Remains to Be Scene (7 page)

To divide his attention, Tim ripped the leaded foil wrapper from the champagne bottle and untwisted the wire bonnet that secured the cork. He gently eased the stopper out of the bottleneck and smiled at the sound of a light pop. He then poured the bubbly into another rocks glass. “Cheers,” he said, raising his glass to Dana’s.

Dana took another long pull of her whiskey and stood before Tim. As she reached out and passed yet another of his shirt buttons through its loop, she touched his flesh with a long, manicured index finger and said, “I need a strong man in my life. I’m tired of sissy actors.”

Tim took a swig of cold champagne and immediately changed the subject. “Um, back to work on Monday, eh,” he said sidestepping her overture. “Got your lines down?”

Dana snort laughed, as if she’d just heard a stupid question. “That wuss of a screenwriter is still hammering out the notes I gave him before our forced hiatus. I swear, every little shit in this town claims to be an actor or a writer—or both. I have yet to meet one so-called writer who can follow simple instructions, for Christ sake.” Dana was beginning to slur her words. “How ’bout we go upstairs. Missie’s bed?”

Tim shuddered. “This place is getting crazy crowded,” he made excuses. “People are probably going in and out of that room. Plus, if Missie or Jack finds us…”

Unbuttoning her own blouse, Dana said, “It would kill Sedra if she found us,” she laughed. “She can’t bear that I get all the men she likes. They used to howl at her door every night. Now they howl under my window. She resents my youth.”

“And then you’d have to find a new co-star,” Tim chided. “Anyway, you really want to be with Jack. He seems like a very nice guy. We’ve met at a couple of parties.”

“Ach! Screw Jack,” Dana said. “He’s not really into…” She stopped herself. “I just want to get this freakin’ movie over with, and bury these misfits.” Then, for a moment, Dana appeared to lose focus. She returned to her earlier thoughts about the power she wielded on the set of
Detention Rules!
“Sedra says she’ll help me handle the writer. And the director. And the producer.” She began to snigger. “And the costume designer. And the composer.” Dana seemed to think she was being funny. “I’ll take care of a few people. Just as Sedra did on
Monarchy
.”

“Sedra was a pretty big star in her day. I’m giving her a chance to make a comeback,” Dana said. “Two decades is a long time to be out of the public’s eye. Heck, she hasn’t really worked since before I was born.”

“Cheers to you!” Tim said raising his glass. “Sedra’s a star. At least in gay drag clubs.”

Dana laughed out loud. “I can totally see that,” she said. Then, smiling conspiratorially, Dana whispered, “Tell you a secret. Sedra wasn’t the first choice for Trixie’s role. Hell no. She wasn’t even the second or third or tenth. Nope. Not at all. I wanted Cher to play my grandmother. But Cher said
no
. Then I demanded that lady on that old show, ‘Raymond.’”

“Doris Roberts?” Tim said. “She would’ve been great.”

“Hell yeah, she would have been great. But she said, ‘No-way Jose.’ Then I had a fight with the producer ‘cause he wouldn’t even contact Sandra Bullock or Angelina Jolie. Said he wouldn’t insult ’em. Sheesh, what a jerk. He insulted me by making me feel less of a star than those old women. Sedra and I have plans to bite his butt, too. But he finally got me Sedra. Which was totally my idea ’cause she’s been writing me letters for a couple of years. Said she could tell that I came from a long line of talent. Said she was a fan and wanted to know me better. No line of talent, trust me. My parents are boobs who believe in the resurrection of Elvis. Anyway, I’m adopted.”

“Maybe it’s time you produced and directed your own films,” Tim said. “You’ve had two back-to-back blockbusters. I’ll bet if you asked politely, the studio would say, ‘You go girl! Make us buckets of dough!’”

Dana was suddenly a bit more alert. “I wouldn’t even have to be polite,” she said. “I’m not as dumb as people think. Even Sedra treats me as though I’ve got mostly air between my ears. Thinks she’s teaching me about life.” She rambled, realizing that she was offering too much information, but was unable to stop her wagging tongue.

Tim said, “Don’t let Sedra suck too much of your power. You can do very well without her help. I don’t believe that anybody thinks you’re dumb.”

“Well, my producer’s too dumb to think I’m dumber,” Dana giggled.

