Seeing Stars (7 page)

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.

D
ICK
F
IORI 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,” Hillary 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.”

“Bet?” Clara offered cheerfully.

“Some kids, like David Henrie, just go back home for a year,” Allison told her, “and go to high school like normal kids until they’re legal eighteen.”

“Who’s David Henrie?” Bethany said.

“You guys are going to
have
to watch more TV,” said Allison. “He’s been on
That’s So Raven
and
How I Met Your Mother
and a bunch of other stuff since forever. He’s friends with some kids I know.”

“He’s really cute,” Hillary offered. “I mean, he’s pretty old and stuff now, but he was cute when he was younger, and he’s still kind of hot.”

“What did you mean about being legal?” Ruth asked.

“Legal eighteen? It means once you’re sixteen and you either have a high school diploma or you’ve passed this killer proficiency test, you can work as a legal eighteen.”

Ruth frowned. “But why does that matter?”

“Because if you’re a legal eighteen they don’t have to give you three hours of school every day on set. So producers like you, because they save money on the set teacher
and
make you work for those three hours, plus you can stay on the set for twelve hours instead of only eight. So of course if it’s between taking a regular kid and a legal eighteen, they’re going to book the legal eighteen.”

“Or they could Taft-Hartley you,” Reba piped up.

“Taft-Hartley?”

“If you’re nonunion, sometimes a producer will like you so much he’ll tell the union there’s no union actor who can possibly play that role, only you, and if the union gives them permission, then they can hire you.”

“But that has nothing to do with being legal eighteen or not,” Hillary pointed out. “That’s if you’re nonunion and the show is SAG.”

“Or AFTRA,” Clara said. “I think.”

“The American Federation of Television and Radio Actors,” Reba told Ruth.

“Artists,” Hillary corrected her.

“
God
, you guys,” said Allison. “It’s not like she’s going to remember it anyway. Whatever.”

Ruth assumed that she was the
she
in question, but it was hard to be offended because Allison was right.

“You’ll probably figure it out soon,” Hillary reassured her. “I mean, everyone thinks it’s kind of confusing when they first get here. The first couple of months, my mom used to lock herself in the bathroom every night and cry after she thought I was asleep. Plus she’d sneak in shots of vodka. That was when we were staying at the Oakwood, before she went back to Columbus and I went to Mimi’s.”

“The Oakwood,” Bethany said reverently. “You stayed there? You’re so lucky.”

“Yeah. I never told her I could hear her. Then my dad came down for a couple of weeks before she went back home, so that was better. He’s really good with directions and stuff. My mom just got us lost every time. I never made it to a single audition when I was supposed to the whole time she was here.”

“Yeah,” Bethany said pointedly to Ruth.

“Ten minutes!” A PA walked through the crowd, shouting. “You’ve got ten minutes, people! Use the restroom, tidy up, and be ready.”

Ruth sighed. “Did everyone get enough to eat?”

“
Yes,
” Bethany, Clara, Allison, and Hillary shouted in a chorus.

“No,” said Reba.

T
HE CAR RIDE HOME AT THE END OF THE DAY WAS CONSIDERABLY
more subdued than the outbound journey. By the time they were dismissed, Ruth had gas and the girls were in advanced states of nervous exhaustion. They’d booed and cheered and mugged and held their breath over and over and over, and by four o’clock, when they were released, they were
done
, despite a mid-afternoon sugar extravaganza of nondiet sodas, fruit juices, energy drinks, Hershey bars, Three Musketeers, Snickers, Milky Ways, Paydays, Rolos, Baby Ruths, and chocolate chip cookies the size of hubcaps. Not only had the girls not seen Zac Efron or Ashley Tisdale, they hadn’t been included in a single close-up or offered the chance to deliver a line, a privilege that had gone to a dweeby little black kid who, in their estimation, in no way deserved it. Worse, both Hillary and Reba had been completely hidden behind columns for the entire afternoon. Ruth kept an eye out for Vee, but when she came back she was talking to another woman, and Ruth decided to keep to herself. Ominous deep disturbances in her upper colon announced that the evening was likely to be unpleasant. On the bright side, Bethy got a SAG voucher and $150, which meant that her brand-new Coogan account was worth $22.50.

