Sky Tongues

by Gina Ranalli

  “Where’s that guy?” I began shouting to anyone I encountered backstage. “That guy who gave me this! The producer. Or the producer’s assistant. Where’s that guy?”

  I’m sure everyone thought I was the druggie of our cast instead of David, but I didn’t care. There was no way in hell I was about to sing for anyone, especially since they hadn’t even asked me first.

  In the end, I gave up searching for the guy who had handed me the script and I went back to my booth and sat docilely like a good girl, answering stupid questions with a smile and simultaneously trying to talk David down from his high.

  On the whole, I wouldn’t say it was a good beginning to the night.

  36

  Half an hour passed and then someone from the show told Lucia that we still had an hour before we would be presenting the sound award.

  Restless, I couldn’t sit still inside that damn booth for another hour, so I left. I decided to go exploring and since there wasn’t much to see back stage and since we weren’t allowed to sit in the audience until our own nomination for Best New Show rolled around, I went outside.

  The world out there instantly reminded me of the old carnival atmosphere I used to love so much. There were games and rides and everywhere you looked people were enjoying themselves. Unlike the old carnival days though, this place was full of celebrities walking around, being entertained and eating fried dough.

  It was all very surreal.

  I was out there for perhaps twenty minutes before I noticed all the bleachers set up around the carnival, bleachers full of people, onlookers who wanted to watch their favorite personalities win a teddy bear or ride the Whip.

  Amazed, I walked around to the rear of one of the rides and looked up at the crowd looking down at me. There were a few Mues shouting my name and waving frantically. I waved back, smiling, trying to pretend this was all very normal to me.

  I started to feel like the whole thing was part of a twisted nightmare that I couldn’t escape from so, I decided I was better off inside after all. As bizarre as things were in there, they still didn’t compare to what was outside.

  Attempting to go back, I had yet another argument with yet another security guard who kept saying he didn’t recognize me, he’d never heard of me, etc, so it was another twenty minutes before I was even back in the building.

  I knew I should head immediately back to the booths but I couldn’t face that weirdness again just yet. Instead, I wandered around backstage, trying doors and finding most of them locked. When I finally found one that wasn’t, I quickly slipped through it without anyone noticing.

  One white bustling hallway led to another somewhat less bustling white hallway until I came to a completely silent, completely deserted white hallway. I tried various doors in this hallway until I finally found one unlocked. I opened it and stepped into a plain white room with furniture of shockingly bright colors in striped and polka dot designs. There was nothing in this room besides the furniture, consisting of a single loveseat and several funky armless chairs, except for a mirror on one wall with a magazine rack hanging beside it.

  I did what anyone would have done: I chose a magazine and sat down on the loveseat to read it.

  When I opened the magazine in the middle, there was a bright psychedelic painting of the late John Lennon of the Beatles, a musical band that was popular over a century ago.

  The accompanying article was a description of the process of creating the painting. The writing was so vivid, I could actually hear the squishing sounds of the brush moving through the paint and then scratching against the canvas and all I kept thinking was, This would make a great script. I have to remember this. It would make a great script.

  Then a woman entered through another door I hadn’t noticed when I’d first come in. with a paper towel, she said, “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t have a watch.”

  “Well, you’d better hurry up then,” she said tossing the used towel into a basket on the floor beneath the magazine rack.

  That’s weird, I thought. I’d swear that basket wasn’t there before.

  “Hurry up for what?”

  “To practice your presentation, of course. Did you forget why you’re here?”

  I looked down at the magazine in my lap, my thumb tongues caressing the glossy pages, the colorful image of John Lennon’s face, his famous round eyeglasses. “I guess I did.”

  When I looked up, the woman was giving me a disapproving stare, then she shook her head and went back through the door she’d emerged from.

  She was right though. I needed to get back. How long had I been in here anyway? It seemed like forever but when I looked again at the magazine, at the words written there, I saw that I had only read the first line of the article. Maybe repeatedly, but I couldn’t be sure. How had I thought a single line would make such a good script? The whole thing was rather mystifying and I wanted to take the magazine back with me, show it to the others and ask them what they saw in it. But, I was afraid that if I took the magazine from the room, something horrible would happen, something I couldn’t predict. I knew without a doubt that I would find myself in huge trouble. Perhaps arrested.

  I stood up and hurriedly put the magazine back in the rack and exited the room, wondering which door I had entered to come to this abandoned hallway in the first place. Where the hell was I?

  Running up the hall, trying every door along the way, I was distressed to find them all locked. I was on the verge of panicking, of shouting for help, when I tried the last door and it opened into another hall with a few people entering and exiting various doors along it.

  I peeked into all the doors I could and at least tried the ones I couldn’t until I found the one which opened on a vaguely familiar scene.

  Soon, I was in the busy backstage area again, moving past people and heading for that ridiculous row of booths we were assigned to.

  Entering my own booth, I was happy to see David in his and I sat down, breathing a tremendous sigh of relief. After all that, I knew that presenting a little award would be nothing but a piece of cake.