“You were smart enough to think of Sedra Stone for the role of Catharine and to build it up with more dialogue,” Tim said.

“Smart. Not dumb,” Dana parroted Tim, and nodded her head in a wobble. “I would have thought of Sedra eventually, if she hadn’t thought of herself first. Matter of fact, Sedra’s dumber ’cause she wanted that stupid role when it only had one line. Said she wanted to be close to me. Oh, not like a lez or anything. Said she felt maternal pride…even though we’d only e-mailed each other.”

“Now her character has pages of dialogue,” Tim said. “She was damn smart to find another meal ticket. But I can tell that you see through her. She’s always been transparent to me, too, and to anyone with an ounce of intuition.”

Suddenly feeling vulnerable, Dana pulled her blouse closed and fumbled with the buttons. “I should be directing my own work,” she repeated Tim’s ludicrous suggestion as if she’d just thought of it herself. “And what’s this about your mother and a Hall of Fame? She’s not like someone that important, is she?”

Tim slowly nodded his head. “Used to be,” he said. “Did you ever hear of Carol Burnett?”

Dana shrugged.

“When Polly Pepper—Mom—was working on television, she was a bigger name.”

Dana looked around, unable to find her whisky glass, which was immediately in front of her. For a long moment she sat and starred at the paisley wallpaper, which only helped to make her dizzy. Then, in a defeated voice born from too much alcohol, and way too many surprises, she said, “I think I knew that. I don’t feel so great.”

Dana folded her arms on the table and laid her head down. She instantly fell asleep.

Tim smiled when he looked at the scene—the mean girl undone by her own gluttony. He took another sip of champagne, buttoned his shirt, then picked up the champagne bottle and left the room.

As he made his way back through the house a sea of twentysomethings were drinking and dancing. (Billie Holiday had been replaced on the CD carousel by Beyoncé). He caught sight of Sedra and Jack Weasley seated side by side on the piano bench, engaged in an animated conversation. As he got closer he heard fragments of their discussion above the din. Sedra was saying, “…She’s dead…Missie too…Have to be discreet…So deserve their fate…”

And Jack was saying something that included, “…Bloody hell! Don’t get me involved…”

Just as Tim thought he was going to hear words that would connect into a full-fledged thought, Polly and Placenta were at his side. “Let’s blow,” Polly said. “I can’t bear these people. But I’ve gathered enough dish to make Billy Bush’s hair turn Anderson Cooper gray!”

“I’ll send her a note in the ay-em,” Polly said, not bothering to say a proper good-bye to her hostess. She led Tim and Placenta through a crush of party crashers and out the front door. Finally ensconced in the car, silence filled the space as they made their way down the narrow lane and out onto the serene streets of Fryman Canyon. As Tim guided the vehicle onto Laurel Canyon and up toward serpentine Mulholland Drive, Polly yawned. It had been a long day and a seemingly endless evening. Their thoughts were all bottlenecked somewhere between their brains and their tongues, and letting one word escape felt risky. But by the time they reached the crest of the Hollywood Hills, one by one they began to volunteer comments on the party.

“Cute house,” Tim said, finding something positive to say.

Polly agreed. “Missie has lovely instincts for interior decorating,” she said. “Her mother seems to have adapted well to her near blindness. Did you notice how easily she found the champagne flute that—if I’m not mistaken, Missie intentionally placed at the far edge of the table beside her chair? It was practically balancing and waiting for the slightest vibration to fall.”

“Missie seems very attentive toward Elizabeth,” Placenta said. “But what was that banshee scream from the kitchen?”

“And it was fun to meet Dana Pointer,” Tim said. “We had quite a chat—before she passed out. She wants to take over Hollywood.” He took his eyes off the road for a second and looked at his passengers in the rearview mirror.

“Now there’s a troublemaker,” Polly quickly added. “She came right out and said she was glad that Trixie Wilder was dead!”

“She’s a pit bull, alright,” Placenta said. “It doesn’t surprise me one bit that she and Sedra are so close. Birds of a feather.”

Their barbed comments began to overlap. “Perhaps Missie and Dana have bloodstained hands,” Polly said.

“Sees a shrink ’cause she hates her mother,” Placenta said.

“Mom’s on a ton of meds. The kitchen looks like Rush Limbaugh’s personal pharmacy,” Tim said.

