by Vendela Vida
The wig is itchy on your scalp and you raise your hand to scratch your head, and both women almost scream. It’s as though you’ve reached for a knife.
“Do not touch,” the wardrobe woman says.
“Okay,” you say.
She adjusts the wig’s fringe of bangs. The actress has bangs for this movie, so of course the wig has bangs too.
There’s a knock at the door. It’s the tattooed man. He exchanges a few words with the women and then looks at you. He nods, seemingly satisfied with your transformation, your wig.
You thank the women and exit the trailer and the tattooed man walks you to the house.
“Is there a bathroom I can use?” you ask him.
He walks you to a trailer that has a bathroom. You enter the small bathroom, and immediately wash your face. It looks better without the makeup that’s just been applied. There’s no towel, so you use toilet paper to dry your skin. Small pieces of the toilet paper stick to your chin, your upper right cheek. You pick the pieces off, toss them in the wastebasket, and rejoin the tattooed man, who’s waiting for you outside the trailer.
He walks you into the house and introduces you to the director. The director is Moroccan, wearing a light brown scarf wrapped around his neck so many times it resembles the bottom half of a beehive. He has an actual director’s chair with his name on it. He’s squat and commanding and you can see how some women might find him attractive, but you don’t.
He seems to be able to discern this as well—the fact that you will not fall for him the way most women do—and so after shaking your hand in a hard and meaningful way, and apologizing for not getting the chance to interview you the way he usually does before filming—he releases your fingers and you begin to fade from his attention.
As an afterthought, he introduces you to two young Moroccan girls, sisters, who will be in the scene with you. They are ten and twelve years old, wide-eyed with long dark hair that falls in curls. The director turns his back on you, the equivalent of walking away to get a drink at a party. He’s passing you off.
You like the sisters right away. They tell you they’re taking the day off from school, but didn’t want to brag to their teachers that they were in a film, so instead they called in sick.
“Your parents must be so excited,” you say. “Are they here?”
The girls look at each other and for a moment you envy the communion between happy sisters, the comfort of having someone who is always with you and who knows what you’re thinking. When you were young you thought your twinship could be like that; when you were older you thought marriage might be like that. But you were twice mistaken.
“They don’t really believe we’re in this movie,” the younger sister says.
“What do you mean?” you ask.
“We told a lie once,” says the older sister with the narrower face.
They wait for you to ask what kind of lie. If you ask, you’re positive they won’t tell you. You say nothing.
“We said we were in a film with George Clooney and we weren’t,” one of them says.
“But your parents brought you here, right?” you say.
They shake their heads no, but in different ways. The shorter one is much more exaggerated in her movements.
You tell the girls they’re “badasses.” You have no idea why you say this or where it comes from. Maybe from spending time with the American actress? You don’t think you’ve ever said “badass” before. The sisters smile. They have no idea what it means.
The girls ask if they can take a picture with you.
“Sure,” you say, and the three of you take a photo together with you in the middle. You offer to take a picture of them with the famous American actress when she arrives on set, and their excitement shows in their eyes.
The director whistles. He actually whistles and everyone turns silent. He details what’s going to happen in the upcoming scene, and where he wants everyone.
He describes it in Arabic for five minutes and then takes thirty seconds to explain what he’s said in English. It’s a good thing you’ve studied your sides so carefully. He shows everyone where they’re supposed to stand in the scene. He knows you don’t understand, so he puts his hands on your arms and moves you the way a physical therapist might shift your position. You are quickly learning that most of your job is to help with the blocking.
The scene goes like this: Maria enters the room and meets Kareem’s nieces, the adorable sisters. Though she’s never met them before, she’s so overwhelmed by the sight of them and by the memory of Kareem, who’s now deceased, that she gets on her knees and hugs them. She tries not to cry. Then she moves over to the dining area. She tries to hug Kareem’s mother, but the mother is cold and inaccessible and instead shakes Maria’s hand. Maria is taken aback by her demeanor. Kareem’s mother then introduces Maria to Kareem’s best friend. You, Maria, must shake his hand. But there is clearly an attraction between Maria and the friend. This attraction doesn’t escape the notice of Kareem’s mother, who throughout the course of the meal behaves in an abrupt and rude manner.
The cameras start rolling, and they move forward and backward on their tracks. The director watches the monitor, his expression indecipherable.
You walk through the part, uttering your lines without forgetting one of them. The young sisters give warm hugs. Kareem’s mother is dressed head to toe in black; she’s grieving and rude. For a moment you forget it’s make-believe and interpret her coldness as a personal affront. When she introduces you to Kareem’s best friend, you find him sexy, though two minutes before, when the cameras were off during the run-through, you didn’t notice much about him. You wonder if it’s the lighting. No, you think, it’s the realization that the cameras are on.
You are distracted and forget your line and your stage direction. You were supposed to be seated at the dining room table by now. The director yells a word that you know must mean “Cut!”