“So much for glamour, huh?” Allison said to Bethany once the girls had collected all their stuff and Ruth had loaded them into the SUV.

“It was okay,” Bethany said loyally.

Hillary did a perfect impression of Dick Fiori. “
Okay, guys, we’re going to make this one a big cheer, biggest of the day!
” Even Ruth had to admit that what had seemed chummy and hip early in the day had become, by the end, almost unendurable.

“Well, he was a little smarmy,” Bethany allowed.

“A
little
?”

Bethany settled lower in her seat and stared out the window. The traffic was crawling up Highland toward the 101.

“I don’t know,” Allison said. “He was actually kind of cute, in a way.”

“Oh, ick,” said Hillary. “In an
old
way.”

“He wasn’t that old.”

“What do you consider old?” Ruth asked.

“I don’t know—forty, maybe. I mean, he was probably only thirty-one or something.”

“Only?” At Allison’s age, Ruth had thought
nineteen
was old.

In the rearview mirror Allison just shrugged.

A
FTER THEY’D DROPPED OFF THE
O
RPHANS AT THE STUDIO,
Ruth and Bethany went back to their apartment. “Let’s just rest,” Ruth suggested hopefully. “I’m exhausted. Aren’t you?”

“No. I was for a little while, but now I’m okay.”

“Why don’t you go for a swim?”

Bethany gave her a look. “I wish I had my bike.”

Ruth wasn’t sure she’d want Bethy biking by herself around Burbank, though there were some excellent neighborhoods relatively nearby. At home in Seattle she never worried about her being out alone even though Ruth realized, intellectually, that her daughter was every bit as much at risk there as here. But somehow the children she’d met in LA seemed more vulnerable to the madness of adults, and not just child molesters and deviants. Just look at poor dumpy Reba, who was about as likely to land an acting career as Ruth was. God only knew Hillary’s story, or those of Orphans Past. There was Quinn Reilly, too, a sixteen-year-old boy who was, evidently, a brilliant actor, but had gotten into some kind of trouble at Mimi’s and didn’t live there anymore. No one seemed willing to talk about exactly what he’d done, only that it was very distasteful and possibly sexual in nature, though not, in itself, overly serious.

“My head is just pounding,” Ruth said, though it was actually her gut that was roiling. “I need to lie down for a little while before dinner. I thought I’d cook the ravioli.” Knowing they’d have a long day today, they’d picked up some fresh pasta and marinara sauce at a Pavilions yesterday afternoon, and a loaf of crusty bread to go with it.

“That sounds good.”

“Why don’t you give Daddy a call? He should be home by now, and you know how much he likes hearing from you. He’s lonely up there without us.”

Bethany suddenly brightened. “Can I call Rianne?”

“Right after Daddy. Tell him I miss him,” Ruth said, and for the first time in days, she actually did. It would have been lovely to send Bethy out on an exploratory walk with him while she dropped dead for a little while. Hugh always liked seeing new places. It was yet another irony of Ruth’s being here that he was the intrepid one. How many times had Ruth joked, in the course of their marriage, that she’d be perfectly happy spending the rest of their days in the same little starter house they’d bought in Queen Anne when they were in their late twenties? That’s how far out of water she was down here. And yet she’d been driving, she’d been coping, without help from Hugh or anyone. She was proud of that. She’d often worried, in past years, about how she’d fare if Hugh were to die before her. Now she knew.

“Tell him I’ll give him a call myself this evening,” she instructed Bethy, lying back on her lumpy bed and closing her eyes. “And take the phone out into the courtyard, honey.”

If only she could sleep for a little while, she’d rise again refreshed and ready for whatever astonishing thing might next come their way.

Chapter Four

I
N FACT, WHAT CAME NEXT WAS A CHECK FOR $995, WHICH
Ruth made payable to Mimi. The check was payment for Ruth’s share of the cost of producing the industrial that would make Bethy, Hillary, and Reba all able to join the Screen Actors Guild. Laurel Buehl was already SAG because of all her commercials, but she and her mother, Angie, were helping with the industrial just to be nice. Angie and Laurel had evidently devoted hours to writing a script.

