Amie Barrodale - You Are Having a Good Time

He asked if she had any questions about the edits.

“I have one question. In Act Two, Scene Three, when Kate and Michael— The love scene. It says it’ll show the actress, ah, performing fellatio on the actor. Isn’t it a little unnecessary?”

“How do you mean?”

“I don’t know, I don’t have the screenplay in front of me.”

He flipped through his pages and started reading aloud from the scene. “Michael, harried from work, still wearing his overcoat and carrying his attaché, closes the front door. Kate is sitting on the couch, watching TV and smoking a cigarette.”

Libby said, “Please stop! I’ll do whatever it says, but please don’t read it to me.”

“Good.”

He sent a revision two days before she was supposed to fly out. There wasn’t a note in the envelope — it was just the script. It was printed on different-colored papers — white, blue, pink, green, and two shades of yellow. She flipped through it. He’d added some description to the sex scene. He’d gone into precise detail about the blow job and the cigarette. It felt like he was needling her, or making something private between them into art. She couldn’t decide which.

* * *

Victor was the center of the universe on set. He had small, pale hands and dainty little feet in beat-up running shoes. His handshake was limp, and he didn’t allow their hands to clasp. He barely grasped her fingers, then pulled his hand away.

He said, “It’s so nice to finally clap eyes on you.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Libby said. “It’s like a dream.”

A chubby woman with gray hair at her right temple came up behind Victor, rolling an orange armchair, and Victor turned away from Libby and got down on his hands and knees to look at its wheels.

“Those are very nice,” Victor said. “Those are all right.”

Victor took off his glasses and lay down to examine the wheels at close range. “Tell me,” he said after a moment, “how did you do it?”

While the chair woman talked about the wheels, Victor lifted the upholstery, then let it fall to cover the wheels, over and over again. Then he said, “Where’s Liv?”

A woman who had been hanging back fell into formation beside the first woman.

“Liv, I like the color,” he said, “but I’m not sure about the fabric. It’s a little fuzzy, or something.”

“Too fuzzy?”

“I guess it’s okay,” Victor said. He had trouble getting himself up off the floor. The chair woman offered him a hand, but he refused it. He turned red, trying to get up on his own by doing a stomach curl, but he got caught halfway up and had to roll over onto his hands and knees to stand. His back hitched on its way up; he rubbed it with his hand and said, “Vivian! Why isn’t Libby in makeup?”

An exhausted old lady in black reading glasses and a pearl necklace came around a rack of clothes and took Libby by the arm. “I’ve been calling her at the hotel, Vic. I left messages. Honey, we need you here at four.”

“I didn’t get any messages. I stay in the bungalow.”

“She didn’t get any messages.” The woman repeated what Libby had said as though the explanation were an irresponsible excuse.

Walking with the makeup woman, Vivian, Libby said, “I usually do my own makeup.”

Vivian stopped, looked at Libby for a second, then looked back over her shoulder and said, “Here, let me show you something.”

She walked Libby down through a garage, past several staircases leading to nowhere, to an adjacent studio’s storage space. She opened a door and said, “Behold!”

The room was piled floor to ceiling with orange chairs identical to the one on the set.

“I don’t get it.”

“Vic has been working on that chair for two months. That chair will be sitting to the left, in the living room, in the opening sequence. Then it will never be seen again.”

“Oh my God.”

“Makeup … is important to Vic. Appearances … are important when you’re working with Vic.”

Cynthia, Libby, and Victor were supposed to rehearse before filming, in a side room off the set. Cynthia was already there when Libby came in, five minutes early. She was in makeup, reading a novel. She put it to one side and stood.

“We’ve met before, in Los Angeles.”

“I remember, of course. At the party with the rock garden.”

“Yes.” Cynthia told Libby she was honored to be working with her. She praised Libby’s work. She had seen all of Libby’s films, and had even seen her in a smaller production, off-Broadway, years before.

Victor came in and closed the door behind himself. He said, “Okay. Let’s play the scene.”

The two women played it once, and Victor looked troubled. He dug his fingers through his beard and said, “Libby, try it again. Try being really hurt.”

“Hurt?”

Victor nodded, as if the direction were precise. She began the scene again. Victor slashed an arm through the air. “Stop! It’s boring. Take it again from the top.” She looked to Victor for direction, but he was waiting for her to begin. After an hour, when she was sure he would say he needed to rewrite the scene, he said, “Okay, let’s shoot it. We have something now.”

* * *

He sat with his back to them during takes and watched their performances on a small monitor. After all those late-night phone calls, Libby had expected him to be warm with her. She had even imagined rejecting his advances, but he spent more time giving notes to the camera operator than he spent with her.

“Let’s try it again,” Victor said.

Libby looked at the sound man and rolled her eyes. “I guess you can’t talk about the imp.”

“Stop. Let’s start again from the top.”

Libby mopped her face with her palms. “I guess you can’t talk about the imp.”

Victor swept an arm. He was huddled over his monitor in his stupid parka, with his fat back to her. He looked like a gorilla, like a gorilla in $3,000 headphones. He was showing the operator where he wanted the crosshairs to fall and when he wanted them to move. He murmured, “Like that, and then, right on ‘deliberately,’ I want you to get it on her cleavage. But wide, not like a tit shot.”

The operator had the focus crosshairs on Cynthia’s chest. “Like this?”

“Pull out. I want to see them centered, but not obvious.”

Libby cleared her throat. “Victor? What do you want me to do?”

He hadn’t known she was listening. He started, but recovered, and kept his back to her. “What’s that?” he said.

“In the take? What should I do?”

He shrugged and craned his neck to halfway look over a heavy shoulder, so he was in profile. “Astonish me.” He turned his eyes back to his monitor and said, “Let’s go again.”

Libby took off her coat and got it over the back of the chair. She incorporated the motion into her performance. “I guess you can’t talk about the imp,” she said.

“What are you talking about?” Cynthia said. “What do you mean?”

“Well, are we going to live in a portal to another dimension?”

“Stop!” Victor swept his arm. “Let’s try it again.”

“What am I doing wrong?” Libby asked.

“No, you’re fine.”

“Did you not get the tit shot right?” she spat.

Victor kept his back to her, staring into the monitor. She realized he expected her to start from the top.

“I guess you can’t talk about the imp,” she said.

Victor swept his arm. “Let’s try it again.”

The camera operator murmured something. Victor laughed. He looked at the camera operator and raised his eyebrows. The camera operator laughed.

“I guess you can’t talk about the imp,” Libby said.

“Wait,” Victor said. “We weren’t ready. Okay, let’s try it again.”