“Why didn’t anyone take Casablanca traffic into the equation?” asks the young American producer, of no one in particular. “I grew up in L.A. Everyone always takes traffic into the equation.”
He spends the remainder of the drive on his cell phone, making calls to find out how late everyone is, how behind schedule they are with filming. “It’s important for me to know this information,” he says into the phone more than once.
The thin Indian producer texts silently. You assume his texts are concerned with gossip about the previous stand-in.
The driver of the van is lost. He’s stopping every other block to ask locals how to get to where he’s going. Looking out the window you see that he’s right, no streets seem to have signs.
Finally, the driver finds the street. You know you’re in the vicinity because you begin to see large trucks for props and catering and small trailers, as well as many vans identical to the one you’re now in. All the houses in the neighborhood are large, and some have guards. It must be one of the times of day when Muslims pray, because the guards are all on the ground, bowing. You wonder if thieves ever take advantage of the times when they’re praying.
With its regal, curved stairway at the entrance and large pots filled with bright-colored flowers, the house where the filming is taking place does in fact look like a mansion in Beverly Hills. You haven’t seen many other flowers in Casablanca. You enter the house and your presence is barely acknowledged by the crew members, who don’t know who you are and yet don’t stop you from walking in off the street. They assume anyone who enters has a right to be there.
The rugs have been rolled into logs and pushed to the side of the room and a camera and a dolly have been set up, along with a monitor. You know these are the terms for the devices because a printed-out label has been attached to each piece of equipment, announcing their names in Arabic and English.
A slender woman with a side ponytail and wearing a black jumpsuit is busily removing all the photographs hanging in the living room and replacing them with framed photos of the actors who are supposed to inhabit the house in the film. Through the large back window, you glimpse the yard: a tiled pool, now drained, and a flat, bright green lawn.
It’s clear who the owner of the house is. She’s in her early fifties, wearing black leather pants, high-heeled boots, and a bejeweled sweater. She walks around the set snapping photos on her phone, but never gets too close to people, and never takes straight-on photos of the director or the crew. Instead she takes photos of pieces of furniture she could take photos of at any time: the sofa, the dining room table. She appears nervous. She was probably initially flattered her home was selected for the film, but now she seems like the hostess of a party that’s been crashed by a hundred more people than expected. She retreats into the kitchen, leaving the door open so she can still observe what’s going on. She picks up the phone, presses a number that’s been preprogrammed and talks skittishly. You hear her say the famous American actress’s name. This seems to calm her down.
You look for a familiar face, for anyone you know who can tell you where to go. The tattooed man spots you and lifts up his chin in recognition. He approaches you and without saying hello he steers you toward the front door. “We should go to the wardrobe trailer,” he says.
You walk back outside and pass the young American producer, who’s still on the phone. He hasn’t entered the house yet, though he spent the entire van ride in an agitated state because he wasn’t there.
The tattooed man knocks on a trailer door and a Moroccan woman wearing a black tank top and what looks like a ball gown as a skirt opens the door. She holds a cigarette in her left hand. You recognize her from the night of filming you witnessed.
“This is the new Ivy,” he says.
“Hi, new Ivy,” she says, and blows smoke up toward the top of the doorframe.
“Come,” she says. You step up and she closes the door.
The smell of the smoke in the trailer is immediately dizzying.
She is young, midtwenties, with short curly hair and many earrings.
She scans your body and takes a look at her set of sides. Then she turns to one of her three racks of clothing and rummages through them until she finds what she’s looking for: a dark blue dress. It’s calf-long and fitted on top without being too tight.
“It’s the same thing Maria wears today,” she says. “Can you put on?”
“Sure,” you say. “Where should I change?”
“Here is good,” she says, gesturing to the floor between you. “I turn around,” she says, and she does. She is still so close to you, still smoking.
When you’ve changed you fold your clothes neatly and place them on a chair. Sensing that you’re dressed, she turns back around.
“That fits,” she says. She seems surprised, and not unhappy. She observes you for a moment. You don’t know where to look as she runs her eyes over your body. She puts her cigarette out, and from the top of a dresser removes a pincushion shaped like a tomato. She sticks two pins in her mouth, and continues to speak. “So doesn’t go open in front here,” she says, and pins the dress together so no cleavage shows. It’s an intimate moment but she doesn’t seem embarrassed or apologetic. “There,” she says.
She stares at you.
“Do you want spank?” she asks.
“Excuse me?” you say.
“Spank. For your stomach.”
“Oh, Spanx,” you say. You’ve never worn them. You look at your profile in the mirror. She gives you a pair of Spanx and you inelegantly pull them on because there’s no way to easily stretch them over your thighs, your belly.
She hands you a pair of flats. They fit you though she hasn’t asked your size.
The door opens and the young Moroccan woman with long black hair and a short apron, with brushes sticking out of its pockets, enters the smoky trailer. The makeup artist.
The smoker and the makeup artist exchange a few words in Arabic. The smoker translates: “She likes put some makeup on you.”
“Okay,” you say. “I’ll do whatever’s expected of me.”
“It’s not necessary for stand-in, but for her it is as a. . challenge,” she tells you.
“A challenge?” you say, implying that her translation is incorrect. But you know it isn’t. She’s used the exact right word. You applied your new foundation so lightly this morning that it’s already worn off. The makeup artist looks at your skin the way hikers look at a mountain, like something she could conquer if she had the chance.
You are seated in front of a mirror in the trailer and then turned away from it. Your hair is brushed back from your face and fastened with a rubber band at the nape of your neck. The makeup artist spends what seems like twenty minutes on your eyelids. She is meticulous in her strokes. You know she, like others before her, is opting for the distract, distract, distract approach.
When she’s done with your eyelids, you open them and see her looking quizzically at your skin. She shakes a bottle of foundation, and squirts a drop the size of a quarter onto the back of her left hand. Then she applies the foundation with quick, sloppy strokes over your chin, your cheek, your nose, your forehead. Gone are the small, precise strokes she used on your eyelids.
When she’s finished she turns you to the mirror. You try not to react. Your skin looks as uneven as tree bark, the makeup emphasizing every ridge, bump, and dip. You thank her profusely, knowing that you will soon be searching for the first available bathroom to wash the makeup off.
While your foundation was being applied the wardrobe woman was brushing a wig. This is the wig you’ll be wearing to resemble the famous American actress. The wardrobe woman resecures the rubber band at your nape and bobby-pins the stray hairs away from your face. She places the wig over your head.