“Do you want to talk or should we try again?” he asks.
“Let’s try again,” you say.
The second time goes well. You move from place to place with ease. As you feel some other rhythm take over your body, you’re reminded of diving. You loved diving because your mind could be quiet; your body knew what to do.
You go through the scene a third time and you can feel the magic fading—in part because the cinematographer’s experimenting with a new camera movement that’s too abrupt, too close, too violating for the actors. The director must sense this too. He asks everyone to return to the way they shot the second take. You know this because just before shooting again, he says to you: “For those of you who don’t speak Arabic, we’re going back to the before.”
Go back to the before, you think to yourself. You know that, in your own life, it’s not something you will ever choose to do.
After the fourth take, you’re finished with the scene. There are many hours remaining before the famous American actress comes on set. You wait. You watch others move equipment around and eat and look busy. For the first time in your life you wish you smoked and consider accepting a cigarette if someone offers you one. No one offers you one.
The snack bar is inviting. There are large jars of various colorful candies and a tray of sliced oranges. You place oranges and licorice sticks on a small plate and stand in a corner eating more than you need. You have no one to talk to, no place to retreat to.
Finally, the famous American actress shows up. She greets you hello informally, as though you’ve barely met. You are saddened for a moment, until you remind yourself that she is going to work, this is serious for her. She can’t keep track of everyone’s feelings, let alone yours. She is introduced to the sisters, who beam when they shake her hand, and then to the actor playing Kareem’s friend, who tries so hard not to be impressed by her that his resistance proves his infatuation.
You watch the famous American actress go through the scene you just rehearsed and you can see all your shortcomings and failures. You were
pretending to be Maria; she inhabits Maria. You watch the director do three takes and then say to the famous American actress, “We’ve got it!”
You are happy for her, happy for the film. You have no right to feel so proprietary after your short period of work but you feel you’ve played an important part.
The tattooed man yells something in Arabic. Then translates. “Everyone on staff can go have dinner outside in the tent,” he tells you.
The crew and the actors are asked to be quiet. You are all reminded this is a residential neighborhood. In the dark you move slowly and clumsily, like cows, down the street to the tent that’s been erected at the bottom of the small hill.
Dinner is rice, salad, and stewed vegetables. The meal is served buffet style and you sit at a table with the woman in charge of props and the woman who is the script supervisor. Both of them are young, both are graduates of a film school in Morocco. The three of you talk for ten minutes in English and then they turn to Arabic. You focus on your food. You did not know there was so much sitting around on film sets, so much waiting.
The next scene involves Maria sitting in bed, reading a book. You return to the trailer, to the cigarette smoke. A long and demure dark blue nightgown has been selected. While you’re getting changed the smoking woman in charge of costumes gently reprimands you for not taking off the blue dress before eating dinner. “Next time you take off first,” she says.
You wear the nightgown and are directed to a room on the second floor of the house. It’s a beautiful room with a canopy bed. Now the owner of the house, the woman in the bejeweled sweater, is taking photos of you. She’s smiling and you can see she’s become much more comfortable with the shoot. She’s invited two friends over: one wears a leopard-print blouse and the other also wears a bejeweled sweater. You try not to think about her. The bejeweled sweater lady’s friends take pictures too. You want to tell them you’re no one, but the occasion doesn’t arise.
You are propped on the bed for a long time while the director and the cinematographer deliberate over how to shoot the scene. The director comes over several times to adjust your body’s posture. “Sorry,” he says. “To look natural it is a bit uncomfortable.” While the director and cinematographer talk and point and adjust the cameras, the prop woman tells you to pick a book from the bookshelf—any book that appeals. You select a book of poetry by Rumi, an English translation. You flip through it until you find a title that appeals to you and you read the poem four times:
THE DIVER’S CLOTHES LYING EMPTY
You’re sitting here with us, but you’re also out walking
in a field at dawn. You are yourself
the animal we hunt when you come with us on the hunt.
You’re in your body like a plant is solid in the ground,
yet you’re wind. You’re the diver’s clothes
lying empty on the beach. You’re the fish.
In the ocean are many bright strands
and many dark strands like veins that are seen
when a wing is lifted up.
Your hidden self is blood in those, those veins
that are lute strings that make ocean music,
not the sad edge of surf, but the sound of no shore.
The poem resurrects an image in your mind. The summer you were fifteen you were training as a junior lifeguard. One night an older boy whose parents were out of town had five friends over and your sister drank too many margaritas, took off her clothes, and jumped in the crescent-shaped pool. She was too drunk to swim, and you rescued her. Gave her CPR. How strange it was to have your lips on hers. They were salty from the margaritas, cold from the pool. She made you promise to never tell your parents.
The director and the cinematographer have reached a decision.
“You are done,” the director tells you.
“That was it?” you ask.
“Yes.”
The movie star is ushered into the bedroom and you are ushered out.
The woman in charge of props follows you. “I need the book,” she says, and takes it from your hands. She doesn’t know you’ve earmarked the page of the poem.
