Divas Do Tell (10 page)

“Remember me? I’m not your real mama. She gives you bites of her food. I don’t. You’re already fat enough.”

When he kept staring at me as if he stared hard and long enough food would suddenly magically materialize, I gave in and got him a doggie biscuit. He immediately took it and trotted to the den with it. I had been had, I was pretty sure.

All too soon Bitty was at my door. She likes to come in the back way since it leads straight into the kitchen, and it’s the door we’ve used since we were kids. Most of the time the front of the house is reserved for company only. I dust it for Mama once a week, but other than that it’s rarely used.

“Look, precious,” she said to Chitling, “there’s your cousin Brownie. Be nice.”

Precious looked grumpy in her thick turtleneck sweater and little plastic rain boots. Brownie sat down and looked at her. A low growl vibrated in his throat until Bitty took the sweater and boots off the pug. Then he recognized her. Canine peace was restored.

“It must be raining,” I said as Bitty set the little yellow dog boots on the table. They were cleaner than her purse since they’d never hit the ground, and her purse was frequently set on Budgie’s floor.

“Just a sprinkle or two.” She shook out the nylon rain cap she’d worn atop her blonde helmet. No trace of the recent pizza fire remained.

“I don’t want to be an extra,” I said, registering my protest even though I knew it was just a futile formality. “I don’t want to be up at five in the morning. I don’t want a career. I like the one I have.”

“You don’t have a career, Trinket. Now here. Try on this dress.”

She handed me a madras dress with a thin leather belt. I held it up to me, and as she’d promised, the hem hit me below the knees. It looked like a red and blue plaid madras tent.

“Where’s your dress?” I asked.

Bitty held up a lovely soft pink wool with a scooped neckline and three-quarter sleeves. I handed her back the madras dress.

“I’ll look like a billboard in that thing. I’m not wearing it.”

“It’s the only dress I could find in your size. There’s a nice little hat that matches.”

“You have got to be kidding me. I won’t wear it even if the hat comes down over my face to hide my identity. I’d be a plaid nightmare.”

“But you’d be in the movie,” Bitty argued. “Just think how impressed Aunt Anna and Uncle Eddie will be if you’re in a movie.”

“In a madras dress that makes me look like the Shoney’s Big Boy? I don’t think so.”

“Please, Trinket. I promised her that I could get some people as extras. You’ll make fifty dollars.”

I eyed her for a moment. She seemed really intent on doing this. “Who are you trying to impress and why?”

“Her name is Abby Bloom. She’s the Key PA. That’s a personal assistant. She said I have the face and presence to be a great character actor.”

“And where did you meet her?”

“She came into Budgie’s to pick up an order for lunch. She was struck with my appearance and said I should show up for open call—that’s auditions—tomorrow if I wanted to be in the movie. So I told her I’d bring a friend. See? I was thinking about you.”

“Why couldn’t you think about me when you’re making a withdrawal from the bank?”

“Oh, Trinket. Now here. Go try this on, and I’ll try mine on, and we’ll see how we look.”

I know better. I really do. Anytime I do something Bitty thinks is a good idea there are always serious repercussions. And yet I gave in, tried on the dress, and the next morning before it was daylight and while it was still cold and dark and my teeth wouldn’t stop chattering, I showed up at Bitty’s house wearing the damned dress.

“I HOPE YOU’RE happy,” I said while we stood in the dark outside the courthouse and waited for the sun to rise so shooting could begin. Other people had shown up as well, and stragglers arrived as it got lighter. Klieg lights looked like a dozen distant moons as the lighting crew moved them up and down the trolleys set up for the cameras. Some of the crew used hand-held meters to test the light while others did all the necessary preparations for staging the scene.

“Delirious with joy,” Bitty replied. “Thank you for coming, Trinket. Isn’t this fun?”

“Maybe it will be soon. So far the only entertainment factor is feeling my feet slowly turn to ice. Unless you count watching my breath form icicles.”

“I love the way you can find the good in every situation. You’re a trouper, aren’t you.”