When Ruth first heard the term
industrial
, she’d pictured training films for factory workers, old black-and-white news-reel footage of Rosie the Riveter, that sort of thing, but Mimi had set her straight: in Hollywood parlance, an industrial was anything produced on film or video that was used to sell, train, or inform. It could be anything from an infomercial to a
DV
D training program on how to conduct business on eBay. Then there were commercials, which included network promotions and which everyone knew about, and PSAs, or public service announcements, which were really just commercials except that they paid squat and television stations ran them for free. “Movies,” at least as Ruth had always thought of them, were classified as “shorts,” “feature-length films,” or “documentaries.” Indies were a subset of all the above, made without the endorsement or marketing commitment of a movie studio like Disney or Paramount.

Mimi had made it very clear that the industrial they’d be making had to meet all the criteria of a legitimate production, which included hiring a couple of nonstudio child actors who would be selected by auditioning for Mimi. It would be directed by one of Mimi’s young adult clients who had ambitions beyond acting.

And so Ruth and Bethany had spent the last several evenings prepping for
I Survived Middle School, and So Can You
. Bethy would be playing a smart, bookish, yet socially capable student named Rita. Her contribution to the film would be to describe in an inspiring way her ultimate success in Phys Ed after a rocky start, both athletically and fraternally.
I even made friends with the class bully, TaNiqua,
her monologue went.
She thought I’d be prejudiced against her because she’s African American, so she made fun of me, but I told her I think everyone is just the same and we ended up laughing about how goofy we looked in our gym uniforms. We’re really good friends now.

The cast had assembled on a Saturday morning at Laurel and Angie’s apartment, a two-bedroom at an upscale complex just blocks from Beverly Hills that bore no resemblance whatsoever to Ruth and Bethy’s squalid little efficiency. In order to stay at a seemly remove from the filming, Mimi had sent Allison in her place. Allison was already a SAG member, so she was to keep an eye on things and help as production assistant. The director was an intense young man named Stafford Hahn, who traveled everywhere wearing a flash drive on a lanyard around his neck. As he’d explained to Ruth when they first arrived, it held his latest screenplay. “Keep an eye on me,” he’d advised Ruth, “because in a year a lot of people are going to know my name.”

Now Allison was bossing around the two “real” girls among the cast: a creamy-skinned blonde with dull blue eyes and an on-the-young-side redhead with dimples.

“You know, nobody wears their hair like that anymore,” Allison was saying to the redhead, whose hair was wildly curly and held back by a bandana knotted at the top. “It’s very eighties.” The girl flushed and pulled off the bandana. Ruth saw Allison peer closer. “That’s not a perm, is it?”

The girls had left their things in Laurel’s bedroom, which Ruth noticed was expensively appointed with nicer furniture than anything Ruth owned. In the living room Laurel was helping the actors with their hair and makeup, dipping into a professional-looking cosmetic kit she said had gone with her to every pageant she’d ever entered. Ruth gathered there’d been a lot of them, which probably explained her poise and ready smile. But no, that wasn’t fair; she was a sweet girl, both in her obvious devotion to her mother, on whom she doted, and in her gentle manner with the younger actors at the studio. Ruth watched her lead the devastated red-haired girl into her bedroom, gently brush out and French-braid her hair, and whisper in her ear something Ruth was sure was reassuring. The child smiled tremulously and rejoined the other actors in the living room.

“That was a sweet thing to do, honey,” the redhead’s mother told Laurel as she drifted by. “She’s always been self-conscious.”

“She shouldn’t be,” said Laurel. “She’s beautiful, and it’s a different kind of beauty than blondes or brunettes ever have. You tell her I said so.”

“I will,” the mom said gratefully. “She’ll be so proud.”

And then it was time to begin. Stafford had the camera and lights positioned, and the camera-and-sound guy—another actor who moonlighted on the side—had given a thumbs-up. The mothers and Laurel were relegated to the balcony and the shoot began. The top-of-the-line sliding glass doors blocked all the sound from within, so Ruth found herself completely cut off from watching Bethany at work, something she liked more than almost anything else.