It’s after 9 P.M. Outside, there is a man with three cell phones. He is the director of transportation. He tells you he’ll get you in a van going back to your hotel. You stand there, waiting while he makes more calls. Ten minutes later you and the tired young girls and the young American producer and the Indian producer and two Moroccan members of the crew are directed toward a van.
The driver takes you a few blocks, to the edge of the affluent neighborhood of California, and suddenly it ends. There are large empty dirt lots that will be built upon one day, but now are vacant and frightening. The driver takes a right. Then another right, and another. Soon you have gone around the block and the van is once again facing the dirt lots.
“Do you know where you’re going?” the young American producer asks.
“Yes,” the driver lies.
It’s decided the girls will be driven home first because their house is on the way to the hotel. They know the name of their street but they’re unable to give the driver directions.
“It’s by the big mosque,” they tell him, unhelpfully.
Fifty minutes later you arrive at their house in the dark. Their parents are standing outside, worried, and stare suspiciously at the driver and the van in general. The girls do not say good-bye to you or your fellow passengers, and don’t thank the driver for the ride.
You don’t realize until the doors close behind them that you’re still wearing your wig. You take it off and set in on your lap like a pet.
It takes forty-five more minutes before you’re back at your hotel. When the van doors open and you all emerge into the bright lights outside the hotel you see that everyone looks as wrecked as you feel from the drive.
You say good night to each other without really looking at one another, and then realize you all need to take the elevator up to your rooms. So you stand awkwardly in front of the elevators, waiting for one to descend to the lobby. When the bell dings, and the doors open, you all rush inside, as though you can’t wait to be enclosed in a small space together again. As each person exits to go to their floor, they are bade good night, in an extra-polite manner to make up for the rushed good nights everyone murmured when they exited the van.
You slide your key card into your lock and the moment you open the door you hear the hotel phone ringing in your room. You run to the phone, allowing the door to slam behind you.
“There you are!” says a voice. You know it’s the voice of the famous American actress. You knew her voice before you met her. You once had a conversation with your twin about how actresses today don’t have voices that are as recognizable as actresses from classic Hollywood. Katharine Hepburn’s voice is a thing of the past. But you cited this famous American actress’s voice as an exception. She has a good voice, with a bit of gravel and grit to it.
“Yes, here I am,” you say, overly out of breath from your simple dash across the room. “It took us forever to get home.”
“Really?” she says. “You should have come with me. I’ve been back here for over an hour. At least. This is maybe the fifth time I’ve tried your room.”
You ask if anything’s wrong.
“Wrong? No, not at all. Oh, I see. Because I called so much. No, I just really wanted to get a drink, and you’re the only person I could think of.”
“Thank you.” You say this flatly, facetiously. You say it like you’re talking to an old friend.
“I didn’t mean it that way. I mean, I thought you’d be up for a drink and we could talk a little.”
You look at the bedside clock: 11:13 P.M.
“Sure. Where do you want to go?”
“Go?” she says. “I can’t go anywhere. I already said good night to the guys.”
You realize she means her bodyguards.
“Right, of course,” you say. There’s so much you have to learn.
“But what
if you met me in the tenth-floor lounge?”
The Regency. You should never go back there again. There’s a chance that by now Sabine Alyse’s credit cards have been traced, there’s a chance the manager will recognize you.
You remember that you have the wig. “Okay,” you say.
“Great. I’ll see you in five minutes, Reeves,” she says, and before you can say anything else, she hangs up.
You go to the bathroom and put your wig on in front of the mirror. You look exhausted. You are exhausted. Your sides for the next day are on the desk. Your pick-up time the next morning is at 7 A.M. Tomorrow is a complicated day, you’ve been told: they’re shooting a scene outside, in traffic. You vow to yourself to be in bed by midnight. The famous American actress must understand—she has to work tomorrow, too.
You exit your hotel and cross the narrow street to the Regency. You touch your wig and take a deep breath before entering. No one you recognize and no one who would recognize you is in the lobby. You take the elevator to the tenth floor. You remove the wig before the doors open and place it behind a pot that holds a small tree with long fronds, just outside the entrance to the lounge.
The famous American actress is sitting in the lounge wearing flannel pajamas with pastel-colored hippopotamuses all over them. Pink, lavender, and baby-blue hippopotamuses.
“Don’t laugh,” she instructs you, by way of greeting. “I know they’re ridiculous but they’re comfortable. My boyfriend never lets me wear them at home, so I have no choice but to wear them here.”
You want to say, You do have a choice to not wear pajamas at all in public since most people don’t and that Moroccan bartender there could take a photo of you and it would be all over the Internet in about thirty seconds, but you refrain. You suddenly have empathy for the pale practical secretary; this actress needs supervision.
The bartender comes over. He’s the same one from yesterday. You half expect him to pull out his phone, take a photo, and run away, out of the hotel and into the night and onto the Web.
