“Whatever the reason, he’s more peevish every day, and he’s started smoking. Elliot says he’s welcome to have a nervous breakdown, as long as he keeps bringing in episodes on time and under budget. He’s a mess, but they’ll never fire him.”
“Peevish?” Fredreeq said. “He’s mad as a hatter. These Vegas saboteurs have a gun to his head, making him rig the show. He’s in their pocket. I’m sure as I can be about this. And TV Guide may be in on it too, giving Savannah an inside photo.” She applied mascara to my already encrusted eyelashes. “You share the cover with thirty-two contestants from eleven other shows; she gets a quarter-page photo, two paragraphs, and they mention her horse. Her horse got more coverage than you. She’s in bed with TV Guide. I can’t prove it, but I feel it.”
“You know,” I said, trying to sound casual, “I’m thinking of coming in on my nights off to see how Savannah and Kimberly do things. I’d be like a customer. Sit in the back.”
Fredreeq stepped away from me and stared. “The back of what?”
“Of whatever restaurant the show’s shooting in.”
“You want to see how they do things, why don’t you just watch the show?”
“Because then I’d have to look at my own face and also, there’s a big difference between what Bing shoots and what shows up on TV after it’s edited.”
Fredreeq turned to Joey. “You think they’ll go for that, Wollie lurking?”
“I’ll be in disguise,” I said.
Fredreeq looked baffled. Joey said, “Working undercover, Wollie?”
I turned so fast that Fredreeq’s mascara wand raked across my cheekbone. Fredreeq shrieked. In the mirror I saw black stripes adorning my face. “I can’t comment on that, Joey,” I said. “But if you guys were to guess what I was up to…”
Joey nodded. She made sure I wasn’t wearing a sound mike, then told Fredreeq I was probably a rat for the DEA. While this was neither flattering nor accurate, it dovetailed closely enough with Fredreeq’s Vegas theory that within minutes they’d joined forces, discussing disguises for me to wear on my night off.
“Here’s mirrors,” Fredreeq said. “You and Carlito check your teeth whenever Bing says ‘Cut’ and every hour, do lipstick. You up to it? ’Cause I can blow off Francis’s family-”
“Don’t be silly. It’s a holiday. You have kids. I can powder my own nose. Go home.”
My Thanksgiving date was Carlito Gibbons. We sat side by side in a booth, more attentive to our mirrors than each other. I wondered how actors fall in love on movie sets, given the self-absorption of this work, not to mention the crew hanging around and sound guys listening to conversations on their headsets. Which led me to wonder how actors kiss each other when they’re not in the mood, which led me to wonder how Savannah, Kimberly, and I were going to kiss Carlito, Henry, and Vaclav all through Week Seven, as the show’s promos indicated. Week Seven, I realized, started shooting Monday.
“Let’s move to the guest expert,” Bing yelled. “Paul! She here yet? Noel Whositz?”
“Not her. Him,” Paul said. “‘Nole,’ not ‘No-Elle.’ Professor Wiederhut. In the john.”
“Whatever. Get him.”
Carlito picked at his molars with a fork. I offered him a toothpick, but he plucked a strand of hair from his head and set about flossing. How… resourceful. Could Carlito be Little Fish? I couldn’t see him in charge of a drug operation, but I could see how a paralegal on the team could be useful. Also, why had Annika approached Michelle, the music mom, rather than Carlito, if she was looking for a lawyer? She saw Carlito more often. And the set, with its long hours and endless downtime, was more conducive to that sort of conversation. Hmm.
“Lovely, lovely!” A gnomelike man approached, escorted by Paul. He wore a striped turtleneck, bringing to mind a black-and-yellow poison-arrow frog, Dendrobates leucomelas. “I so love your American Thanksgiving. Cornucopia, rich in metaphor. Vessel and phallus all at once. The fertile turkey. No coincidence there, what?” His accent was delightful. European?
“Yo. Nole. No-elle,” Bing said. “However you say it. No turkey talk once we roll.”
“Hullo, what?”
“This show isn’t live. When it airs, Turkey Day’s history. So don’t refer to it. Go again. Action.” Dinner plates appeared before us. Carlito and I delicately chowed down. Professor Wiederhut held forth. Bing filmed.
“I’m a Celtic neo-Jungian,” the professor said. “I applaud your program’s iconoclasm. Not easy to challenge this country’s conservative culture, yet this road you travel is not without precedent. Footprints! I speak in metaphor, the language of myth, to-”
“Don’t. Speak in English,” Bing cut in. “Dumb it down. Go again.”
“Hullo? Ah, yes. In a nutshell, then. Parenting as Life Path in mandatory conjunction with Sacred Partnering is a construct imposed from without by a society that paradoxically-”
“English!” Bing screamed.
The little gnome face turned to me with a pained look.
“American,” I said softly.
“Indeed. Some people are gifted at raising children. Others, at sex-phenomenal, lustful, playful, erotic, adventurous, dirty, imaginative, dangerous, mysterious, mystical sex, year after year, decade after decade with the same partner in a long-term intimate relationship.” Noel severed off a forkful of gelatinous cranberry sauce and tried to get it to his mouth. He was not successful. It slid onto the table with a quiet plop. “The problem is that modern society demands that each of us be both.”
Celtic. His accent was certainly Euro, but would Little Fish be one of the weekly experts? Unlikely. Joey booked the experts. Besides-
The professor was still talking, reminding me that I was on camera too. “… onerous professional responsibilities requiring total dedication,” he concluded. He tried the cranberry sauce again, but it fell onto his mashed potatoes.
Carlito piped up. “So your contention is, it’s okay to go have kids and not get married.”
“The gods governing motherhood are not those who reign over erotic love. In ancient times, we experienced all roles through ritual and tribe, not as individuals. We paid communal tribute-tribe-ute-to the archetypes. Nowadays tribe is dead, ritual is reduced to greeting cards on holidays, community is television-”
“Wollie designs greeting cards,” Carlito said. I was touched that he remembered.
The professor nodded. “Lovely. I am not denigrating greeting cards, I merely-”
“Denigrate,” Bing said. “Go ahead. Liven things up.”
“No. Design is art. Artists are sacred storytellers. They carry the psychic wound, transform it, and bring it forth as symbol. They are to be revered.” He took a sip of his wine.
From inside my purse, my phone rang.
“Oh, Christ!” Bing put down his camera. “It’s probably the network, canceling us. Anyone got a Xanax?” He walked off toward the back of the restaurant.
I found my phone, embarrassed that I’d neglected to turn it off. It better not be my mother, I thought. “Hello,” I said, discouragingly.
“It’s Simon. Bad time?”
“You mean you don’t know? The water glasses aren’t bugged?” I walked to a quiet corner of the restaurant, lowering my voice. “Tell me something. Can you figure out where I am by me using my cell phone?”
“Does the technology exist? Yes. Are we doing it to you? No.”
“But other parts of my life have been bugged, right? In the last week or so?”
“I’m more concerned with who’s listening to this conversation right now.”
“You mean your own agency is bugging you?”
“No. I mean on your end.”
I looked around. Carlito was checking his teeth. Professor Wiederhut was sniffing the stuffing. Diners were dining. Bing was sulking. Isaac was stepping out for a smoke. No one was looking at me. “I think we’re safe.”