Kira Coplin - Pop Tart

‘…It’s fine, you don’t have to explain, I can do the job—’

‘She wrote this thing about me, which totally wasn’t true–okay, so maybe it was kind of true–anyway, now Ted isn’t speaking to me and I’ve been getting weird looks…’

‘Honestly Sheryl, it’s fine. I can handle—’

‘…It’s been awful, and I told myself, “Sheryl, she is not going to get away with this, uh-uh.” And you know what? You’re never going to believe this Jackie…never, never, never…’

‘Okay…’ I said knowing full well that she wasn’t really waiting for my response.

‘I go to Jubilee last night for dinner with my neighbor Dana, who by the way is the only one of my friends speaking to me right now, bless her heart…we go to dinner and you’ll never believe who is sitting next to us! That bitch…Delila or whatever her name is…’

‘Delia,’ I corrected her.

‘Whatever–I recognized her from her stupid website…you know that picture next to her column–she’s got the frizzy hair and looks like she doesn’t pluck her eyebrows…’ she took a breath before continuing, ‘well I saw her and you know, gave her a little piece of my mind and things sort of escalated from there.’

My blood ran cold. I was scared to ask but knew I had to. ‘Escalated?’

Turns out sucking down one too many sugary sweet custom cocktails could not only influence Sheryl to bat her eyelashes at boys with fake I.D.s and give hickeys to her dates in public, but given the right antagonist, she could even throw a punch.

‘You hit her?’ I asked, feeling her embarrassment for her.

‘Well, kinda. I mean, she went on and on about freedom of speech and then she started explaining “blind item” to me in a very condescending way–I know what a blind item is for Christ sakes–but it wasn’t very blind if you ask me, that’s for sure…’

‘What do you mean you kinda hit her?’

‘Well, she was getting all sassy and in my face and she kind of raised up her hand–Dana later told me that she had started to wave her credit card to the waiter, like a “get me the hell outta here” type of thing, but I just reacted instinctively and popped her right in the nose…I was trying to defend myself. But enough about me. Are you okay to go to the gig by yourself today? Can you represent?’

‘Sure. Street Cred,’ I laughed.

‘That’s an energy drink! Remember that! If they ask you if you want one, say yes! Even if you’re not thirsty!’ And with that, she hung up the phone.

I was feeling a bit nervous by the time I reached the eastern end of the San Fernando Valley, where I quickly whipped into the studio’s parking lot. I was my own worst enemy, obsessing over every little thing that could possibly go wrong all morning. Forgetting my makeup case had been one of those recurring nightmare scenarios and, because I had made a point to triple-check its contents beforehand, I was running steadily behind schedule.

Encompassing nearly 100,000 square feet, the studio loomed ahead. Adjacent production offices that looked unused for the past decade only complimented the mottled eighties signage outside, making the facility look depressingly outdated. Once inside, however, its sound stages buzzed with life. Men in T-shirts and dirty jeans, who looked as if they’d been busy preparing the shoot for hours already, lugged cables back and forth and double-checked the PA systems.

‘Hi,’ I smiled, approaching two men who were busy fussing with one of the cameras, ‘I’m looking for Steve Green?’

Not turning away from his work, one of the men simply shrugged before the other piped up, acting as if my question was a huge burden.

‘Don’t know ‘em…you might want to ask someone back there,’ he said waving his hand to a small hallway lined with doors a short distance away. I maneuvered past the production assistants struggling to lug props and set pieces through the narrow space when a tall, slender man practically hissing into his cell phone caught me off guard.

‘What a fucking bitch! I don’t need to explain myself to a Nickelodeon development exec–I can’t even believe I even just spent time on the phone with her…She was like, “blah, blah, blah…” and I’m like…’ The man stopped as he noticed me staring at him and slowly pulled his phone away from his ear and frowned.

‘Hi, I’m Jackie, I’m here for the job…?’ I said, more like a question than a statement.

‘And what job would that be exactly?’ he asked, raising an eyebrow.

‘I’m, um, I’m here to do makeup for, uh…’ I fumbled, grasping for the call sheet in my purse, ‘Brooke! Brooke Parker.’ I smiled at him weakly. Throwing the phone back up to his ear, he barked, ‘I have to call you back.’ He studied his phone for another second, and wrinkled his nose in disgust, presumably disturbed by another message that had just come in. He was a fairly attractive man in his late thirties with evenly tanned skin, though its texture was conspicuously, almost unnaturally, wrinkle-free. He had Tony Curtis hair, expertly shaping a curled coif on his forehead thick with pomade, while his sleep-deprived, wide-set eyes bore heavy, dark lids. He looked up at me suddenly, almost inquisitively, as if he had forgotten that I was still standing there.

‘Now, what exactly are you looking for?’ With his head cocked he acted as if I had just asked him when the next spaceship left for Mars.

‘I’m doing Brooke Parker’s makeup…Sheryl Lane, my boss–she was going to do it but she…well, she can’t,’ I stammered, thinking fast. ‘So she sent me…I’m Jackie,’ I said extending my hand. In lieu of a handshake, he just kind of stared at my awaiting grasp, and then he spoke again.

‘Robert. Robert Bernstein. I’m Brooke’s stylist,’ he said. This took me by surprise, considering his style: a distressed long-sleeve rugby shirt fresh from an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue, cheap-looking blue jeans, and Adidas tennis shoes. I then remembered that, for a makeup artist, I only wore makeup a couple days a week at best, though I’d managed to swipe some mascara on my lashes before taking off this morning.

‘Well, nice to meet you, where should I set up?’

‘The dressing room is down two. The dancers are taken care of, so we need you, obviously, to pay full attention to Brooke. And you’ll do her hair as well I’m assuming?’ he asked bitchily, raising an eyebrow.

‘Yeah–yes, of course. Of course I know how to…’ I stuttered, afraid he’d call someone else if he knew that the extent of my experience actually doing hair was limited to helping Lauren flatten her impossibly curly tresses before dates. But really, how hard could it be? Brushing, teasing, curling–I knew how to do all of that.

‘Great,’ he cut me off, turning on his heel, off to his next drama.

As I located the dressing room, I nearly head-butted a boy bounding out of it. A bit shocked as I was, I jumped back, clutching my set bag as tightly as I could, but he smiled at me. Though I’d never seen their picture, I was able to peg him as one of the Emerson Brothers. From what little I knew about them, compliments of Sheryl, they were a pop sensation trio that had made it big with the ‘tween crowd when their song, ‘Let Your Body Do the Talkin”, appeared on a Nickelodeon sitcom. Now they were traveling the country, much to the delight of twelve-year-old girls everywhere, performing songs like ‘Girlfy,’ and ‘Break-up Box.’ The boy standing directly in front of me appeared to be about eighteen years old and was dressed exceptionally trendy–a shrunken twill blazer over a v-neck T-shirt that accented a black-and-silver lariat necklace, skintight slub denim pants, and argyle-printed Vans–thanks to the styling of Robert, I guessed. He exchanged a knowing look with an older, heavyset Latina woman who was standing next to one of the makeup counters before taking off in the opposite direction.