Gemma Halliday - Undercover In High Heels

“Your shoes, ” the security guard said, cocking her head at me and popping her gum. “They got them little metal buckles on them. Try taking off your shoes.”

I stared at her. Seriously?

But she didn’t strike me as the joking sort. Trying not to make any little icky sounds at the feel of the gritty pavement beneath my bare feet, I slipped my ruby slingbacks into another plastic tray, wishing them a safe trip through the scanner. Walking on tiptoes to minimize contact with the ground, I stepped over the plastic threshold. Again.

Beep.

Again.

I threw my hands up in the air. “I give up! Wand me.”

Queen Latifah rolled her eyes and motioned me over, then proceeded to run her plastic wand up and down my legs, getting way more intimate than Ramirez had in weeks.

“Arms out to the side, ” she said in a monotone, then punctuated it with another pop of her Doublemint.

I complied, feeling like those guys on COPS right before they get the handcuffs and the “watch your head” speech.

“Turn around.”

I did, trying my best to hold on to some shred of dignity as the line at the metal detector grew to include two minor sitcom actors and a pair of grips who were smirking in my direction.

And just when I thought I was topping out on the embarrassment scale, I hit whole a new high.

Queen Latifah waved the wand over my breasts and the damn thing beeped like a car alarm going off.

The grips snickered out loud.

Latifah raised an eyebrow at me. She moved the wand away, then back to my barely Bs.

Beep, beep, beep!

My face went Lava Girl and I felt myself go into stammer-and-stumble mode. “Underwire!” I shouted out, as much to the snickering grips as the security guard (who looked slightly less bored with her job now). “It’s the underwire, okay? I have to wear a lot of wire to make it look like I have any cleavage at all. I’m a B. We Bs have to go to extraordinary measures to fill out a shirt. And I know someone as well-endowed as you might not understand…”

She raised the other eyebrow at me.

“…but it’s very, very important for us little girls to push that support up. I swear it’s not a gun. I’m just wearing underwire!”

By now even the sitcom stars were barely concealing their laughter.

Luckily, Latifah took pity on me. “You’re cleared, ” she said. Then she covered a snort with another bubblegum pop.

Sure that my cheeks now matched my slingbacks, I ducked my head down, grabbed Dana by the arm, and hauled ass out of there. Thankful that only about five hundred people had witnessed my boobs-of-steel moment.

“Ashley, the results don’t matter. You know I’ll love her even if she’s Blake’s baby.”

“Oh, Chad, I don’t deserve you.”

“What you don’t deserve is that husband of yours ruining our lives. Please just divorce him.”

“But, Chad, he’s still in a coma! I can’t be that cruel.”

“Miss Culver?”

“Yes, Nurse Nan.”

“I have the paternity results.”

I shoved a fingernail into my mouth to keep from gasping out loud. I was watching from the wings as Ashley, Chad, and Nurse Nan stood in the three-walled hospital waiting room (which the set dresser told me had also doubled as Blake’s office last year before the coma), hanging on every word of dialogue as we shot the scene of the season. Bright lights shone down from the exposed rafters, and a guy with a huge fuzzy microphone on the end of a boom stood just outside of the shot. Behind Ashley, Dana sat at the reception desk, dressed in scrubs, silently pretending to answer the phones and trying (mostly successfully) not to ogle Ricky’s tush, as camera one zoomed in to catch Chad’s reaction.

“Chad, hold my hand.”

“Of course, Ashley.”

“Okay, Nurse Nan, we’re ready. Who’s the father?”

“Cut!” Steinman yelled.

A collective groan went up from the crew assembled in the wings.

“Ricky, you’re too far away from Mia. We can’t get both of you in the shot like that, ” Stienman said, stomping onto the set. Carl Stienman was six-four with the body of an ex-football player, and the booming voice to match. I put him somewhere in his fifties, just starting to go salt-and-pepper at the temples, and in need of thick wire-rimmed glasses, probably from too many late nights squinting at the dailies on his monitor. “Move closer together, ” he directed, moving Ricky toward Mia.

“She keeps pushing me out, ” Ricky protested.

“I do not!” Mia yelled. “You’re in my light. Hey, you!” Mia pointed to one of the grips. “What the hell is wrong with you? Don’t you know how to properly backlight someone?”

“The light is fine, Mia, ” Stienman said.

“Oh, sure. No one wants to see my face in this scene anyway, ” Mia retorted, laying on the sarcasm. “And you.” She spun around, pointing at Dana.

Uh-oh.

Dana popped her head up, looking like a deer caught in the headlights.

“Yes?”

“I can hear you shuffling papers back there. I can’t concentrate on my lines!”

Dana nodded, doing a zipping-it-shut-and-throwing-away-the-key thing.

“Oh, please, ” Margo cut in, fiddling with the lapels of her nurse scrubs. “It’s not her fault you haven’t studied your script.”

“Why, you old cow.” Mia lunged toward Margo, but Steinman was faster, positioning himself between them. I suddenly saw where his linebacker physique came in handy.

“Ladies, ” he coaxed. “Shall we try to get this shot before end of day?”

Mia stepped back, still glaring at Margo. Margo gave her a self-satisfied smirk.

“Okay, let’s take it back a line, ” Steinman shouted, taking his place behind the monitor again.

I shoved that fingernail back into my mouth, trying not to fidget as I waited for the revelation of who-shot-J.R. proportions.

A PA with an electronic clapboard stood in front of the camera. “Speed. And…rolling!”

“Okay, Nurse Nan, we’re ready. Who’s the father?” Mia repeated.

“I’m sorry to tell you that the results aren’t what we were hoping for.”

“What?”

“What do you mean, not what we’d hoped for?” Ricky asked, taking a step closer.

“Dammit, Carl, he’s in my light again!”

“Cut!” Steinman yelled, rubbing one hand over his eyes. “Would someone get another spotlight in here, please? Everyone else, take five.”

Walkie-talkies buzzed to life, and two PAs took off, scurrying. The makeup woman descended upon Margo, dusting and powdering her forehead, and Mia stalked off to her trailer.

“Isn’t this exciting?” Dana asked, skipping over to me.

“I think I’m going to pop a blood vessel if someone doesn’t tell me who the father is soon.”

“No kidding. Ohmigod, I hope it’s Chad’s. That man is H-A-W-T, hawt!” she spelled. She glanced behind me. “Hey, where’s your purple-haired friend today?”

“Dusty took a personal day.” At least, that was what they’d told me when I’d finally made my way onto the set that morning. Apparently she was still shaken up after being the one to find Veronika’s body. I didn’t blame her. After just finding a squirrel’s body, I’d been ready to spend the day in bed.

As it turned out, it was a good thing I hadn’t, because with Dusty gone there was no one else. Nurse Nan might very well have still been wearing the gaudy Day-Glo orange wool scarf and Crocs she’d been in when I’d arrived on set.

“Dana, ” the AD called her, “could you stand in for lighting?”

Dana did a little happy squeal before skipping over to a mark in front of the camera where the new spotlight had arrived.

I left her having a starlet moment and went in search of that Starbucks carafe.