“Stop that. You're not helping anything,” Tammy scolded her, and stroked her silky head. It was five in the morning for them, as Tammy turned out the lights and tried to get to sleep. She dreamed of them all night, in the house in New York.
She was exhausted the next morning when she went to work. And as usual, all hell broke loose the day after the holiday weekend. Sound technicians were having problems, directors were complaining, actors were throwing tantrums and threatening to quit. One of their biggest sponsors dropped out. The head of the network was blaming her for it. And their pregnant star was filing a suit for replacing her instead of giving her the option to work, even though her doctor said she couldn't.
“Now, tell me the logic in that,” Tammy said, storming around her office with the star's attorney's threatening letter in her hand. “She told us she was on bedrest for six months. So now what, our character in the show is supposed to become a shut-in too? She can't work. She told us that. And now she wants to sue us? I hate fucking actors and goddamn TV!” She had to meet with the legal department about the validity and potential repercussions of the threatened suit. And absolutely everything that could go wrong that day did. Welcome to Hollywood, she muttered to herself as she walked off the set at nine o'clock that night and drove home, with Juanita in her purse.
Sabrina called her in the car when she was driving home. It was midnight for her. “How was your day?”
“Tell me you're kidding. How was Hiroshima the first day? Probably on a par with my day today. We're being sued, among other things. Some days I hate what I do.”
“Other days you love it,” Sabrina reminded her.
“Yeah, I guess,” Tammy conceded. “I miss you guys. How's by you?”
“Okay. A little tense. Annie starts school tomorrow. She's in a rotten mood. I think she must be scared stiff.”
“That's understandable.” Worrying about her sister got Tammy's mind off her work. “It's probably like the first day of school for any kid, only worse. I was always afraid I couldn't find the bathroom at school. But I knew you were there, so it was okay.” They both smiled at the memory. Tammy had been so shy as a little girl, and still was at times, except in her work. In social situations, she could still be very reserved, unless she knew people well. “Are you going with her?”
“She won't let me. She says she wants to take the bus.” Sabrina sounded worried. She had become a mother hen in two brief action-packed months.
“Can she do that?”
“I don't know. She's never done it before.”
“Maybe she should wait until they teach her that at school. Tell her to take a cab if she wants to go alone.” It was a practical suggestion Sabrina hadn't thought of, and made perfect sense.
“That's a great idea. I'll tell her in the morning.”
“Tell her to stop being so cheap. She can afford the cab.” They both laughed. Annie was notoriously frugal- as an artist, she had been careful about money for years. With the salaries they earned, the others were less cautious.
“I'll tell her you said so.” Sabrina smiled.
Tammy was at her house by then, and she sat in her car for a few minutes, chatting with Sabrina, and then said she had to go in. It was nearly ten o'clock and she hadn't eaten much since breakfast. She hadn't had time. She was used to it. She had eaten candy all day to keep going, and power bars.
“Call me tomorrow and tell me how it went,” Tammy said, as Juanita stood up on the seat next to her, stretched, and yawned. She had eaten sliced turkey at noon. Tammy took better care of her than she did of herself.
“I will,” Sabrina promised. “Get some rest. All the same problems will be there tomorrow. You can't fix everything in a day.”
“No, but I try, and tomorrow there will be a whole new load of shit to deal with. Into each day, some shit must fall,” Tammy said, and then they hung up.
And as it turned out, she was right. Hard as it was to believe, the next day was worse. They were hit with a wildcat strike. The light technicians were walking out. Everything on the set ground to a total halt. It was every producer's nightmare. And Tammy got word that their pregnant star had filed her suit. The press was calling her for comment.
“Oh Jesus, I don't believe this,” Tammy said, sitting at her desk, fighting back tears. “This can't be happening,” she said to her assistant. But it was. The rest of the day was worse. “Remind me again of why I wanted to work in television, and took my major in it. I know there must have been a reason, but it seems to have slipped my mind.” She was at the office until after midnight, and never got to talk to Sabrina. She had had four messages from her, in the office, and two on her voice mail, saying everything was okay, but Tammy never got to return the calls, and it was too late now. It was three A.M. in New York. She wondered how Annie's first day of school had gone.
Chapter 17
Annie's first day at the Parker School for the Blind had been a disaster. Or at least the first part of the day was. She had liked Tammy's suggestion, passed on by Sabrina, and had taken a cab to the school, which was in the West Village, a lively neighborhood these days, but a long way from where they lived. Traffic was terrible getting there, and she was late when she arrived. She had taken her white stick with her, and insisted that she knew how to use it. She had refused to allow Sabrina to take her there, like a five-year-old.
“I lived in Italy and didn't speak the language when I arrived. I can manage in New York without my sight,” she said grandly, but had allowed her older sister to hail her a cab. Annie gave the driver the address, and Sabrina's heart was in her mouth as she watched them drive away. She resisted the urge to call Annie on her cell phone to warn her to be careful. She was suddenly panicked that the driver might kidnap and rape her, because she was young, beautiful, and blind. She had a sinking feeling in her stomach, worrying about Annie, as she walked back into the house.
She shared her fears with Candy, who told her she was crazy. She had gone back to work that week, finally, and was leaving for Milan the next day, for a shoot for Harper's Bazaar. There were clothes and suitcases all over the place. Annie had tripped on two of them on the way out. Sabrina warned Candy again not to create an obstacle course for her sister. And as she said it to her, Sabrina fell over Candy's dog.
“This place is a madhouse,” she said, as she went upstairs to finish getting dressed. She was late for her office, and had to be in court that afternoon, on a motion to suppress in a nasty divorce she hadn't wanted to take in the first place. But all she could think about was Annie as she stepped into her skirt, at the same time as she put on high heels.
As Sabrina learned later from Annie, she had arrived at the school, after paying the cab. She got out, unfolded her white stick as she'd been taught to do, extended it, and immediately fell over an unusually high curb, and skinned both her knees right through her jeans. She had torn them, and could feel blood trickling down her legs. It was an inauspicious beginning, to say the least.
A monitor standing outside the school came forward to help her, as Annie walked into the school. He took her to the office, and put Band-Aids on her knees himself, then escorted her upstairs for orientation. He pointed her in the right direction and she got lost immediately, and wound up in a sex ed class for advanced students, where they were showing them how to put condoms on bananas, and as she listened, Annie realized that she had come to the wrong room. They asked her if she had brought her condoms with her, and she said she didn't realize she needed them for the first day of school, but she promised to bring some the next day. After a ripple of laughter swept across the classroom, another person took her back to the right place, but everybody in her section had already left the room for a tour of the school. So she was lost again, and had to ask for help to meet up with her group. She confessed later to her sisters that by then she was in tears. Someone saw her crying, and escorted her to her group. She could feel that she had blood on her torn blue jeans, realized that she had skinned her hands too, was crying pathetically, had to go to the bathroom and had no idea where it was, and couldn't find a tissue to blow her nose.