The blond girl’s mother was saying to Angie, “I think you did a really good job on this script, by the way. And your apartment is lovely.” Ruth had seen this kind of earnest pandering before, had even been guilty of it herself on more than one occasion. You never knew when you might meet someone useful to your child’s career, so it was always best to treat everyone as though they were important, at least until you knew better.

“Actually, Laurel wrote most of the script,” Angie said. “She’s always been a good writer.”

“Well, you did a great job,” the mom said to Laurel. “I really mean it.” The redhead’s mom nodded in agreement.

“How was your audition yesterday?” Ruth asked her. Laurel had gone to producers for a Nickelodeon sitcom. It was just a costar role but it could be a stepping stone to something larger, if she booked it. Everyone at the studio knew how badly Laurel wanted to break into theatrical work and leave commercials behind. Now, though, she just shook her head.

“I thought I did a good job, but we haven’t heard anything, so I’m guessing I didn’t book it. I think I was probably too old.”

Ruth thought there was an air of sadness about the girl that wasn’t normal in a teenager. During Ruth and Bethy’s first week in LA, Laurel and Angie had invited them to lunch as a gesture of welcome. They’d lingered over their meal for hours, telling stories about the girls’ respective acting experiences and the circuitous routes that had brought them to Hollywood. (“My husband thought we had lost our minds at first,” Angie had said. “Oh!” Ruth had said. “Hugh, too!”) To Ruth’s lasting gratitude, Laurel had been very good with Bethy, very attentive despite the age difference between them. Ruth wasn’t sure why they hadn’t gotten together again except by happenstance in Mimi’s greenroom, though it was true that Angie’s perky Southern accent and impeccable grooming were somewhat daunting. And everybody was just so
busy
. But more than any of those things, Angie and Laurel tended to hold themselves apart, and it wasn’t just Ruth’s perception; other families had noted it, too. In Ruth’s opinion, much as she valued her own excellent relationship with Bethy, there was such a thing as too much closeness.

The women were murmuring sympathetically. “I heard Hillary is auditioning for Chrissy in
Through the Window
,” Angie was saying.
Through the Window
, Ruth had heard, was a suspense movie about a blind girl and her superdog, Theo. “I can’t see it, myself—oh, no pun intended—but you never know what these casting directors are looking for.”

The other moms nodded vigorously, and then the redhead’s mother said, “By the way, for what it’s worth, I found a dental practice that’s running a tooth-whitening special, if anyone’s looking. Fifty-nine bucks.”

Nowhere in the world were teeth more brilliant than in LA. Ruth thought that if any of these women knew the enormous profit margin for whitening teeth they’d never have it done again. It was the come-on dentists used to attract new patients. That was true even in Seattle, though nothing like here, where there was a dental practice in every strip mall. But she kept her mouth shut for once, and the other women dutifully wrote down the name and location of the dental practice.

It was getting hot out on the balcony. Ruth could feel beads of sweat on her upper lip, and blotted them on her sleeve. She couldn’t tell if the camera inside was rolling yet or not, but Allison was standing nearby, holding a clapboard to record the scene and take number. Ruth hadn’t even known what the device was called until a week ago, when Hillary had told her.

“Please sit,” Angie was urging the women when Ruth turned back. “I get the feeling we’re going to be out here for a while. I’m sorry I don’t have more chairs, but you can double up on the chaise longues.”

Ruth obediently perched on the lower half of one of the teak chairs, sharing it with the redhead’s mother. Angie flipped open a cooler the size of a child’s coffin. Inside, prettily nested in ice, were diet sodas and wine coolers. Even though it was just noon, one of the women took a wine cooler. Ruth popped the top on a Diet Pepsi. She was drinking a lot of soda down here. Hugh would be disappointed. Soda and dental health didn’t go together, he believed, even if it
was
sugar-free. Sure, it wasn’t cavity-causing, but there was the enamel to think about, never mind the stains. She should have asked one of Hugh’s hygienists to do a cleaning before they came down here. God only knew when she’d get the chance now.

