What a Life

I was being paid to say the line and by damned I was going to do it. No amount of snickering from the crew could sway me; I needed the cash real bad. There was just one catch, I just couldn’t help smiling at least inside when I said it, and the director, rest his soul, wanted me to play it straight.

“But my dear, you’re so young and innocent, how could I ever inflict this pain upon you?"

That was the line. The trouble was she was a forty-year-old Hollywood has-been playing a sixteen-year-old virgin. Our famous Meg had about as much chance, even with several coats of thick make up, of convincing the audience of that, as she did covering up the fact that she’d slept with a half a dozen producers to get the job. Topping it off, she reeked of gin and couldn’t remember her next line. So here I was, repeating my line over and over again, all the while incurring the wrath of the director who by this time had torn at his hair until it looked like the cheesy toupee it really was.

“Cut! C’mon Cliff, what was that? I told you to play it straight. Drop the Goddamn smile like I told you or you’ll be back working as an extra before you know what hit you.”

He was full of shit and both of us knew it. First off, we were down to the last couple scenes in an already late and over budget production, no surprise there. He wasn’t going to can me. Second, he didn’t call cut until after she slurred the line.

“You must…you must let me try, even if it brings nothing but humiliation and shame.”

Well, that’s what it was suppose to be; her latest version:

“Mush tried humiliating shame…butt mush.”

“Cut! Cut! Cut!”

He’d been yelling that periodically for the last hour and a half between various renditions of her alcohol induced interpretations. I’d managed to drop the smirk on occasion, and though holding her close enough to curl my nose hairs, I didn’t say a word about the bottle she kept nipping.

Finally, having had enough, he called for lunch break and taking her elbow said, “Hey babe, let’s go grab some coffee.” He shot me a dirty look daring me to touch that one, and walked her out.

The lighting and camera crew started streaming out back, heading for brown bags, caffeine and long over due smokes.

“Dang Cliff, how can you handle that?” one of the regulars said giving me a friendly slap on the shoulder. “I mean if she keeps going like she’s been doing, you’ll be the first to find out what she had for lunch”

“Man don’t I know it. Got a light?”

He flipped open his lighter for me and then lit one up for himself. Ah, the pause that refreshes. Famous star doing commercials, now that was a job I thought silently. Light up and tell the kiddies how smooth and cool it is. Nuts, but shit like that wasn’t ever going to happen if our Prima Donna couldn’t deliver her line. Inwardly I knew her lunch wouldn’t lurch because she wasn’t going to have one. Nor was she going to have coffee. What she would get, and plenty of, was the director. Somewhere in some back room on the lot he’d be grunting on top of her.

What a life huh? All glamour and glitz… I don’t think so. If the public could only see this part I thought, maybe fan mail would stop and I could resume a half way normal life. No one bugging me at the store for an autograph. No more dark glasses. I could stay at home and relax rather than frequenting the late night parties where cameras went off blinding my eyes every fifteen seconds.

A couple of cigarettes and a coffee were all I had before heading back. I didn’t want lunch trying to come up, figuring she may have swallowed and that wasn’t going to smell any better alongside the gin.

Much to my surprise, she seemed to have sobered up dramatically. The crew took their places. It was then, when she had taken her place beside me, that I noticed she had been crying. Makeup was busy engulfing her face with more powder than even I would have deemed necessary. When they walked away I saw why. Even with the new layers piled on, the hot red mark of a hand radiated on her cheek. She looked tired. The scent of bile emanated from her mouth even though she was furiously chewing gum.

The director walked in. Without looking our way he said a few low words to the cameraman and then in his flat voice, “Is everyone ready now?”

She quickly put the gum behind her ear before he shouted, “Action.”

I didn’t smile and delivered my line with a look of true concern that I couldn’t have faked. Looking back into my eyes she delivered her lines. She didn’t deliver them perfectly, no, but her eyes filled in what the words lacked. The director said “Cut and that’s a wrap.”

Looking at me, she quietly said she was sorry for the trouble she’d caused. Heat flashed through me. “What did that asshole do to you Meg?”

“Nothing that I didn’t deserve” she said, gazing in his direction.

“But doll, no one deserves that. No one… ever.”

Looking back at me she sighed, “Yeah, maybe so, but it’s a living.”

And you know for a split second, I almost believed her.