Seeing Stars Page 6

  Once the girls had made what Ruth hoped was their final exit, she pulled out the copy of Seabiscuit she’d been meaning to read for forever, but she was too nervous to settle down; she read the first page nine times and gave up. All around her were little islands of adults surrounded by laptop computers, picnic coolers, DVD players, knitting, crocheting, even a pillow and blanket or two for the toddlers and preschoolers who’d been dragged along. (Now that would be a nightmare, Ruth thought; how did you keep a tiny child busy, happy, and quiet while sitting in theater seats all day?) The women and handful of men weren’t nearly as well-heeled as the mothers at Bethy’s That’s So Raven callback. There were a lot of elastic-waisted pants here, and plus-size shirts from Target.

  “Well, that’s a load of crap,” Ruth heard a raspy voice announce from several rows down. Ruth thought it sounded familiar, and by moving just one seat over she confirmed that it was Vee Velman from Bethy’s callback the other day. Her hair, which was refreshingly shot with gray, was pulled back and piled up and pinned indifferently, and Ruth thought she looked wonderfully tough and capable. “Do you need me to come down there?” she was saying into her cell phone. “No? Look, just tell her it’s your epilepsy medication—don’t say medicine, say medication—and that you’ll have a grand-mal seizure any minute if you don’t take it. Honey, I don’t—” A pause, a loud sigh, and then, “Hi. Yup, this is Clara’s mom. Look, my daughter has epilepsy, though she was probably too ashamed to tell you, severe epilepsy, and if she doesn’t take those meds right on schedule, which means five minutes ago, she’s going to start seizing. I know she should have a note. She did have a note when we left home, but God only—” A beat. “Have you ever seen a grand-mal seizure? Because I can tell you, it’s not pretty. A lot of times it involves vomit, and sometimes feces, and then there’s the tongue-swallow—All right. Thank you.” She snicked her cell phone shut.

  Ruth made her way down and touched Vee on the shoulder in what she hoped was a supportive way. “Ruth Rabinowitz. We met at the—”

  Vee turned around. “Hey—sure, how are you?”

  “Fine! Well, a little overwhelmed.” She gestured at the chaos around them, then asked as delicately as she could, “Is everything all right?”

  “What? Oh, that was Clara. She’s got hay fever, and the Nazi set teacher wouldn’t let her take a Sudafed. It’s ridiculous, because you know they’re not going to want her on set if she’s sneezing every two minutes, which is pretty much the way it’s been going this morning.”

  Ruth was nonplussed. “She’s not epileptic?”

  Vee looked amused. “You heard that?”

  “I didn’t mean to, but—”

  “Pretty good, huh?”

  “So she’s not?”

  “Nah.”

  “Are the teachers always obstinate like that?”

  “Not all of them. Sit!” Vee said, patting the seat beside her.

  Ruth sat, taking in Vee’s minimal camp: a laptop, two paperback books with broken spines, and a water bottle filled with what looked like beer.

  “Actually it depends,” Vee was saying. “Sometimes they’re fascists and sometimes they’re okay, and you never know which one it’s going to be until you get there. They’re supposed to be the kids’ on-set advocates, making sure they get enough breaks and have water and stuff. Technically, they’re social workers. Some of them are totally worthless, though. Those who can’t do teach, and those who can’t teach teach on sets. And on big sets like this, with tons of kids, you’re lucky if they just keep the room quiet. One time, Clara said there was a kid who spent the whole three hours rolling doobies inside a lunch box.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “You’ll see. How’s your girl, did she book Raven?”

  Ruth sighed. “No. Frankly, it was a disaster. The woman didn’t even recognize her, and then she yelled at her for bringing glasses that she’d specifically told her to bring the day before.”

  “Well, like I said, Evelyn Flynn’s a piece of work.”

  “Poor Bethy was so upset.”

  Vee looked at her shrewdly. “I bet you took it harder than she did.”