“Is that sarcasm? Because it’s way too early for sarcasm. It’s too early for birds to be chirping.”

“Oh, here comes Abby,” Bitty said as daylight broke in the east, and the sky went from dark blue to pale blue. “You’ll like her. She’s really nice.”

A young woman with short blonde hair, khaki cargo pants, a heavy jacket, and a clipboard in her hands strode energetically toward us. It didn’t take her long to get us all situated, who went where, what we were to do, and above all—wait for the director’s cue. No one was to do anything until the director gave the go-ahead. She had a hand-held walkie-talkie that kept up a constant chatter attached to her jacket pocket by a clip.

“Abby,” said Bitty, and snagged her by the arm when she walked by, “do we look all right?”

Abby stopped, smiled, and said, “You look wonderful, Betty. Just wonderful. Thank you for being here. Simon likes to shoot at the magic hour, and these first scenes are important.”

“Did you hear that, Trinket?” my clueless cousin asked as Abby went on her way, occasionally pausing to talk to other crew members. “We’re important.”

“Well,
Betty
,” I said, “what I think Abby said is that the scenes are important. We’re just props. Like that old car parked in front of the courthouse. Isn’t that a sixties-era Cadillac?”

“How would I know? Do I look like a used car salesman?”

“Is that a rhetorical question? Because if it isn’t, I want to tell you what we both look like.”

Bitty gave me a narrow-eyed glare that said she wasn’t happy with the direction of our conversation. That was okay. I wasn’t that happy being up at daylight when I could have been home in my nice warm bed. She crossed her arms over her considerable chest, stuck her chin in the air, and turned to look across the street. Then she made a sound like a snake. Or a leaky tire. Whichever, I knew it wasn’t a good sound for her to make.

“Well, would you just look at that,” she muttered. “If it isn’t Miss Dark Secrets Under the Holly herself.”

“I thought they changed the title for the movie,” I said as I turned to see the culprit.

Dixie Lee Forsythe looked as perky as a new puppy. She had a cup of coffee in one hand, a sheaf of papers in the other, and was chatting away with Abby Bloom. Curls of steam rose up from the cup, and the wind ruffled the papers she held.

“She’s all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, the old heifer,” Bitty almost snarled.

Because I was cold and sleepy and unhappy about being there in the first place, I let myself be mean.

“She certainly looks good for it being so early in the morning. Is that a designer jacket? It’s so cute. Dixie Lee knows how to dress, I’ll say that for her.”

Through gritted teeth Bitty said, “That’s a Phillip Lim leather jacket. I recognize the ruffled hem. She’s much too old to wear that.”

“Really? But she looks so nice in it.”

“Miranda Watson’s pig looks nice in a silk hat, but she’s still a pig.”

When Bitty brings up Miranda Watson’s pig I know I’ve gone too far. The pig—named Chitling—is spoiled just as badly as Chen Ling. Miranda puts cute little outfits on her, dresses her up in sparkly collars and sequined sweaters, and even though she doesn’t have Bitty’s canine couture budget, Miranda does a pretty good job of rubbing Bitty’s nose in it.

I wisely shut my mouth and kept it closed while Bitty fumed. It didn’t help that we had to shoot the same scene a dozen times, walking back and forth on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse like we were going to go inside, up and down the steps, over and over while the director tried to decide the best angle or whatever he was doing. There were pieces of cardboard up on metal poles to block the sun, reflect the light, or whatever they were for, and if one little thing wasn’t right we had to do it all over again. I was pretty much through with my chance at stardom long before we took a break.

Bitty and I went into Budgie’s for coffee. My hands were frozen. My feet were numb. January in Holly Springs can be cold. Budgie’s was busier than I’ve seen it in a long time. Looking harried, Budgie supervised a young girl who was obviously learning how to waitress. Since she looked a lot like her boss, although without the bright headdresses that Budgie favored, I figured the girl was her daughter, Kinzey. I hadn’t seen her in a while. She’d grown up while I wasn’t looking, it seemed.

“You’re doing great,” I told her when she came to take our order, and she flashed me a nervous smile.