Polly denounced Missie as a social climber, while Placenta dismissed Elizabeth’s near blindness as an attention grabber, and Tim expressed skepticism over Dana’s bluster that she had the power to have a role rewritten expressly for Sedra.

By the time they arrived back at Pepper Plantation, they were no longer tired. What they wanted to do was continue to tear apart the young people who were now running Hollywood, and to contemplate the fireworks that awaited the cast and crew on Monday when Dana Pointer, Missie Miller, and Sedra Stone showed up for work.

M
onday morning arrived with clear California skies, mild summer temperatures, and an ominous rumbling of the earth beneath the
Detention Rules!
film location at Gary High School in Santa Clarita, California. The good will and enthusiasm that had accompanied the cast and crew on their return to work was short-lived from the moment Sedra Stone’s hired stretch limo rolled into the parking lot and the diva emerged.

Behind dark sunglasses, and dressed in a suit of black, Sedra’s couture business attire seemed to broadcast her grim aura as she walked with an air of superiority toward the school’s gymnasium. As she reached for the door handle, however, Duane, the chubby, red cheeked and cheerful uniformed security guard, dutifully intercepted her and politely asked if he could be of service. A big mistake.

“You know how it is, ma’am,” Duane tried to joke. “Although I’ll bet that you’re probably a big, important, famous rich person, ’cause you sure look and act like it, if your name’s not on the list you’d have to prove to be the Virgin Mary before I could allow you onto a Dana Pointer film set.” He chuckled good-naturedly. His harmless form of levity usually disarmed even the most arrogant personal publicist or film producer. “It takes divine intervention from the omnipotent one herself to reach her inner sanctum.” He rolled his eyes as if to say, “Get her!”

Sedra removed her sunglasses and with a steely gaze instantly transformed Duane into a wiggly mold of Jell-O. “Sedra Stone hasn’t been a virgin since age ten,” she said with a tongue that had decapitated more heads than the French guillotine. “And the only Mary I see is
you
.”

Duane’s eyes watered and his cheeks turned a deeper shade of cherry. He had “issues” when it came to women—especially women who emasculated what little was left in his nearly depleted Y chromosome pool. Duane swiftly made a call to the production assistant. “Someone named Sedra Stone’s not on the list,” he panicked. After another ego-shredding attack from the PA, he added Sedra’s name to a column on his clipboard then groveled an exaggerated apology for not knowing who she was. He chased his servility with a silent wish that Sedra would be sucked into a black hole—along with the PA, his mother, his landlady, and every girl who never sat with him in the cafeteria in high school.

Sedra dismissed Duane without further acknowledgment of the fat boy’s existence, and entered the building.

Most people mask their insecurities when they begin a new job, and only reveal their true natures incrementally over time. Sedra, however, made it clear from the start that she didn’t give a damn whether anybody liked her or not. As far as she was concerned she was a star, and that meant behaving like royalty. With a bearing of entitlement, she stood just inside the gymnasium doorway expecting to be retrieved. And she was. Almost instantly another production assistant arrived and escorted her to a luxury dressing room trailer.

En route, Sedra reeled off a list of food items she wanted delivered to her, pronto: A case of Cristal, a platter of foie gras, and a box of Twinings peppermint teabags. “And a proper nameplate, for Pete’s sake,” Sedra said when they arrived at her Star Waggon and she ripped from the door a strip of masking tape with her name printed in black Sharpie.

“The production wraps in five days, Miss Stone,” the unflappable and impossible to impress PA said. “You won’t be around long enough to enjoy the engraving.” The PA opened the door to Sedra’s trailer and stepped aside, allowing the star to enter first. She handed Sedra a folio containing the cell phone contact numbers for each of the cast and filmmakers. “In case you need to reach anyone,” the PA explained. “Someone will be along shortly to take you over to wardrobe. Oh, and there’s the laptop you requested,” she said, pointing to the latest model iMac notebook sitting on the coffee table. Then the PA left the trailer with a curt, “Ciao.”

