Reality Jane (32 page)

“Alex!” I pushed him out of the way.

I grabbed my watch and squinted to read it, my eyes blurry with fatigue. “It’s four. I told my editor I’d be back at three, and I have a plane to catch in the morning! Sorry. Call me.”

The sun was just starting to crest when I finally pulled out of the studio parking lot. I’d finished the “Hitter” piece with my editor only minutes earlier. The clock in my car read 6:30. It was unimaginable that I would have to be at LAX in less than four hours, headed for the biggest, most important shoot of my life.

“N
aomi’s unavailable,” the assistant said brusquely.

“But she just called me,” I responded. “Her number came up on my caller ID.”

Since starting at
Fix Your Life
, I’d left Naomi numerous phone messages, and forwarded her only the very best joke-emails, but never heard back. But today I needed her advice and I needed her mentorship. This job was getting to be too big for me, and I was scared.

During the three hours spent in transit from LAX to Vegas, I’d had a good hard look at the call sheet. That was my wake-up call. This shoot was huge! It was more than just a test-drive promotion. It was a test of my talent—my first big-time multi-cam studio shoot. Up until that point, I’d done only two- or three-camera shoots. Today, I had a staff of 25, and five full camera crews, with execs watching, Meg watching, and most importantly, Ricky Dean watching. I needed help.

I grabbed my assistant’s phone so Naomi wouldn’t recognize the number, and dialed her cell.

“Naomi here,” she said.

“Hi, Naomi, it’s Jane. It’s so nice to hear your voice. It’s been so long,” I said, speaking as quickly as I could before she cut me off. “Sorry to bother you. I saw you called me back and I tried your office first, but they said you were busy.”

“Jane, I’m in the middle of something.”

“But you called me back and I’m really glad to hear from you. I need to talk to—”

“I didn’t call you intentionally. It was an accident.”

“There are no accidents. You always said that,” I continued with enthusiasm. “You won’t believe it. Today I’m acting
supervising producer for
Fix Your Life
! We’re doing a huge forum in Vegas and I’m in charge. It’s crazy. I could use one of your pep talks.”

“Jane, you don’t seem to need my advice, or anyone else’s.”

“Hey, that’s not true. I’m really grateful to you and—”

“Oh, so grateful that you walked out on a job that I pulled a lot of strings to get you. We needed you to direct that wedding show, and you left us high and dry.”

“No, it wasn’t like that. Working for Danny was humiliating, and I was so surprised that you would—”

“That I would
what
? Hand you opportunities on a silver platter? Karl gave Danny that job because he didn’t want you. I stood up for you! You know, Jane, you seem to be turning into that opportunistic Hollywood bitch you once despised.”

Click.

“Bitch?” Did she just call me a bitch? She doesn’t own me! Wait! I really like Naomi. How can this be?
I felt weak, empty, confused. I hit redial, ready to burst into my sorry-dance, insisting she had me all wrong, when—

“Everything ready to go?” Meg said, strolling up to me in yet another skinny designer pantsuit and four-inch heels, looking flawless next to me in my now boaty Earnest Sewn jeans—no time to shop for smaller replacements—and white button-down shirt with sweat circles the size of flapjacks.

It was 3:30 in the afternoon on a scorchingly hot day in Vegas. As usual, Meg had seemed to appear out of nowhere. She and Ricky Dean had just arrived via their personal helicopter. At ten grand, they could have flown the entire crew plus all of the guests in a private jet.

“Yes,” I said, “I finished up the pre-interviews and the b-roll. The cameras are all set up for the forum. We’ve rehearsed what we can, considering Ashley hasn’t arrived yet. I’ve called her hotel twice. I’m not sure where she is and I don’t have a cell number for her.”

“What? You’ve got to get her over here. Now! We need to roll at four and she needs to be on. Has she been coached?”

“No, uh, not. . . not by me. I’ve never even met her,” I stammered, overwhelmed at the barrage of responsibilities
thrust at me.

Meg knew I hadn’t gotten my marching orders until the eleventh hour last night—she gave them to me! Yet, I was magically supposed to have a complete handle on every tiny detail. It felt like my brain might explode.

“Well, you need to. And you need to do it now!” Meg said stiffly. “What about our main guest, Laura? Did she cry in her interview? Did you get her to cry?”

Cry? Say what?
My ambitions, including my dream of becoming television producer royalty, suddenly took a back seat to this ridiculous request. Since 9:15 this morning, after a mere two hours’ sleep, I’d managed a five-minute shower, a bowl of corn flakes, a brush through my hair, and a thirty-minute cab ride to the airport, where I simultaneously booked a chopper, did my make-up, memorized the call sheet, confirmed my five camera crews, got myself checked in at United, and picked up a little of my own jet fuel, a triple shot espresso with six sugars and Half and Half. Then, I landed in Vegas at 10:45 and somehow—between the hours of 11:00 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.—pulled three interviews completely out of my ass, which included three different locations/set-ups and extensive b-roll of our main/star guest, Laura. And, all this I managed to do with a semblance of professionalism and skill.

Never before had I shot people eating with such flair: 220- pound Laura eating alone; Laura eating with her husband; Laura eating in the park; close-ups of Laura’s mouth, her fingers, then her fingers digging into a bag of Cheetos, then licking her fingers, then licking an ice cream cone. It was nonstop lapping-up of calories, shot at multiple low angles (heavy people look fatter that way), with extreme close-ups of chubby little pores sweating gray toxins as she consumed obscene amounts of food-garbage. Then we got her drinking an extra large soda, then drinking another soda, then smoking a cigarette. It was the epitome of Eataholics! I even saw an Emmy flash before my eyes.

