Reality Jane (16 page)

“Is this really happening?” I rubbed my forehead in pain.

“Yup,” he moaned, tossing a Cheezie down his throat.

“Please, tell me we were on a close-up of their faces when he proposed. I think that was our money shot and they were screwing.”

It had been three and a half weeks since arriving at the castle. The execs were biting their fingernails to the bone, nervous that our stars had yet to propose, break up, or do anything to build a show around. To add to the stress, we had less than ten days to get/make/create an ending. Now, we finally had our money moment, a proposal, and it was Triple X-rated hard-core sex—hardly fodder for primetime TV.

“Got a close-up, got a wide, got it any way you want it, Babes. We have four cameras in that room. Remember?” he said, chiding me in his crusty tech-guy way. “And don’t worry,
they weren’t actually screwing in that shot. But they are now.” He pointed to the monitor.

“No!” I moaned, covering my eyes. “They know we’re watching. Perverts!”

“You said it.” My colleague had obviously seen this kind of crap before. He was totally unfazed. “Want a smoke?” I did.

He lit up two cigarettes and laughed as he toyed with the camera angles. Dagmar and Dominic were doing it doggy-style with a sheet draped over them, while she gripped the bedpost and moaned. The real dogs in the room, big fat Steak and itsy-bitsy Tofu, were flitting in circles around them, jumping up on the bed, then down off the bed, then up on the bed, then down, then fighting over her purple, diamond-studded, silk G-string as if it was a thick, juicy rabbit. It was a circus.

“I need some air,” I said, grabbing the cigarette, sliding the chair away from our station, and opening the door to head outside. “Whoa!”

I nearly tripped on two bodies camped out in the hallway. It was their highnesses’ TV assistants: Snookums and Sarcasm, whose real names were Sally and Matt.

“You okay?” Matt said lazily while flipping through
InStyle
, his jeans so tight that, against the wall, he looked like a bent V.

“I’m okay. Just didn’t expect. . . What are you guys doing here?” I asked. “It’s getting late.”

“Oh,
they
insist we wait out here until midnight, just in case we’re needed,” Sally said, smacking her gum and twisting her hair, her flip-flops dangling off her toes.

“Hmm. Okay. You need anything? We’ve got craft service in there. If you want a drink, I can grab you one,” I said, feeling sorry for the little slaves—actually, for all of us little slaves.

“Thanks. Maybe later.” Matt had stopped to inspect a Guess ad in his
InStyle
mag. “That girl’s so yesterday,” he said to Sally.

“Totally,” Sally replied.

As I walked down the hallway, it hit me:
Those damn assistants are our B-story. The poor peasant romance juxtaposed with our holier than thou royal romance—the servants and their masters. Fantastic!
To add to the intrigue, something strange between Matt and Dominic had begun after that very first
conversation in the bathroom with Sally. I reached into my holster and beeped for my roving camera—I finally had the radio thing down.

“Hey, Orange Cam. Are you off break?” I said into my walkie-talkie, pressing the big black square on the side of the box.

“Yup, we’re just sitting in the great room, waiting for direction,” he replied.

“Okay, could you guys come film the assistants in the hallway? If they ask what you’re doing, say you’re just getting some B-roll coverage and tell them to act natural. Don’t make a big deal about it. Copy?”

“Copy that, boss.”

“Oh, and please get some close-ups of them holding hands and being romantic. And let’s use the boom—no lavalier mikes—and from a distance, please. I don’t want them to think anything’s up.”

“Copy, copy.”

Using surveillance cameras since the show began, I had been quietly recording Matt and Sally’s conversations in the bathroom every time it was my shift—tonight was the first night I’d get our big cameras on them. Something interesting was bound to happen considering their proximity to two of America’s hottest quasi-celebs. Plus, they were in love, and everyone loves a good tryst.