Sedra removed her black suit jacket and laid it on the back of a chair. She settled in. Feeling quite satisfied with her life at the moment, she examined her accommodations and nodded approval at the accouterments: a flat-screen plasma television, video and DVD equipment, a stereo system, wet bar, microwave oven, and sleeper sofa. As she had only worked sporadically since the end of her television series, she was inwardly thrilled by the way she was being treated. She moved to the computer and pushed the power button. The tinny announcement sound that issued from the speakers reminded Sedra of a cyber orchestra tuning up before a concert. She then retrieved a floppy disk from within her purse and pushed it into the disk drive. She clicked on the disk icon and a document filled the screen. Sedra scrolled to the bottom and began to read aloud. Then she typed:

INTERIOR: DRESSING ROOM TRAILER ON MOTION PICTURE SET LOCATION.

Director Adam Berg, having heard about the old star’s grand entrance tantrum, decided it prudent to pay an early morning courtesy visit to Sedra. He would apologize for the mistake and any inconvenience the security guard may have caused her. Surely, he thought, this gesture would make an ally of the woman referred to as “The Tetanus of Television.”

As a Broadway dance choreographer turned director of music videos, Adam Berg was used to handling difficult personalities. He had survived Betty Buckley in New York, Lil’ Kim’s street thug entourage in Brooklyn, and even Joss Stone’s bombastic management and publicity team in the UK. Although he wasn’t naïve enough to expect feature film directing to be a walk in the park, he thought he had the creative and diplomatic skills to handle Hollywood. Wrong.

From the moment he knocked on Sedra’s trailer door and popped his head in to wish her well, his already waking nightmare of working on
Detention Rules!
was ratcheted up to the power of ten. In Sedra Stone he found the subject for behind-the-scenes showbiz horror stories to repeat at cocktail parties.

Adam smiled brightly as he stepped inside Sedra’s trailer with his ubiquitous assistant Judith Long following behind him. His British accent clipped through the air as he introduced himself. “I was a huge fan of ‘Monarchy,’” Adam lied, having been in Pampers when the show first aired, and he held out his hand in vain for her to shake.

Sedra looked up and barely acknowledged the filmmaker’s presence. She offered a tight obliging half smile as she closed the computer notebook.

“You’ll excel in the role of Catharine,” Adam continued, feeling an instant dislike for the woman who emitted a palpable caustic vibration. “Dana has keen instincts,” he continued. “I admit that I sort of fought her all the way on the script changes she demanded…er, requested. But I confess she was spot-on about making her grandmother less apple pie and more toxic medical science waste dump.”

Sedra gave him a weak smile.

“The new dialogue is smashing and funny as all hell,” the director enthused. “Don’t you think so? Can’t wait to hear you deliver those wacky lines.”

“I’ve read better lines painted on the street,” Sedra deadpanned.

Adam laughed out loud until he suddenly realized that Sedra wasn’t smiling and that her remarks were not meant to be a joke. He took a deep breath and settled into an uncomfortable snicker. He looked over his shoulder at his assistant who was of little use to him outside his bed. And now, when he needed her loyalty he found that rather than coming to his rescue she pretended to be searching for something within a stack of papers on her clipboard.

“Lines on the street,” Adam repeated and smiled nervously. “Very funny. You should do stand up at The Improv,” he faked another laugh. He cleared his throat and simply said. “Indeed. Well.”

The trailer was suddenly plunged into torpid silence.

“Um, is there something you’d like to discuss with me?” Adam eventually continued. “Perhaps you think the script needs to be tweaked? Although we begin shooting in twenty minutes, if there’s anything…”

Tweak this
, Sedra said to herself as she imagined being in bed with Adam. He may have been the person in charge, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t also be a playmate. Her eyes made an obvious tour of the twenty-something-year-old director. From the logo on his
Detention Rules!
baseball cap to his tight Coldplay T-shirt, through which he boasted a torso of gym-packed muscles, down to his baggy blue jeans and Adidas tennis shoes, Sedra approved of his appearance.

Then she looked at the director’s assistant who stared defiantly back at her; one gold-digging, man-hungry woman to another. Unspoken rules of engagement—in which there are no rules—were instantly established. Individually, both women were secure in the trust that in any showdown, she alone would be the victor. One held the seductive power of youth. The other held the equally magnetic sexual power of cunning and experience.

“I try to run an amiable set,” Adam continued. “I want my cast and crew to be content. Simply let me know if you need or want…”

“Never mind,” Sedra interrupted, picking up her script and finally turning on a camera-ready smile. “I’m really delighted to be in your debut feature.”

