When she and Mark were outside, she turned back and looked in through the glass. She saw that the two girls had made their way back to the booth where Cherie Will and Eddie Durant sat. She could read Cherie Will’s lips as she said, “Hi, sweetie,” to both of them, and this time Eddie Durant half-rose to shake their hands.
Later on, Sylvie looked back through the years and realized that what had really caused her to make the decision she had was not anything that Mark had said to persuade her. She had been angry with him, and not inclined to do anything drastic to make him happy. It had not been what Eddie Durant or Cherie Will had said. It had been the two girls.
One of them had been short and blond, with blue eyes and a size-two figure with good breasts, a tiny waist, and a perfectly rounded bottom. Girls like that had always been cruel to Sylvie because she wasn’t like them. The other was tall and willowy like Sylvie, and that infuriated her, because that girl seemed to be competing for the same spot in the universe as Sylvie was. As Sylvie stared in the window of the diner, she realized that she had to have the job, simply because those two wanted it.
She tortured Mark for a couple of hours before she announced to him that she would do it. She could still see him, all these years later, looking as though he had struck it rich. He was sure that doing this one dirty movie would get him discovered. All he had to do was grit his teeth and smile through one day as a porn star, and then he would be a real star.
The next day, Sylvie and Mark arrived for work at seven-thirty. The studio was a small warehouse that Cherie and Eddie had insulated to cut the echoes and lit with floodlights. Cherie was already waiting “We’ve got to go get you tested.”
Sylvie thought Cherie meant a screen test. They got into Cherie’s car, a black Mercedes with dirty leather upholstery and signs of wear. Mark sat in the front beside Cherie, and Sylvie was in the back by herself. When Cherie stopped the car and they got out, Sylvie followed her into a small office that looked like a clinic. She asked, “What’s the test?”
“Blood test,” said Cherie. “You have to be checked for STDs every thirty days if you want to work in the industry.”
Sylvie dutifully sat in the chair while a nurse punctured a vein at the inside of her elbow, took several small vials of blood, then said enigmatically, “We’ll let you know.” When Mark had done the same, Cherie drove them back to the warehouse.
Sylvie entered as Eddie Durant finished shooting a scene for another movie. Somehow she had assumed there would be a couple of people in a closed room and maybe a cameraman. But there was no room, just a couch with a pair of fake walls held up by wooden struts. Men adjusted lights and camera angles, while others stood in small groups drinking coffee and talking, or making notes on scripts and schedules. Eddie Durant saw Cherie bring Mark and Sylvie in, and he took them off the set to see a man in his mid-thirties with hair so black that Sylvie thought it must be dyed. This was Bill. He wore a pair of jeans, T-shirt, and sandals. “Megan?” he called, and a woman in her early twenties wearing jeans and a huge Winnie the Pooh sweatshirt ambled over, smoking a cigarette.
Cherie said, “Now we have all the principals. Bill is Sylvie’s husband, and Megan is the husband’s girlfriend. We’re on a tight schedule, so we’ve got to move quickly. Eddie is going to shoot Bill and Megan’s scenes in here this morning. Rather than striking the set with the couch, we’ll re-dress it as Megan’s living room. I’ll shoot Sylvie and Mark’s scenes in the company office. When we’re done, we’ll come back in here and do the rest with the set for Bill and Sylvie’s house. Everybody got it?”
Cherie took Sylvie and Mark to a corner of the soundstage, where a harried woman with big hair put makeup on their faces, asked them what sizes they wore, and handed them two hangers with clothes on them. They followed Cherie to the company’s office, where a tall, thin man named Daryl had set up a big video camera on a tripod in the reception area, and had a big reflective hoop of white cloth just above frame height to diffuse the bright lamplight. Sylvie put on the receptionist outfit, a skirt that was made for a shorter woman and a blouse that was made for a bigger one. Sylvie managed to learn and repeat her lines while seated at the reception desk, even though the telephone rang twice and she had to answer it and hand the phone to Cherie. Her line was “Package? Come into the storeroom and I’ll show you where to put it.” Then Cherie unplugged the telephone and the camera rolled. There were three takes, one close-up on Sylvie, one on Mark, and one that showed both of them at once.
The next shots were in the storeroom. Cherie explained the scene: “All right, Sylvie. You’re the one who drives this scene. You’re pissed off at your husband, and you lured this handsome guy in here. Now you’ve got to make him glad he came in.”
“How do you want me to do it?”
“I want this to look natural. Real. You come in, you lock the door, and then you do what you would do. If I want something changed, I’ll say, ‘Cut,’ and have you do it differently.”
Sylvie had spent twelve years as a ballet dancer. She was accustomed to having people look at her closely and impersonally, as a body assuming poses, so she didn’t feel as though stripping off her clothes was a big step. She had spent all of those years learning to move and to place her body in positions that were graceful and beautiful, and to set her face in expressions to convey feelings and attitudes she didn’t necessarily feel. That was about all the acting that was required.
Mark was her boyfriend and they were used to each other. The only part that was disconcerting to her was when Cherie stopped them and told them to change positions, or Daryl the cameraman moved into her field of vision to remind her that they were not alone. When Cherie decided that they had exposed enough tape, she said, “Cut.” Then she took Sylvie into her own office and let her use it as a dressing room. She said, “You’ve got a gift, honey. This is going to be a good movie—as these things go—and you’ll get all the work you can do from now on.”
“Thank you.” Sylvie was still feeling breathless and a bit addled, trying to concentrate on what had happened and what was happening.
“It’s not a compliment,” Cherie said. “I’m telling you that you’re going to get rich.” As they walked back to the soundstage, Sylvie said, “Aren’t we going to wait for Mark?”
“No. He’s not in the next couple of scenes, and we’ve got a tight schedule.” When Sylvie got to the soundstage, she saw the re-dressed house set and the nightgown that the costume and makeup girl had on a hanger, and understood. The scene with her husband Bill wasn’t going to be just an argument at the breakfast table before they both left for work. She was supposed to have sex with him, too.
Sylvie thought about everything as she sat down and let the makeup girl work on her. She stared at herself in the mirror. She stole a few curious glances at Bill as he stood talking to Eddie Durant on the set. She could get up and walk out the door. Nobody would stop her, and probably nobody would even blame her. She was a twenty-year-old girl who had been talked into something. There was no reason for her to go on. This was all about Mark’s ambitions, not hers. There were hundreds of other girls just like her, waiting for this chance.
“Sylvie?” Cherie called.
She stared at herself in the mirror. Her face was beautiful in this light. She could never have made her skin look so radiant, her eyes so big. Her hair was shining. She was amazing.