammar point:
This story is rich in modal verbs. Pay particular attention to the use of would to express a hypothetical or imagined future


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