  “Probably,” Ruth admitted. By her estimation, she’d gotten four and a half hours’ sleep that night.

  “Yeah, well, the parents usually do.”

  “Really? You go through that?”

  Vee shrugged. “Not so much anymore, but when the kids were little it was hard. Now they kind of don’t give a shit. If they book something, fine; if they don’t book something, fine.”

  “So is Clara one of the extras, too?”

  “God, no,” Vee said. “She’s Girl Number Three. She has seven lines, not one of which has more than four words in it.”

  “Still,” said Ruth. “That’s wonderful.”

  Vee smiled at her fondly. “You’re so new.”

  “Does it really show that much?”

  “Honey, like neon paint on a stripper. Not that that’s always a bad thing. A lot of casting directors like the kids right out of Kansas or wherever.”

  “Seattle,” said Ruth.

  “Like I said. Sometimes those are the kids who give the freshest reads. They have that clean, unspoiled, real quality directors love.”

  “Speaking of strippers,” and here Ruth lowered her voice, “is it true that the porn industry is headquartered here? Because I think we’ve seen some places where they film. On Magnolia in North Hollywood there are these big buildings that don’t have windows or signs, and all the parking’s around back. I mean, we’ve seen some people, too. Well, women.”

  “You bet,” Vee said cheerfully. “Porn’s big business, baby. If you ever want a real hoot, watch the Adult Movie Awards on TV. It’ll blow your mind.”

  “I don’t think I’m that strong,” said Ruth.

  “Just wait. Once you’ve been here a few years you’ll not only watch, you’ll see that some of your neighbors are nominees. We had a porn queen once who used to walk her dogs all the time—pugs, Peachy and Butch, neither of them could breathe worth a damn, dumber than clams—and whenever she walked, men up and down the whole damned street suddenly remembered they had to go out and check the mail. My husband, Herb, kept a pair of binoculars in the front window. Her name was Honey von Buns or something. I am not making this up. Buster used to call her the Implant Lady, and that was when he was only ten. We used to marvel that she didn’t just topple over from the weight. When she put her house on the market, every single person within a quarter-mile radius went to the open house. You would not believe what you can do with a little feng shui and faux painting. I’m not kidding, the whole place was like a Roman grotto where someone had killed a couple of tigers. There were olive branches, stone columns, togas in the coat closet, tiger-striped towels, drapes, toilet seats, the whole deal. You could smell the strawberry massage oil from the front lawn.” Vee sighed, a faraway look in her eye. “Now an entertainment lawyer lives there, and he’s such a bastard. If we’d known, we’d have tried harder to get her to stay. She probably lives in the West Hills now, in some house that Spartacus built. You think I’m kidding?”

  Ruth was laughing so hard her eyes were tearing. Vee subsided, taking a swig from her water bottle.

  “I’ve got to ask,” Ruth said.

  “I know—you think it’s beer. Everybody does. It’s this special apple juice Clara makes me buy at Trader Joe’s. Organic, which I keep trying to tell her just means there’s probably a couple of ground-up worms in it. She loves Trader Joe’s. I figured out once that we pay their monthly electrical bill.”

  “We were so glad when we found one near our apartment,” Ruth said. “We love that place.”

  “You and everybody else.”

  Downstairs, kids were suddenly filing in from three different doorways and being directed to seats in the center section of the orchestra until every single one was taken.

  “Oh!” Ruth said, leaning forward in excitement.

  “They’re packing them in,
so they must be shooting tight,” Vee said. “No cardboard cutouts for this guy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t know about that? You know how in a sports movie the superdome or wherever looks completely filled? They use cardboard cutouts of people up in the high seats.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Think about it. They’re not going to pay ten thousand extras. Cardboard’s a lot cheaper, and from a distance you can’t tell the difference. You never noticed it, right?”

  “So there’s a company somewhere that makes a million cardboard cutouts of people?” Ruth said incredulously.

  “Yup.”

