Secrets of a Soap Opera Diva (14 page)

After racing down the stairs to the honeymoon set, a taping schedule in hand, I asked, “What’s going on? My scenes don’t tape for at least another hour.”

“Not anymore. Randall moved them up. Emmy has a callback for
Big Love
so we’re taping out of order.”

“But I’m not ready. Besides, Ethan’s drooling over his fan mail, we haven’t had a chance to rehearse. And tell Randall he’s got conjunctivitis again, I’m not going near his face.”

“Tell him yourself. And he wants you to wear your hair up, Alison’s wearing hers down today.”

A blinking red tally light signaled that Randall and Edith were up to their old tricks again, taping my every move, watching on their office monitors.

If the duo managed to throw me off my A-game during my last days on the show, the press would roast me alive for “sour grapes.”

I coolly replied, “I’ll be back and ready to tape in five.”

I’m gonna turn in the best performances of my
Rich and Ruthless
career
, I vowed as I marched back to my dressing room.
They’re gonna be so spectacular, so breathtaking, so awe-inspiringly fierce, that fans and critics alike will never forget them.

A
ll right, people, let’s do this,” the stage manager said.

“Where the hell is Ethan?” Julius boomed.

“I think he’s still in wardrobe,” Ben Singh, the production assistant, answered.

“Don’t think, find out!”

Ben rushed off, cursing under his breath in Hindi. The East Indian couldn’t believe he was paying back a hundred thousand dollars in student loans to NYU Tisch to chase after wayward soap stars.

Running down the hall, he crashed into Fern and quickly asked, “Did you remember to fill out the paperwork for the Kangaroo Awards for Emmy and Alison and pack their fan mail bins?”

“Yes!” an exasperated Fern answered, rushing into the elevator cradling Edith’s lunch—Arby’s take-out and a Fresca.

“Good,” Ben muttered, walking away, “I don’t think I could survive another vicious fan mail tantrum from those stupid bimbettes. Why is it
my
fault the majority of their mail comes from prison inmates? I can’t wait to get back to Bollywood, what was I thinking?”

I waited on-set in a turquoise Manoush negligee from my personal collection, not wanting to run the risk of having the Pattern Cutter put me in one of Emmy’s cheap Hustler teddies.

A winded Penelope struggled to keep up, trailing behind Ethan’s billowing trademark peacock-embroidered silk set robe.

“See you after these scenes, Penelope, for my wedding gown fitting,” I called to the pickled costume designer.

She dismissed me with a look as Ethan blindly tossed his robe at her.

“What the hell?”

The buppie bubbler in his Kid ’n Played out haircut was standing over me, a Cheshire Cat grin on his face,
wearing only a thong made in the shape of an elephant’s face, his infinitesimal boyhood loosely nestled in the limp trunk.

“Bitchin’, huh?” he asked.

Silence.

“Ethan, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Julius scolded.

“Ah, c’mon, Jules. What’s the big deal?”

“Trust me, not much,” I quipped. “It’s bad enough I have to deal with your damn pinkeye, now you expect to climb into bed with me wearing that
thing
? Nobody wants to see that madness.”

“I do!” Emmy excitedly interjected, standing on the fringe rubbing her thigh, salivating at the sight of Ethan’s elephant package. “Oh . . . did I say that out loud? Lighten up, Calysta, it’s not like it’s gonna bite ya. From what I’ve heard you could use—”

“What happened to a closed set?”

“Don’t be so serious,” Ethan chided. “Emmy’s right, have a sense of humor. Besides, Randall said it would be fun.”

“Oh, yeah? Then tell him to slap on one of his wigs and do the damn scene himself.”

“All right, what’s the holdup?” Randall rushed onto the set, unprofessionally assuming director’s duties—again.

“Where’s Julius, he’s directing this episode, right?” I inquired.

“Calysta, don’t make waves. What’s going on?”

“You know damn well what’s going on. And thanks for changing the schedule without any notice.”

“Yeah, thanks, Randy,” Emmy interrupted, boldly walking onto my set with her yelping miniature
chien
in the crook of her arm. “I think I booked the part on
Big Love
.”

Randall and Ethan adlibbed congratulations.

“Puh-leeze,” I mocked.

“They’ve already called my agent for my measurements. Even though when I first got there, after
all
that rehearsing I did with Ivana, casting said, ‘We’re just doing the last scene,’ which means they’ve already found who they’re lookin’ for, those bastards. But clearly, I was so on top of my game I knocked the competition right off the wire!” she squealed. “Oh, and Ethan, I hope I helped out last night, rehearsing those Ruby Stargazer lines with ya,” she said, laced with seedy innuendo.

“Yeah, thanks, Emmy. You’re the best!”

“Good luck,” she teased, trotting off.

“No wonder you have pinkeye. You better hope that’s all you got from that skank,” I remarked.

“Oh, Calysta, you can’t be this upset about a thong, a little eye infection, and a schedule change,” Randall said.

“You won’t be satisfied till I storm off this set, will you? Well, I have news for you-all, you’re wasting your time ’cause it ain’t gonna happen.”

“Honestly, you’re making chicken salad out of chicken feathers.”

“Wow, you too?”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.”

As Phillip sashayed over to the Fink Manor set, he hissed, “Are you ever going to finish your scene, Calysta? My gawd it’s been like ten minutes already. MPD must be a bitch.”

“What did you say, punk?”

“He said nothing, Calysta, absolutely nothing,” said Randall.

