Vendela Vida - The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty

You walk across the street and into the lobby of the Grand, the bodyguard carrying your suitcase all the while. He leads you up to your room, and opens the door for you.

“Thank you,” you say. You want to make sure he leaves. You don’t want to talk about evolution anymore.

The room is standard, without the luxuries of the Regency. Outside the window you have a better view of the band shell you could see from your last hotel room. You realize the band shell is part of the Jazzablanca Festival. A jazz trio is playing something experimental, and the stage is surrounded by a small crowd of men in leather jackets and girlfriends holding their arms. Everyone seems unsure of whether they should be dancing, so they slightly sway this way and that. You turn your attention back to the hotel room. Housekeeping has come, so there’s no sign of Ivy. You wish you knew something about her. The wastebasket, of course, has been emptied.

Waiting for you on the desk is a large envelope with the name “Reeves Conway” on it.

You shake out the envelope and find a small packet. It seems to be a script, but printed and sized in miniature. It’s one-fourth the size of normal pages, as if for a movie being made by tinier people in a tinier, other world.

The top page says: A Different Door, which you didn’t know until now was the name of the film. A “call time” is listed for each member of the cast and crew. You search for your name. It’s not there. You go through it again. Then you see your sister’s baby’s name is there. Strange, you think. The name you must start recognizing as your own.

“Transportation” will greet you at 7 A.M. outside the Grand and you will be taken to “California, Casablanca.” The famous American actress will not be showing up until 2 P.M., and that will be for makeup.

The hotel phone rings as you’re flipping through the pages.

It’s the secretary to the famous American actress.

“Did you get the sides?”

You have no idea what she’s talking about, but glance at the small stapled pages in your left hand.

“Yes?” you say.

“Good.”

“So you know you’ll be picked up at seven tomorrow.”

“Yes, and I’m going to. . California?”

“Isn’t that funny,” she says, sounding very serious. “There’s an affluent neighborhood in Casablanca called California where the homes are Beverly Hills — big and there are palm trees and all that.” She could not sound more bored as she tells you this. “They couldn’t find this site until a week ago, but the house is perfect for A Different Door. ”

After she’s hung up, you flip through the small pages that you now know are called sides. It occurs to you that you have no idea what the movie is about apart from what you’ve observed so far: a young American woman entering a hotel. The sides don’t provide much illumination. They tell you that in the first scene that’s being filmed the next day the main character, Maria, arrives at Kareem’s family home in Casablanca.

You have no idea who Kareem is.

In the scene, Kareem’s mother greets Maria and it’s a somewhat tearful encounter. You can’t say for sure but your guess is that Maria and Kareem were dating in America, and now — for reasons that are unclear to you in the small sampling of the script — Kareem is dead. Then Kareem’s best friend comes for dinner and there’s an attraction between him and Maria that they have to hide from Kareem’s mother.

You read the sides twice. You can see why the famous American actress took the part. It’s a good role for her, and one that will surprise audiences since she’s returning to her more independent-film origins. You once read a film critic’s opinion that a film can never be better than the script, but you were never sure if you agreed with that. Which is why it stuck with you. In this case you think the film might end up being better than the script. She’s a good actress.

You look out the window of your hotel room, at the plaza below. Tonight’s show is ending. People are radiating out in all directions from the central stage. From where you stand, they form a flower, blossoming. A firework, exploding.

Tomorrow you will go to California.

At just before 7 A.M. you stand outside the entrance of the Grand. Your schedule says 7 A.M. Transportation to set: but you’re not sure what “transportation” means — taxi, bus, plane? You see a large white bus with green Arabic letters on it. A man with a silver clipboard stands by the front door and you approach him.

“Are you going to Meknes?” he asks.

“No, I’m going to California?” you say.

He stares at you. “This bus is tour bus going to Meknes twice a week.”

“Oh, I’m going to California. Just for today.”

“We don’t go to California,” he says.

You nod as though you knew this, and walk back to the bench in front of the hotel.

A van pulls up and a man with hairy arms and no facial hair comes over and introduces himself as the driver who will be taking you to the set.

He opens the side door of the van and you slide into the first row of seats. He gets back into the driver’s seat, but leaves the door open. You sit in silence for a full five minutes.

“Are we waiting for someone else?” you finally ask.

“Yes, two people.”

“Oh,” you say. You sit in the parked van not knowing exactly what to do with yourself.

You read over the sides again. You study the stage directions in particular. You have memorized your lines, though you know you are probably not expected to. They are not actually your lines. You have to remind yourself of this. Over the course of the night you have begun to think of the Maria character as a hybrid between you and the famous American actress. You imagine her as a third person the two of you have created.

“You must be the new stand-in!” a voice booms. You turn and see a thin Indian man in his early forties stepping into the van.

He introduces himself as a producer on the film and you introduce yourself as your niece.

Another man, an overweight American producer with a goatee and expensive-looking sunglasses, enters the van. He looks like he’s twenty-five. After listening to him talk for a minute you think it’s likely he actually is twenty-five. You imagine he’s recently been able to access his trust fund and is trying to make it in the movie business.

The driver whose name you didn’t understand closes the van door. “We are off to California!” he says.

“Not all movies are made in California,” the trust funder whispers under his breath.

You consider telling him it’s the name of a neighborhood in Casablanca that resembles California but refrain because you don’t want to insult him and potentially make an enemy so soon.

“California is the name of a neighborhood in Casablanca,” the Indian producer says.

The young American producer is silent, which means he didn’t know this. How could he not know this? It’s possible he is being used for his money and not being consulted on or informed about decisions.

You must not have disguised your amusement at the Indian producer’s comment well enough. The young American producer stares at you with his challenging twenty-five-year-old eyes. “What happened to the other stand-in?” he says to no one in particular. “How come no one told me there was a new stand-in?”

“Didn’t you hear about the scandal?” says the Indian producer. He is clearly excited by the use of the word “scandal.” “She fell in love with someone.”

“On set?” the young American producer says. He’s annoyed that he wasn’t informed of the affair. No one tells this young man anything.