It was pitch black when I finally made it outside. The rain had left behind a scent of fresh evergreen and mint that reminded me of home—home-home, not LA. I leaned against the castle wall wondering what parallel universe I had happened upon. This was the first time I’d ever watched two people having sex. Live! Not only that, but I was asking for different camera angles.

I couldn’t decide if I should throw up or quit. If I quit, what would I do? Go back to waiting tables? Audition for a reporter’s job? Host a reality show?
Right.
They’d laugh me back to Canada: “Hey, wannabe, come back when you’ve had a boob job and veneers.”

It was an odd torment: stripped to the absolute essentials,
we were getting paid to make undeserving people famous, propping up a rich girly-girl who was little more than eye-candy. The entire crew was in the same boat, making a career of it, despising it at some level, yet buying into it solely because we got paid and therefore continued to do our job. And the worst thing of all was that it was strangely compelling. I felt important for the first time in years. Naomi had even complimented my work—she said my interviews captured the show’s only true emotion. I mattered! I got the job done! I was an integral part of the team! But was I sacrificing my moral fiber? And, if so, what was I to do?

I pulled my hoodie tighter as I stared at my feet.
Good feet,
I thought, wiggling my toes. When everything else was in doubt, I knew I could rely on my feet. People told me I could be a toe model. I always smiled graciously, but thought it a bit of an insult: “That’s the best I can do? Show off my toes?” But at this moment, I appreciated them—straight, even, nail-bed in proportion to skin, not a bunion or corn in sight, cushioned in baby blue leather thongs, looking decently pretty, as far as toes go.

My mom had good toes, too, which reminded me of a game we used to play years ago: grab a magazine or book and flip to a random page. Whatever page we turned to held a secret about our future—we often did this when confused about things. Seemed it helped make life make sense.

Once, when I was fourteen, I opened a magazine to a page about a car crash and looked at my mom dispirited. “What does this mean?” I asked, thinking I didn’t like the game anymore. She read the nearby ad, “
Tonight on ABC, Diane Sawyer Interviews Deadly Drug Runners,
” and declared, “Maybe someday you’ll be a great journalist like her.” And to this day, Diane Sawyer is my champion. I admired her journalism, her values, and her brilliant career.

Whatever happened to that dream?
I thought, staring out at the black night, unable to rid myself of the image of Dagmar and Dominic screwing like rabbits.

The staff door slammed shut beside me. I noticed an American celebrity magazine tucked under the arm of one of
the kitchen staff.

“Excuse me. Would you mind if I took a quick look at your magazine?”

“Take it,” she said, handing it to me and rushing to her car. “Je suis fini.”

“Thanks! I mean,
merci
.”

I closed my eyes, made a quick, “here goes nothing!” declaration, and sent the magazine on a gentle freefall to the ground, where it landed at my feet. The moment reeked of significance. My destiny was lying right there, on top of my chilly little toes.

Prepared for answers, I lifted the magazine and took a deep breath. “Jamie Lynn Jones Loses 20 Pounds in Rehab,” the headline read. Beside the article was a nearly full-page ad featuring one very strung-out Jamie Lynn Jones posing scantily for the latest diet product. “Great,” I murmured, totally disappointed.

Then, I saw a small item at the corner of the page:

Spotted
: Famous radio personality and the King of Good Advice, Ricky Dean, packing up the moving van for LA. He’s leaving NYC for Tinsel Town to move his highly successful radio talk show series,
Fix Your Life
, to LA and onto television. Fans can’t wait and neither can we. Launching this spring on YBC.

“That’s it!” I ripped the page from the magazine. “I’ll work for Ricky Dean!”

As I stood, reading and re-reading the item, excited for my future, a fellow producer approached me. She was dolled up with a streak of bronzer on her cheeks, coiffed hair, and stiletto heels under tight Diesel jeans.

“Big party tonight, Jane,” she said, a wave of perfume hitting me like a dust cloud. “Get those two nasties off to bed and join us. It’s in the upper chalets.”

“I might just do that,” I said. I thought back to Toni, warning me of a cross-the-pond flogging if I didn’t loosen up. “Besides, I may have something to celebrate.”