“Would that be the same
nothing, absolutely nothing
when I walked into your office and found you and—”

“Don’t go there,” he warned.

“Then get off the damn set so I can do my job.”

Randall glared, skulking into a corner outta joint.

“All right, let’s get back to item twelve, page sixty-nine. Ready to shoot, guys?” Julius asked.

Pulling back cranberry polyester sheets, I answered, “Yep, I’m not here to waste any more of my time or Augustus’s money. Come on, Ethan, grab your trunk and hop in. We got a job to do.”

“Five, four, three, two,
go
!”

Randall glanced over at a prying Alison. He hadn’t seen his wife since yesterday when they’d had a huge fight over Edith again. He’d spent the night on his office couch, not alone.

“We have to step up our efforts,” Randall whispered.

“
Our
efforts?
You
need to get some courage between your legs or
borrow some, instead of wasting it on the extras,” Edith chided into the phone. “I heard about last night’s escapade,” she went on, glancing at her Movado. “Our
uppity
antebellum diva is proving to be a tough nut to crack and all you can do is bitch, bawl, and moan? Time is running out, Randall! You have until the end of the week to prove what a loose cannon Calysta is or the deal’s off,” Edith fumed, slamming the phone in his ear.

I’ve got to figure out how to paint Calysta as the big black stain on our pedigree show,
Randall told himself.
And I’ve got to do it fast.

Is a daytime producer stepping out on his soap diva wife with a network exec? Numerous inside sources have revealed that top-secret meetings are taking place between Randall Roberts, co-executive producer of The Rich and the Ruthless, and WBC executive barracuda Edith Norman. Now to be fair, these two budget crunchers could just be rubbing their, um, “heads” together about how to stop the ratings hemorrhage that has transpired since yours truly revealed the wildly popular Ruby Stargazer was being killed off, but we hear Randall’s wife, Alison Fairchild Roberts (Rory Lovekin, The Rich and the Ruthless), doesn’t believe Randall and Edith’s clandestine meetings are so innocent!

The Diva

A
fter an aborted peace offering the moment Randall entered Alison’s Liberace lair, she couldn’t wait to tattle about the Pattern Cutter.

“That incompetent, tasteless twit Penelope; she
ruined
my wedding dress!” she screeched.

“Your wedding dress?” Randall asked. “What the hell was she doing with that old thing? Alteration work again for free? Come to think of it, that’s not a bad idea, you and me
renewing
our vows
on television. We’d get a ton of press out of it.”

“Not the dress I wore when
we
got married in Maui, you idiot. The
important
one when my character, Rory Lovekin, tied the knot with Vidal Vinn Hansen in St. Croix.”

Randall bit his tongue. Only a self-absorbed bubblette would ever
equate the wedding dress her fictional character wore on a soap opera to memories of her own real-life nuptials, and his wife was the queen of self-absorption.

“I thought that dress was in some costume display,” he replied.

“Well, it’s not. That bitch Keira Knightley’s costume from
The Duchess
beat me out. Mine is in shreds in that Colleen Atwood–wannabe’s den of fashion faux pas. Can you believe she was actually going to let that
beast
Calysta Jeffries wear it for her
joke
of a soap opera wedding? I tried to rescue the dress and Penelope attacked me in wardrobe. Tore it to shreds right before my eyes while Calysta did
nothing, absolutely nothing
to help. It was all so traumatic. Look, I have a bruise on my arm,” Alison blubbered.

“There, there, my pet,” Randall soothed with a hug.

Going Sybil, her fake sobs instantly ceasing, Alison said, “Take your skivey hands off me. You think I don’t know what you’ve been up to? It’s all over the studio.”

“Darling, you’re overreacting. What’s this all about?”

“Don’t play dumb with me,” Alison warned, steeling herself. “I know you’re screwing her. I can smell that she-wolf on your top lip.”

Randall felt a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach as he hastily curled his lip up to his nose.

“Let’s keep our voices down, you know Emmy listens through the vents.”

“What do I care about Emmy? I’m
talking
about your affair with that man-eating shrew Edith Norman.”

“Edith?” Randall was both confused and relieved. “You can’t be serious?”

“
Dead
serious. I’m not stupid. I feel all those jealous losers in hair and makeup staring at me. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve overheard them gossiping about us while I’m reading the
Enquirer
in the chair? They all think I’m clueless to you banging every broad behind my back! And guess what? I’ve known for years!
That’s
acting.
But what the hell was I supposed to do, Randall, huh? Get a divorce? Not on your life. Not after all I’ve done to keep this sham of a marriage intact. And if you
do
manage to leave me alive I’ll fight you tooth and nail for everything. I dragged you out of the WBC mailroom when I was twenty-one and now I’m fifty-eight and if you think you’re going to trade me in for a new model like one of your Corvettes, think again! You’re stuck with these girls.” She pointed to her pendulous breasts as she stood there completely naked, winding tighter. “And you better sleep with one eye open, buddy, otherwise you run the risk of me hunting you down and filleting your dick like thinly sliced sashimi.”

Randall felt his balls shrink to the size of two chickpeas.

“You’ve humiliated me for the
last
time!” she cried, tearing one of her gold-framed
Cliffhanger Weekly
covers off the wall and hurling it at his head.

“Are you insane?” he asked, ducking just in time.

She reached for another, and then a third.

Even a shameless hound dog like Randall Roberts wouldn’t touch cankled Edith Norman with her flat chest and frizzed-out pageboy, if Gertrude Stein herself rose from the dead to tell him the network exec had
uterus didelphys
.