Vendela Vida - The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty

The pale practical woman is looking at him disapprovingly, impatiently. This appears to be the natural state of her face. When he glances over at her she smiles at him.

You are wondering what any of this has to do with you.

“You are probably wondering what this has to do with you,” the pale practical woman says.

You shrug, as though you have been enjoying a story and have no concern or intrigue as to why you are being told this story.

“The young woman, Ivy, who has been playing the stand-in has had an emergency and has to fly home,” the tattooed man says.

“It’s unlikely she’ll be returning,” says the practical woman.

“We are a Moroccan crew and don’t have anyone who resembles the movie star in skin color, height, or size, but we think you might be right,” says the tattooed man.

“Should we continue talking?” the pale practical woman asks.

“Yes,” you say.

They both look relieved.

“Great,” the tattooed man says. “I can imagine how bizarre this must all sound to you. We were just getting desperate and we saw you alone and—”

The practical woman cuts him off. She has no time for stories of desperation, especially now that she senses a possible solution.

“Can I ask how tall you are?” asks the practical woman.

“Five foot seven,” you answer.

The tattooed man looks at the practical woman. She tells him that the actress is five foot six and a half. “So that’s. .” The Moroccan man uses his thumb and forefinger to try to measure how big a gap half an inch is.

“Less than that,” says the practical woman.

He, who is not used to measuring outside of the metric system, brings his thumb and forefinger together.

“That’s okay,” he says to the practical woman.

“Yes, I think so,” she says.

She turns to you. Suddenly you are involved in their conversation again. “You will have to wear flats on set.”

“And a wig,” says the tattooed man to the pale practical secretary. To you he says: “Your hair is a little short, not dark enough. Also the movie takes place in the sixties. It’s a period film. The wig will help.”

“Yes,” the pale practical secretary says, “she should just use Ivy’s wig. I’ll make a note of the wig for the costume department.” She takes out her iPhone and makes a note of it.

“You probably have some questions about the job,” says the practical woman.

You have no questions. You want this job.

“Yes,” you say. “I have a couple.”

They stare at you, expectantly.

“When would the position start?”

“You’d probably meet her this afternoon. Just to get to know each other,” the pale practical secretary says. “Unfortunately I don’t know if you’ll meet the director today. He’s attending to some personal business.”

The tattooed man glances at her, and smiles. She does not smile back. You wonder about the nature of the personal business he’s attending to.

“You’ll meet the security guards,” the practical secretary says. “They’d have to get to know you.”

“You may have seen them with her around the hotel,” the tattooed man says.

You nod. You want to ask about pay, when and how much, and are about to ask, when the practical secretary preempts you.

“You’d be paid in cash. Long story,” she says.

Your mouth drops open. You close it.

“You’ll be paid five hundred dollars a day, at the end of each week,” the practical woman says. “This week will be prorated given we’re almost halfway through it.”

She must have misread the expression on your face as one of alarm, of concern, because the practical woman says, “And of course we’d cover your accommodations.” Then she frowns. “Unfortunately we don’t have it in the budget for you to continue staying at the Regency.”

“Where would I go?” you say. You cannot return to the Golden Tulip.

“There’s a hotel next door called the Grand,” says the tattooed man. “It’s not so grand but it’s where the crew stays. We have a whole block of rooms.”

Your mind is strangely sharp — you attribute this to your swim — and you find yourself working two steps ahead. You know you cannot check into this new hotel under Sabine’s name. You cannot check in under Reeves’s name. You have no way to check in under any name — not without a passport. You can’t even meet anyone at the front desk. But the stand-in who is leaving surely has a room, and has surely vacated it.

“This is a lot to take in,” you say. “So I’d have to pack all my things up, leave this hotel, go through the whole check-in hassle?” You widen your eyes, as if all this would surely overwhelm you — you must make them believe you are a woman of leisure for whom all of this moving and working will be an unfamiliar hardship.

The practical secretary takes the bait. “We’d have someone come grab your bags. And they’d just bring them to Ivy’s old room. Which would be cleaned up of course. No check-in, nothing. The hotel’s been very good to us. They leave us all alone.”

No check-in, you think. This is a relief on a dozen levels.

“You’re probably wondering how many days your services will be required before you can go back home, or wherever your next destination is,” says the practical woman.

It has not occurred to you to wonder about this. “Yes, of course,” you say.

“Filming is scheduled for three more weeks,” the tattooed man says.

“Some nights go very late, but you will get two days off a week,” the practical woman adds.

“Three weeks,” you repeat absentmindedly.

They stare at you. You are their last hope. You know you should up the price, but you have nothing; you’re not in a position to barter.

“That works for my schedule,” you say, as though you have a schedule.

“Great,” says the tattooed man. He is elated.

“Now, let’s make sure you two meet and that she feels she can work with you,” says the pale practical secretary. She glances at her phone; she scrolls. “Oh, wow. Something just changed. She could meet you in twenty minutes in the tenth-floor lounge.”

“The tenth-floor lounge?” you say.

“It’s on the tenth floor,” she says. “It’s private,” she adds, and rises. She’s short in her practical heels.

You stand, still wrapped in your towel. You wipe your moist palm on the towel before shaking hands with each of them.

You go into the dressing room, and lie down on the massage table, facing the ceiling. You are happy for the time to think.

You needed to stop using Sabine Alyse’s name and credit card. This job allows you to do that.

You needed to get out of this hotel, which was going to be difficult without identification. This job satisfies that.

And you will be paid.

You roll off the massage table. To secure the job you should try to make yourself resemble the famous actress in whatever way possible. You noticed the previous stand-in, the one you will be replacing, the one you saw crying — why was she crying? — dressed in jeans and a blouse and heels. You realize she must have been shorter than the famous actress, so she needed heels to replicate the famous actress’s height; you need anything without a heel.

You select metallic sandals from your suitcase (you packed them in case you ended up in the desert, or on a beach), jeans you didn’t think you’d be wearing in Morocco, and a black cotton blouse. You’ve noticed the famous American actress often wears black. She was in edgy independent movies when she started her film career, and she seems to want to remind the public of that fact.

You dress and then stand in front of the mirror to apply the makeup you bought at the Casablanca beauty store. Your skin. If only the marks were small pits that together could form a star. That might be interesting, even. You would settle for that. Instead: there’s a reason that for most of your life you’ve run and swam. There’s a reason why you finally arrived at diving as your competitive sport. With diving your face was virtually unseen. It was all about the shape your body made in the distance as you dropped from a high board and disappeared deep into the water. By the time you came up for air, the judges had determined their score. It had nothing to do with your face.