  Ruth shook her head. In another minute she saw Bethany come in, look up for her, and wave. Ruth waved back. A production assistant was giving each row of kids a number. Ruth was thrilled to see that Bethy’s row was number four. Based on where the cameras were placed, she might get a close-up. By Ruth’s calculation, the kids in row twenty didn’t stand a chance.

  Once everyone was seated, a young man in a ratty sweatshirt, high-tops, and a baseball cap turned around backward hopped up on the stage. “He can’t possibly be the director,” Ruth said. “He’s twelve years old.”

  “That’s him, all right. Dick Fiori. He’s pretty new, but his last movie, Winning Proposition, made a ton of money, so now he’s one of Hollywood’s golden boys.”

  “I remember that movie,” Ruth said. “Wasn’t it about a soccer team or something in Proposition, Ohio?”

  “Yep.”

  On the stage, a PA offered Dick Fiori a portable mike, but he waved it away and shouted, “Can you all hear me?”

  The kids hollered, “Yeah!”

  “Cool.” He made a settle-down motion with his hands and said, “Okay, hey, thanks for being here today, first of all. How many of you have done this before?”

  About half the kids put up their hands.

  “How many of you want to be in the movies?”

  Almost everyone raised a hand.

  “Groovy.” In a mock-confidential tone he said, “How many of you are only here because your parents made you?”

  About eighteen of the kids raised their hands. The director turned to the mezzanine with a boyish grin that Ruth suspected he’d been perfecting for years and said, “Thanks, all you stage moms and dads!”

  A feeble ripple of laughter went through the gulag.

  The director turned back to the kids. “No, but seriously, guys, you’re going to be part of one of the movie’s most important scenes. LaTisha and Brian have been working with the squad on this popping-krumping kind of cheer for a couple of months. No one’s ever seen anything like it before, and they’re getting a ton of static, including from Mr. Wong, the principal. So they’re worried about that. Plus—and don’t tell anyone this—they’re falling in love.”

  In a united chorus, the kids all said, “Awwwwww.” Dick Fiori gave them a minute before saying, “Seriously, though, if they don’t at least place in this competition they’re going to have to go home and the squad’s going to be disbanded because even the school board doesn’t like them and they’re just looking for any excuse, so how they do is super important. Okay? So here’s what we’re going to do. We need you guys to react—that’s what you’re going to be doing for me today—and I’m going to tell you what you’re reacting to, which means you’re going to have to use your imaginations, because nothing’s actually going to be happening up here on the stage, even though in the movie we’ll be cutting back and forth to the squad performing. Okay? So the first thing is, we’re going to boo”—and here he made a booing noise like a moose call—“because you’re thinking these kids are just freaks and spoilers and they should step aside and let the regular squads win. Okay? Let me hear it.”

  The kids all booed with gusto. “Great! Now I want you to do exactly that same thing, only this time you all need to be looking at me, because the camera has to see you seeing these kids that you hate. Are we ready, Harvey? Yeah? Okay, we’re going to roll this time. You ready? Here’s your chance to get famous.”

  The kids booed and cheered and shouted and catcalled and when, after an hour, they began to flag, the director dismissed them for a quick sugar break. “Okay, guys, craft services has put out some more doughnuts and I think we’ve even got some Cinnabons—Paulie, do we have Cinnabons? Yup, we’ve got Cinnabons—and we want you to stretch your legs and eat and drink some juice for energy, and after that, rows one through eight, you’re going back to your classroom.” Loud booing broke out, which the director rewarded with a rueful look. “Yeah, I know it’s a bummer, but I promise we’ll bring you back out pretty soon. Rows nine through seventeen, you’re going to come back here, and the rest of you, you get to go to your classroom, too, because Disney loves educated actors.”

  From the tangle of kids, Ruth saw Bethany seek her out with a look of adoration. And Ruth knew exactly why, because she could feel it, too: here they were, in Los Angeles, making a movie that all Bethy’s friends were going to see, starring kids she revered, on an honest-to-God movie set. Any lingering disappointment from the Raven callback had been washed away by the awesome magic of Hollywood.