  37

  I was wrong.

  Getting back only minutes before we were told it was time, I hadn’t memorized what I was supposed to say yet. I told the assistant who was sent to fetch us and he said not to worry about it. There would be a teleprompter. I also told him I had no intention of singing any jingle and he said he doubted there would be time anyway, since the show was running behind.

  Reassured, I felt much better as the three of us were led to the stage entrance and told to wait for our cue. Both Lavinia and Lucia were perfectly calm. They seemed almost bored, which was usually Lavinia’s natural state and unsurprising at that point since she had been to these things before. But I figured Lucia would be at least as nervous as I was. Instead, she calmly waited, checking herself in the mirror now and then.

  We watched as someone received an award for Best Original Screenplay and then we were up. I was scared to death I might trip and make an ass out of myself, but the walk across the stage went well, with Lavinia leading, Lucia in the middle and me bringing up the rear.

  Once we arrived at the podium, Lavinia did most of the talking without ever glancing at the teleprompter and I was able to scan the crowd. As soon as I saw the sea of people sitting before us, I calmed down. It was just like doing theater, I thought, except that everyone here is dressed in fancier clothes. I figured if I’d ever made it to Broadway, the audience would have looked exactly the same as this one did.

  Meanwhile, Lavinia had begun singing her song, while Lucia and I took a step back and let her have the spotlight. We both made it look good, swinging our hips back and forth and smiling like lunatics. Lucia snapped the fingers of her four hands and I tried clapping with my tongues, without much success.

  Thankfully the song was brief and we stepped forward again, patiently waiting for the applause to cease. When it finally did, it was time for Lucia’s
mini-monologue and I stood idly by, trying to look fascinated by what she was saying. All too soon, she was finished and it was time for me to ramble on about nonsense. I calmly smiled and for the first time flicked my eyes at the teleprompter. To my dismay, I couldn’t read a single word on it. One of the ceiling lights was casting a glare and all I good see was its reflection. Distressed, I did the only thing I knew to do: I improvised. I made small talk with the audience, saying how exciting the whole event was, meanwhile trying to remember from the script what I was supposed to say. I managed to recall the bit about the award we were presenting almost verbatim, but then it came time to do the little plug for one of the shows sponsors. I knew it was for some chain restaurant, but that was about all I could remember. Which restaurant? No clue.

  So, I made one up and began talking about Charley’s Big Tine Saloon. It was the first thing that came into my head. I tried to ignore the crew motioning for me to look at the teleprompter and generally going crazy, and I just rambled on. Charley wanted everyone to come on out and try his spicy baby-back tofu ribs, his special secret sauce tofu buffalo wings and of course, the infamously huge forks. His slaw was also to die for and if you were looking for a casual place with sawdust on the floor and live country music, Charley’s Big Tine Saloon was the place to go.

  I noticed the audience exchanging glances here and there, but most just sat, either looking bored and yawning or staring with a blank smile.

  Lavinia and Lucia, gods bless them, stood by and remained absolutely neutral, as if they’d known all along about the Big Tine Saloon. Then I noticed the director frantically dragging his finger across his throat, motioning me to shut the hell up, so I did and Lavinia began reciting the nominees.

  A fine sheen of sweat had developed on my brow but I pretended it wasn’t there and waited for Lavinia to open the envelope. Together, all three of us read the winner aloud and then acted ecstatic over it. The winner came up and we casually faded back, waited for him to finish his speech and then escorted him off the stage.

  Once we were backstage, chaos ensued. I had about half a dozen people screaming at me while my cast mates burst into hysterical fits of laughter (including David, who was there to present an award with a little Uni kid.) I began to laugh uncontrollably myself, but it wasn’t real laughter. I was acting and secretly mortified. I just wanted to go home and forget this night ever happened.

  But I couldn’t do that. The night dragged on for another hour, during which time we were permitted to sit in the audience and wait to see if we won Best New Drama series, which was one of the last awards given. We didn’t win, but Dove did and David went to accept the award on his behalf, saying that Dove sent his apologies for being unable to attend.

  Then the show ended and the media frenzy began. I don’t even know how many times I said how thrilling it was just to be nominated. I was making myself ill. And of course I kept getting asked about my presentation performance, which I insisted was all part of the plan to add a little humor to what was always a tense night. In fact, our whole cast and crew would be asked about what I did for an entire week to come and by the end of it, they were as displeased with my stunt as the show’s bigwigs were.

  And that was how I became to be known as a drunk at the age of 22.

  38

  It was shortly after the Emmy fiasco that I became a favorite among the rag-mag crowd. To read those things, you’d think I was drunk or stoned 24/7, not to mention having sex with everyone in Hollywood. I did my best to ignore the crap they were printing about me, refused about a million interviews and tried to concentrate solely on my job.

  Relief finally came during our seasonal hiatus when I was offered a supporting part in a feature film that was to be shot overseas. I jumped at the chance, packed my bags and bought a ticket for the first plane out of the states.