In the party cabin, music boomed and smoke seeped from the log joints. The grips had turned their chalet into a thumping nightclub. Just outside the door stood the youngest kid on the crew, the tape label guy. He was also the largest, wearing a long black trench coat and dark sunglasses, with a mean-ass look on his face.

“I.D. please,” he said, grabbing my elbow and sliding his entire body to block the doorway.

“Watch it or I’ll make you grab me some tape stock!”

He laughed. It was amazing how a group of eighty people could become instant friends. Sharing breakfasts, lunches, dinners, bus rides, all-nighters, and the occasional bottle of whiskey will do that. With the exception of a few crew members (like Danny), it didn’t matter who you sat beside at the party. They got it. They knew what you were going through: long hours, pandering to royalty, and tedious shoots more often than not. They lived it too. And all of us were survivors.

I looked around in wonder. In the space of this once ordinary vintner’s suite, the grip department had assembled a no-charge fully-stocked bar complete with every kind of booze and a donation jar. The furniture was cleared for a dance floor. The walls were lined with solid-wood benches constructed from left-over supplies. The crew had cleverly replaced the standard 60-watt hotel lights with red and green mood bulbs. They even dialed in the bathroom with candles and incense. And club tunes blasted from an i-Pod. It was a complete metamorphosis. For a bunch of whiskey-swilling production crew members, it was most impressive.

Alex stepped out from a crowd of bodies and slipped his hand onto my butt cheek for a little squeeze.

“Hey, careful,” I said, glancing around for watchful eyes. “Someone could see.”

Ever since Alex’s late-night visit to my room, he had “happened” into my room on many more occasions. He had one
rule: don’t tell anyone. I had one rule too: no intercourse. I just wasn’t ready.

We had developed a friendship. For a former Zoolander, Alex was surprisingly funny, and mostly unfazed that he was so really, really good-looking. But, it wasn’t all peaches and cream. The occasional red flag would surface just as I started thinking “potential boyfriend,” like the time he said he had trouble committing. And the other time he mentioned a girlfriend. He said they had broken up, but she was still attached. Messy! So I didn’t bother with questions. Uncommitted romps could be part of my vernacular too.

“What’s up?” Alex asked. “You seem kind of different tonight. Everything all right?”

“I’m actually fine. Tonight I had a bit of a revelation,” I declared, waiting for him to ask.

“Listen, I can’t stay.” He placed his hand on my shoulder and angled for the door. “I have host wraps mega-early in the morning. But I’ll call you after. Maybe we can do dinner in town. On me.”

“Whatever works,” I said, ignoring the slight. “Good luck tomorrow.”

He winked and headed for the door.

Seeing him felt different tonight. Not good different, not bad different. I couldn’t place it. It would have bothered me had I not been distracted by thoughts of my dream job with
the
Ricky Dean.

After a few drinks and chit-chat with friendly crew members, I was starting to get my buzz on, the thought of dream jobs filed neatly away in my brain cavity to be accessed at a more sober time. After all, this was my first party night with the crew and I had to make my appearance a memorable one.

Then, like the parting of the Red Sea, a stream of bodies separated on the dance floor, and I had a straight eye-line shot at Surfer Boy. Instant butterflies. That uncomfortable gurgle.
What the hell?
I self-consciously grazed my hand across my nose to check for runaway boogers, a habit I’d picked up in high school—you only make that mistake once.
Nope
.
All cars parked neatly in the garage.
Then, eye contact. My heart skipped a beat.
My body reminded me that though I was light years away from that gawky Margaret Simon phase of periods and B.O., my life could still be littered with awkward social stuff á la Judy Bloom until the day I died.

Surfer Boy and I hadn’t worked together since the production began. We seemed permanently on opposite shifts. But then Alex had provided a terrific distraction. At this point, Craig was barely a blip on the map. And I liked it that way. Seeing my surfer sweetie tonight made me realize just how smitten I was.