“Thank you. Do you want anything to go with your coffee?”

“I’ll have a bowl of grits and a piece of toast, please.”

Bitty seemed distracted, and when I nudged her to give her order, she leaned toward me and whispered, “That’s Sandra Brady. Over there. In the far corner.”

Of course, I looked. It was Sandra Brady, all right. And sitting right across the table from her was Dixie Lee. I wondered if Bitty had noticed. We’d been star hunting all morning and so far hadn’t seen a single one. I figured they were only present when a scene required them to be. Now here was a star sitting right by Bitty’s enemy. This could get interesting.

“Orange juice and dry toast,” Bitty said distractedly to Kinzey.

“Bitty, stop being so obvious,” I said when she kept staring at Sandra Brady. “She’s going to get up and leave.”

“Nonsense. She’s a movie star. She’s used to being stared at all the time. Can you believe Dixie Lee is sitting there sucking up to her like that?”

“Well, she did write the book. I’m sure this isn’t the first time they’ve met.”

“I just can’t believe her, acting like she’s so much better than all of us. Listen to her laugh. She sounds like a constipated crow.” Bitty drummed her fingernails against the table.

I swear, if looks could kill, Dixie Lee Forsythe would have fallen out on the floor deader than a doornail right there. That’s why it was so startling when she looked over, saw Bitty and me sitting there, and got up and came over to our table. I would have thought Bitty’s glare would burn holes right through her, but Dixie Lee didn’t seem any worse the wear for it.

“Bitty, Trinket, come over and meet Sandra Brady. I’ve been telling her all about how you Divas are so much fun, and she’s intrigued. Do you have time to come meet her?”

I could almost hear the wheels spinning in Bitty’s hamster wheel brain. For a moment I thought she might refuse. I should have known better. She put a big smile on her face and said, “Why Dixie Lee, we’d love to come meet Miss Brady.”

For some reason I had a feeling that no good was going to come of this.

Chapter 6

SANDRA BRADY WAS a beautiful woman somewhere in her late thirties. Since she was playing the part of Darcy Denton, who’d been in her early fifties when the incident with Billy Joe and Susana had happened, it was a pretty decent casting decision. Glamorizing characters is always beneficial. Desirée DuBois was being played by a young actress who looked just like Julia Roberts, and even though it was in a minor capacity since the plot revolved around the scandal set against the backdrop of the Civil Rights movement, it was an important role.

“Darcy’s impact on the characters is pivotal,” Sandra was saying as Budgie herself brought more coffee and pie. “She’s the catalyst for everything that happened. Of course, as Desirée, Kathy’s role is also important.”

Kathy Adams was an ingénue that I felt had been miscast. That was probably because I’d never thought of Dixie Lee as very innocent, and Kathy had a dewy naïveté about her. Sandra was obviously being kind about it, maybe to soften the blow of Dixie Lee being considered a minor character in the movie. Since I got most of my information from the local paper and Miranda Watson’s gossip column, getting information straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, was a step up in the tell-all game.

“Oh,” Dixie Lee said, “Desirée is more the narrator of events than a main character. Although she does have her own impact, of course. And then there’s the sad business of her doomed love affair. I took some creative license with that so no one would be damaged by retelling the story.”

Too late
, I thought, remembering Johnny Payne’s face and bitterness.

Sandra put a hand atop Dixie Lee’s. “You suffered so much,” she said softly, and I thought Bitty was going to have a rigor right there at the table.

To forestall any such incident I said quickly, “That was so long ago I’m sure very few people even remember it. So tell me, Miss Brady, where is the big confrontation scene between Darcy and Billy Joe being shot?”

Bitty rapidly recovered after choking on her coffee although her face was still a little red and her eyes dilated with outrage. Sandra Brady and Dixie Lee seemed not to notice.

“The interior scenes are being shot in Montrose, since Darcy lived in an antebellum home when all that happened. I understand her old house now belongs to a doctor who doesn’t want anyone shooting inside, so we’re doing only the exterior shots there,” said Sandra.