“No,” I said, my blood starting to boil but containing my emotions—I knew where Meg was going with this. “Laura did not cry during her interview.”

“She needs to cry. You need to do the interview again!” Meg commanded.

“Meg, with all due respect, if we’re to roll tape in less than an hour, and I’m to find
and
coach Ashley, as well as direct our five cameras, I’m just wondering where I will find the time,” I said gently, sweat pouring off my brow.

Ta-da! I’d completely mastered the art of the kiss-ass! It might not have sounded very ass-kiss’ish, but given what I wanted to say—“Go pull that giant pitch fork out of your boney little ass before I scratch your eyes out”
—
it was pretty darn slick.

“That’s for you to figure out!” she snapped and started to walk away.

“Really, Meg,” I continued, though perhaps I shouldn’t have. “Does Laura actually need to cry? Her interview was excellent. It was very touching. She explained how she—”

“All truly excellent producers know that crying makes for quintessential TV. Surely, even
you
know that,” she said condescendingly. “And make her take off that necklace! It looks tribal.”

This time she did walk away. Mr. Dean beckoned.

“Necklace? Tribal?” I said under my breath.

Meg had an uncanny ability to make people feel as if they’d done something wrong (the necklace, the non-crying), when they hadn’t. What a great line for her resumé: “As executive producer, I shamelessly inflict unjustifiable guilt on the people I direct and manage!”

Poor Laura. By the time we were done with her, she wouldn’t know what hit her.
I
wouldn’t know what hit her. This woman needed a full-time coach, or a sponsor, not some magic pill in the form of a 15-minute turbo-therapy session from Miss Ashley Starlet, with her runway legs and non-existent psych background.

I didn’t get Laura’s second interview until well after the cameras rolled for Ashley’s TV debut, or should I say Ashley’s TV debacle, which was nearly five hours late! Our biggest setback was having to light the set when we realized we were running out of daylight, adding another two hours to our mounting overtime bill. And apparently all this was my fault.
Nobody stopped to consider that the extra $3,000 that we now owed the crews could have been saved had we skipped the
Airforce 1
helicopter ride for Ricky Dean and her majesty, Meg.

“One more time, Ashley. You’re doing great,” I said as if I was talking to a three-year-old. Crouched just slightly off-stage, I fed her her lines while massaging my throbbing temples.

“Join me—
cut
! Join us—
cut
! Join Ricky Dean—
argh
! Join us for our next program next week when we’ll be—
cut
!” She looked beaten. “This is hard!” Ashley whined.

“I know, sweetie,” said Meg as she handed Ashley a bottle of Evian. “You’ve been working like a dog, and I just want you to know that you have Celine Dion’s favorite Vegas masseuse at your disposal just as soon as this is over.”

It was ten o’clock at night, and Ashley’s tenth attempt at a proper close for the show was failing miserably. It didn’t help that
she
kept yelling “cut,” for herself, which was just wrong. For the first time in my journalistic career, I wished I were dead.

“I know you guys are against this, but let’s just please give these cue cards a try,” I said carefully.

Meg and Mr. Dean were adamantly against cue cards because, they said, Ashley would appear robotic. But desperate times called for desperate measures, even if it was for less than thirty words.

Ashley straightened herself center-stage, pushed her shoulders back, gave a firm smile, and began her read: “Join us next week when we catch up with Laura, Christopher, Mindy, and their spouses to see who’s winning our
From Fat to Fit
challenge. Thanks for coming out!” Ashley spoke awkwardly and, yes, robotically. But so thrilled was she to complete her close that she looked as if she might explode in joy. No one was more surprised at her accomplishment than her.

“Good work, darling!” her larger-than-life boyfriend exclaimed as he bounced out to mug as the credits ran over the show. My Ricky Dean schoolgirl crush had totally evaporated in the Vegas sun, along with my patience.

For the duration of the recording, Mr. Dean had been on and off the stage at his whim. Expecting us to read his mind and capture these “dazzling” moments of “friendship” between him
and his trophy girlfriend, he would add such poignant quips as: “Ashley, you told me you were an ugly duckling, weighing in at 160 pounds, when you were age twelve. Now, folks,” he’d turn to camera, “Ashley’s a living success story. From fat and frazzled to supermodel!”
Big guffaw.

Meanwhile, Ashley hadn’t bothered to memorize her lines, or maybe wasn’t capable of doing it, having shown up three hours late because she “wasn’t feeling good.” But, as Meg reminded us every ten minutes or so, “She looks great!” Apparently, the ass-kissing never stops, no matter how high your rung on the Hollywood ladder.

The only saving grace was that this pre-taped show would be shipped back to our editors to chop together and to create something airable for TV. It would also give me a chance to save face with Meg, which was surprisingly still important to me, by redoing Laura’s interview, by getting her to cry, and by cutting the new interview into the mix.

When I finally said “that’s a wrap” at the end of my nightmare day, I nonetheless felt a major sense of accomplishment. I knew now that I was capable of creating heroes, or subjects of shame. Today, and (it seemed) most days of late, the emphasis was on subjects of shame. But I had to be okay with that. Part of getting where I needed to go was turning Laura into our model pig: a big, fat, slovenly oaf of a human being, a desperate woman too weak to help herself.
My goal?
To have people watch this and stop in their tracks to say: “What a wretched excuse for a life. Mr. Dean has got to help her.”

I had to beat down the small voice in my head that asked:
What did she do to deserve this? Write in for a little guidance. . . a little hope?
It occurred to me that none of our guests knew the price they would pay for a little of HIS advice. I felt a little nauseated knowing that Laura, in particular, was a very nice person who didn’t even look all that bad. But any lingering scruples, once a central part of my moral fiber, were gone, buried in the heap of responsibilities cast my way. I still had work to do.