The snack bar is inviting. There are large jars of various colorful candies and a tray of sliced oranges. You place oranges and licorice sticks on a small plate and stand in a corner eating more than you need. You have no one to talk to, no place to retreat to.
Finally, the famous American actress shows up. She greets you hello informally, as though you’ve barely met. You are saddened for a moment, until you remind yourself that she is going to work, this is serious for her. She can’t keep track of everyone’s feelings, let alone yours. She is introduced to the sisters, who beam when they shake her hand, and then to the actor playing Kareem’s friend, who tries so hard not to be impressed by her that his resistance proves his infatuation.
You watch the famous American actress go through the scene you just rehearsed and you can see all your shortcomings and failures. You were pretending to be Maria; she inhabits Maria. You watch the director do three takes and then say to the famous American actress, “We’ve got it!”
You are happy for her, happy for the film. You have no right to feel so proprietary after your short period of work but you feel you’ve played an important part.
The tattooed man yells something in Arabic. Then translates. “Everyone on staff can go have dinner outside in the tent,” he tells you.
The crew and the actors are asked to be quiet. You are all reminded this is a residential neighborhood. In the dark you move slowly and clumsily, like cows, down the street to the tent that’s been erected at the bottom of the small hill.
Dinner is rice, salad, and stewed vegetables. The meal is served buffet style and you sit at a table with the woman in charge of props and the woman who is the script supervisor. Both of them are young, both are graduates of a film school in Morocco. The three of you talk for ten minutes in English and then they turn to Arabic. You focus on your food. You did not know there was so much sitting around on film sets, so much waiting.
The next scene involves Maria sitting in bed, reading a book. You return to the trailer, to the cigarette smoke. A long and demure dark blue nightgown has been selected. While you’re getting changed the smoking woman in charge of costumes gently reprimands you for not taking off the blue dress before eating dinner. “Next time you take off first,” she says.
You wear the nightgown and are directed to a room on the second floor of the house. It’s a beautiful room with a canopy bed. Now the owner of the house, the woman in the bejeweled sweater, is taking photos of you. She’s smiling and you can see she’s become much more comfortable with the shoot. She’s invited two friends over: one wears a leopard-print blouse and the other also wears a bejeweled sweater. You try not to think about her. The bejeweled sweater lady’s friends take pictures too. You want to tell them you’re no one, but the occasion doesn’t arise.
You are propped on the bed for a long time while the director and the cinematographer deliberate over how to shoot the scene. The director comes over several times to adjust your body’s posture. “Sorry,” he says. “To look natural it is a bit uncomfortable.” While the director and cinematographer talk and point and adjust the cameras, the prop woman tells you to pick a book from the bookshelf — any book that appeals. You select a book of poetry by Rumi, an English translation. You flip through it until you find a title that appeals to you and you read the poem four times:
THE DIVER’S CLOTHES LYING EMPTY
You’re sitting here with us, but you’re also out walking
in a field at dawn. You are yourself
the animal we hunt when you come with us on the hunt.
You’re in your body like a plant is solid in the ground,
yet you’re wind. You’re the diver’s clothes
lying empty on the beach. You’re the fish.
In the ocean are many bright strands
and many dark strands like veins that are seen
when a wing is lifted up.
Your hidden self is blood in those, those veins
that are lute strings that make ocean music,
not the sad edge of surf, but the sound of no shore.
The poem resurrects an image in your mind. The summer you were fifteen you were training as a junior lifeguard. One night an older boy whose parents were out of town had five friends over and your sister drank too many margaritas, took off her clothes, and jumped in the crescent-shaped pool. She was too drunk to swim, and you rescued her. Gave her CPR. How strange it was to have your lips on hers. They were salty from the margaritas, cold from the pool. She made you promise to never tell your parents.
The director and the cinematographer have reached a decision.
“You are done,” the director tells you.
“That was it?” you ask.
“Yes.”
The movie star is ushered into the bedroom and you are ushered out.
The woman in charge of props follows you. “I need the book,” she says, and takes it from your hands. She doesn’t know you’ve earmarked the page of the poem.
It’s after 9 P.M. Outside, there is a man with three cell phones. He is the director of transportation. He tells you he’ll get you in a van going back to your hotel. You stand there, waiting while he makes more calls. Ten minutes later you and the tired young girls and the young American producer and the Indian producer and two Moroccan members of the crew are directed toward a van.
The driver takes you a few blocks, to the edge of the affluent neighborhood of California, and suddenly it ends. There are large empty dirt lots that will be built upon one day, but now are vacant and frightening. The driver takes a right. Then another right, and another. Soon you have gone around the block and the van is once again facing the dirt lots.
“Do you know where you’re going?” the young American producer asks.
“Yes,” the driver lies.
It’s decided the girls will be driven home first because their house is on the way to the hotel. They know the name of their street but they’re unable to give the driver directions.
“It’s by the big mosque,” they tell him, unhelpfully.
Fifty minutes later you arrive at their house in the dark. Their parents are standing outside, worried, and stare suspiciously at the driver and the van in general. The girls do not say good-bye to you or your fellow passengers, and don’t thank the driver for the ride.
You don’t realize until the doors close behind them that you’re still wearing your wig. You take it off and set in on your lap like a pet.
It takes forty-five more minutes before you’re back at your hotel. When the van doors open and you all emerge into the bright lights outside the hotel you see that everyone looks as wrecked as you feel from the drive.
You say good night to each other without really looking at one another, and then realize you all need to take the elevator up to your rooms. So you stand awkwardly in front of the elevators, waiting for one to descend to the lobby. When the bell dings, and the doors open, you all rush inside, as though you can’t wait to be enclosed in a small space together again. As each person exits to go to their floor, they are bade good night, in an extra-polite manner to make up for the rushed good nights everyone murmured when they exited the van.
You slide your key card into your lock and the moment you open the door you hear the hotel phone ringing in your room. You run to the phone, allowing the door to slam behind you.
“There you are!” says a voice. You know it’s the voice of the famous American actress. You knew her voice before you met her. You once had a conversation with your twin about how actresses today don’t have voices that are as recognizable as actresses from classic Hollywood. Katharine Hepburn’s voice is a thing of the past. But you cited this famous American actress’s voice as an exception. She has a good voice, with a bit of gravel and grit to it.