Adam grinned and Sedra shot another look at his assistant that said, “Score one for the visiting team, honey.”

Then Sedra returned her attention to Adam. “Don’t worry your sexy English muffins,” she cooed. “At least you’re not pretending to be creating art.
Detention Rules!
will be a lovely teen date movie. The audience won’t be paying any attention to Sedra Stone, or to your wide angles, master shots, editing, or musical score. They’ll only be thinking about screwing after the end credits crawl. It’s a fact of life.”

Adam had only known Sedra Stone for a total of two and a half minutes, yet he already wanted to be rid of her. “I’m not worried about the success of my film,” Adam assured Sedra. “Your presence on screen will elevate the genre.”

“Shall we report to wardrobe?” Sedra finally said, exuding warmth that seemed to come over her as unexpectedly as light after a power failure. She continued, “I feel like being on the strong arm of the man in charge.” She and the assistant exchanged last looks of forewarning.

“You’re from England?” Sedra asked, as she followed Adam out of her trailer and intentionally missed the step and fell into his rescuing embrace.

“Nah. Jersey City,” Adam said, helping Sedra to steady herself.

“I would have believed Brit, or Aussie.”

“You, too.”

“Affectation,” Adam’s assistant muttered loud enough for the star to turn around and give her a withering stare.

Meanwhile, in makeup trailer #1, Dana Pointer was being powdered and sprayed and tweezed and creamed. Next door, in makeup trailer #2, Missie Miller was undergoing the same treatment, but with an added spritz. Both were trying to memorize lines from the new pages of script dialogue. As a result of Dana’s insistence that Sedra’s role be expanded and rewritten, they were scrambling to forget their original lines and learn the new material.

One of the major changes in the script had Catharine advising her granddaughter on how to deal with best friends who steal their lovers. In the back story, Catharine is far from the best source of advice for taking care of jilted lovers because she’s recently been released from prison and is on parole after being jailed for twenty years for what she did to Grampa Tommy when she caught him having an affair with her closest friend. The jury in her trial had quickly convicted Catharine based on her lack of remorse, and her on-the-record Martha Stewart–like remark that “Cuisinarts can be as practical in the bedroom as they are in the kitchen.” (In the original script, Catharine tries to comfort Dana’s broken heart with a cup of Chamomile tea and a Duncan-Heinz double Dutch chocolate fudge brownie fresh from her oven.)

Twelve days before, the principal cast had filmed the old breakdown scene so many times that the assistant director lost count of the number of takes. With each new number on the clapboard, Dana had found something to criticize in the other performers’ work, and insisted they shoot it again and again.

Eventually, late in the evening, and far into IATSE union overtime pay for the crew, Dana again halted the action and shouted, “Cut! Cut! Cut!” She glared at the director and ranted, “Why are you doing this to me? Why aren’t you directing these cretins? This Trixie person is forgetting her lines!” She turned and poked a finger into Trixie’s chest and warned, “This is the last picture you’ll ever make old-timer. I’ll personally see to it.” She then pivoted and pointed to Missie and Jack. “She’s hogging the scene, and he’s gotta put his shirt back on otherwise the audience won’t be looking at me! And, hello, but his character would never go for the so-called good girl. He wants to have sex with me…er, my character! Why am I the only one who gets this? Why must everything depend on me?”

Silence had fallen over the school gymnasium-turned-soundstage as the cast and crew held their respective breaths. They were too amused by the egomaniacal actress trying to castrate Adam Berg. The producer, too, had simply stopped in his tracks and stared at Dana as though she were a cat coughing up a fur ball onto a brand new expensive silk shirt, a sight at which he could not avoid gaping in horror.

Many among the seasoned crew had worked with real talent—Jon Voight, Meryl Streep, and Cliff Robertson—and knew how generous true stars could be. They were artists who thought only of the work and a job well done, who had nothing to prove and thus had no need to show off their power by obliterating those around them. On the other hand, the same grips and stagehands had also worked on movies with Whoopie Goldberg, Lindsay Lohan, and Rob Schneider. All would attest that like Dana, they were nothing more than insecure despots who should be on their knees thanking the gods for having squeezed fame and fortune from beneath the thin layer of their minor talents.