The glass door slid open and the blond girl came out, clearly sulking. Her mother stood up and said with surprise, “All done already?”

“Just me,” the girl said sullenly. “I mean, all I had was two lines. Everyone else got like five or six.”

“But it was a good opportunity, honey,” her mother said. “And it’ll look great on your résumé.” She picked up her outsize leather purse and smiled at them bravely. “Well, it was very nice to meet you all. And thank you for the information about the dentist. I think we’ll have her teeth done this week.”

Everyone murmured their good-byes. Inside, the kids were all standing around, clearly not filming. The woman and her daughter walked through them and to the door with a last wave. No one said good-bye to the blonde, which Ruth took to mean she’d been sullen the whole time. She’d probably figured out that the whole thing was a setup.

Angie stuck her head into the living room. “Do you have everything you need in here?”

Stafford didn’t even look back. “Yeah. Close the door.”

Angie closed the door, saying, “I guess they’re about to start again. I hope nobody needed to use the little girls’ room.”

Soon, inside the living room, the children were all moving around again, gathering up their bags and totes. “Oh! Well, I guess that’s it, then,” Angie said. She slid the glass door open and caught Allison’s attention. “Are you all done?”

“Yup,” Allison said.

Bethy came over. “We can go,” she told Ruth.

“So soon?”

“It was only a six-page script.”

“Did it go well?”

“Hmmm?” Bethy’s thoughts were elsewhere. “Mom, some of the kids want to go to Magic Mountain. Can I? It would be so cool.”

“Magic Mountain?”

“It’s that big amusement park out by Santa Clarita. Allison says it only takes like twenty-five minutes to get there.”

“Oh? And who’s driving?”

Bethy smiled impishly. “We were hoping you would.”

Ruth knew when she was being set up. On her own, Bethy would never put Ruth on the spot like this. She sighed. “Who’s going?”

“Allison and Hillary and Reba. They asked Laurel, too, but she said she didn’t want to.”

Ruth suspected that Allison had invited Bethy only so they could rope Ruth into driving, but even if that was true, Bethy hadn’t had a day away from the studio and acting in more than three weeks. And it wasn’t like Ruth had anything else to do except watch the balance in their bank account go down. She could call Hugh from the park just as easily as from their apartment, and at least she’d be out in the open instead of indoors, in the gloom.

“Okay,” Ruth said. “But everyone needs to bring their own money and I think it would be a good idea if you all eat before we get there. Their food prices are probably through the roof, and you know how Daddy feels about that.”

“Yes!” Bethy triumphantly pumped her fist in the air. “I’ll tell them.” Bethy crossed the room, whispered to Allison, and then came back to Ruth. “She wants to know if you can stop at Domino’s so we can pick up a pizza. She says Mimi doesn’t have anything at the house, plus we have to go right by it on the way to Mimi’s to pick up a change of clothes for her.”

Ruth felt a sudden wave of annoyance at Allison, but really, how could you fault the child for using whatever resources were available to her? Clearly, Mimi provided no guidance and very few services to her boarders. If Allison was cagey—and Ruth’s capitulation was proof of that—she was only trying to make her way. She couldn’t very well be faulted for wanting to eat, and she was trying to look after the other, younger girls. God forbid that Bethy ever had to fend for herself, but if she did, Ruth would hope that someone like Allison would step into the breach and make the day just a little bit easier for her, though not necessarily by buying her pizza. If she was a good person, Ruth would stop at Ralphs instead of Domino’s and buy them all some fruit, whole-grain crackers, and low-fat cheeses. It’s what she would have done at home.

She felt a sudden, blinding nostalgia for her old life as she watched Allison get some sort of signal from Bethy and flip open her phone. She evidently had Domino’s in her speed-dial because a minute later Ruth could hear her ordering a pizza to go in an entirely adult and composed voice. That done, she donned a pair of stylish sunglasses, put on lipstick, and began loading her things—the clapboard, an enormous Super Big Gulp cup from 7-Eleven, a small makeup case—into her omnipresent Coach satchel. Ruth thought the girl might never get to be one, but she certainly
looked
like a movie star.