  The movie was called The Queen is Dead and was to be shot mostly in London, but my character didn’t come into the film until the middle portion and so I was sent to a remote island in the middle of the South China Sea.

  I was there earlier than I had to be and stayed longer than I had to, living it up, lounging in the sun and reading trashy bestsellers. I loved being somewhere where the people had no idea who I was and even if they did, they didn’t care and remained completely unimpressed.

  I always had plenty of dipping bowls for my tongues at my disposal, ate exotic foods and met exotic people.

  And then it was time to get to work on the film.

  The Queen is Dead is a very apt title for a movie that is about—you guessed it—a dead queen. Or, more appropriately, an assassinated queen. The hero and heroine are assigned to find the drug lords behind the assassination and, after traipsing around England for an hour or so, follow a lead to a remote island where they meet my character, a missionary teaching the native children English and mathematics.

  The film is very much a thriller and was a good deal of fun to make.

  The best part of the entire experience however, wasn’t the actual film at all but a special someone I encountered during the making of the film.

  It was there that I met Rabia.

  39

  Rabia was a technical advisor on the set, having spent time as an actual missionary, working with actual native kids.

  Because the native people live in such a remote part of the world, mostly untouched by the rest of humanity, their home is very unspoiled. They have almost no pollution to speak of and very little chemical contamination of their foods and water supplies. Which all means that they have very few Mues among them. In fact, many of the children I worked with were seeing Mues for the first time and while some were quite intrigued, others were terrified.

  Rabia was an exception. Although she was a Uni Mue and hadn’t worked with these particular children, she spoke their language fluently and just had a way about her that made them trust her and eventually fall in love with her.

  Of course, they weren’t the only ones enamored of her. I myself wanted her from the moment I saw her.

  40

  We actually met before filming even began. She was assigned to help me understand my character and the children I’d be working with, as well as speak the language at least passably, which technically just meant being able to say my lines with believability. But learning a few things beyond the script would be good as well. Being able to communicate with the children off-set would be very important as well, since it would bring depth to not only my performance, but theirs as well.

  So, one day I was in my hotel room talking to Franz on the phone when there was a rap at my door. Without pausing in the conversation, I went, peeked out the peep hole and then opened the door a crack.

  “I’m Rabia Jacobs,” she said. “I guess I’m your technical advisor.”

  I nodded, smiling and let her in, giving her the “one moment” signal by holding up my index tongue, then motioning for her to have a seat and make herself comfortable.

  Franz chattered on in my ear, talking nonstop about another part he thought I’d be perfect for. I was only half-listening. Nowadays, Franz thought I’d be perfect for every part that slid across his desk or even those he’d just heard rumors about.

  I held the phone away from my ear and whispered to Rabia that she should help herself to anything on the dining cart; the fresh fruit was especially delicious. She only nodded, looking rather uncomfortable.

  Finally, I told Franz I had to go and, ignoring his protests, hung up on him.

  I stood, head cocked, studying Rabia. “You must be a Uni.”

  She nodded, smiling nervously. “How can you tell?”

  In fact, it was quite easy to tell. Her skin was completely transparent. It was as if she were made of a clear gel: you could see inside her body. Her teeth, the tongue behind her teeth, her brain, her veins, everything. The bones in her hands. She looked like a medical students model come to life.

  Naturally, I couldn’t see everything. She was wearing clothes after all, but I knew that wer
e she to undress, I would see everything. Every little organ, every sinew, every bone. I had never realized until that point how inconsequential the muscles of the body really are. They obstruct the views of some things inside but certainly not all. They are there, but only as doors or walls, you can peek around them, see what’s behind them if the angle is right.

  “Staring is rude,” Rabia said, startling me out of my thoughts.

  I blinked. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I can’t believe I was doing that.”

  She held up the script she’d been holding. “Do you want to get started?”

  “Yes,” I gave her my best smile. “Absolutely.”

  41

  After about 90 minutes of talking shop with her, I was ready for a break. I stood, stretched, and walked over to the sliding glass doors that led to the balcony. It was still morning, not quite 11:00, and a gorgeous day. The hotel was on a more populated island than the one where the actual shooting would take place and my room looked out over a bay and beyond that were bright green hills with large white houses speckled throughout the landscape.

  The view was beautiful and made me long to be out in the sun, exploring the island, shopping, going for a drive. Anything.

  I turned around, facing Rabia again. “Do you want to take a break? It’s such a beautiful day.”

  “I could use a glass of water.”

  “Oh. Ok.” I went into the little kitchen and brought a bottled water out of the refrigerator. When I handed it to her, I tried my best to look like I wasn’t paying attention, but of course I was. I watched with complete fascination at the water entered her mouth and then flowed down her throat to disappear beneath the collar of her T-shirt.

  “Do you want to go for a drive maybe? See some sights?” I asked, still pretending to be uninterested in her see-through body.