  DICK FIORI WRAPPED THE MORNING SHOOT AT TWELVE o’clock exactly and announced that the actors had one hour for lunch. Everyone, including parents and set-sitters, was required to leave the set, so Ruth picked up her purse and headed outside to meet the girls. They’d already lined up in the theater parking lot, where two tents had been pitched, one for the union and the other for the nonunion extras. Reba had been right: from what Ruth could see, the extras got boxed lunches consisting of a thin and unadorned turkey sandwich, potato chips, and an apple. From the aroma wafting out of the other tent, the union actors were getting an assortment of Thai dishes with a salad bar and dessert buffet.

  Once they’d made it through the lunch line, which moved at roughly the same glacial speed as rush-hour traffic, Ruth found a spot of shade beneath a tired and spindly oak tree. There were no chairs anywhere, so she and the girls sat on the cement.

  “See?” Reba said balefully, poking around inside her lunch box. “I told you.”

  “Did you see Clara at all?” Ruth asked Bethany. “I sat with her mom this morning, up in the gallery.”

  “Was she the girl at the Raven callback? Yeah, she was in my classroom. She started out in a different room that was just for the actors with speaking parts, but the teacher had a nervous breakdown or something. Clara said she kept staring at her and asking how she was feeling and stuff, if she felt light-headed or weird or anything. Then she sent her to our room.”

  Ruth suppressed a smile. Bethany bit into her sandwich. “We talked a lot,” she said through a mouth full of gummy white bread and turkey. “I like her—she’s funny.”

  “I thought you were supposed to be doing schoolwork,” Ruth said.

  Bethany gave Ruth her duh look. “No one did schoolwork, Mom.”

  “Well, somebody must have.”

  Bethany shrugged. “Anyway, the teacher and this other woman just sat outside the room and let us do whatever we wanted.”

  Vindicated, Allison said, “I told you they don’t care.”

  Bethany started waving at someone. Ruth looked around and saw Clara emerge from the union tent with an overflowing plate. She came over and sat down beside Bethany.

  “Where’s your mom?” Ruth asked, looking for Vee.

  “She had to go pick up my little brother. You’re not supposed to leave a minor on the set unaccompanied, but she does it all the time when there are a ton of people. It’s not like anyone’s keeping track.”

  “Well, if anyone asks, you just say you’re with me,” Ruth offered. She stood up with effort—she really had to lose thirty pounds—and asked who wanted something to drink.

  “Diet Coke,” said Allison.

  “Milk,” said Bethany. “Chocolate. Please.”

  “Coke,” said Reba. “Regular Coke.”

  “Orange juice,” Hill
ary said primly. “I haven’t had a fruit or a vegetable yet.”

  Clara just hoisted her can of soda and said, “I’m good.”

  Ruth threaded her way among the little camps of kids and parents and snuck in the wrong side of the nonunion tent, grabbing cans and cartons. When she got back the girls were deep in conversation.

  “My mom thinks I’m going to be famous,” she heard Bethany say.

  “Everyone’s mom thinks they’re going to be famous,” said Hillary.

  “Not mine,” Clara said cheerfully. “My mom thinks me and my brother are going to get little piddly-ass jobs until high school and then tank.”

  Ruth sat down with a grunt. “What do you mean, tank?”

  “Stop booking. Which it pretty much doesn’t take a genius to figure out, because everyone stops booking in high school. You’re too old to play younger than fourteen, and you’re too young to play older than fifteen, and there aren’t breakdowns for fourteen or fifteen ever. They’re always for twelve, sixteen, or eighteen, so you’re pretty much screwed. Plus, you know, I’m a redhead.”

  “Does that matter?” said Ruth.

  “Name a redhead besides Marcia Cross, Kate Walsh, or Julianne Moore. You can’t.”

  “But that can’t possibly be true,” Ruth said. “Especially what you were saying about getting too old or young or whatever it was.”