“I think that she's one of the girls the boss hooked us up with.” The director's assistant shrugs her shoulders. With her lips slightly pursed. “I'm not sure. They all end up looking the same to me.”
Iris Gonzalvo is standing beside the canopy bed. In front of a dark-haired young woman of approximately her same age and height. They both wear powdered wigs and period makeup and are dressed in very tight corsets and lace-up thigh-high boots. They both wear thong underwear that exposes their Brazilian waxes. The only difference between their equally clumsy character portrayals seems to be chromatic.
“Let's try it again,” says the director. With that expression of tried patience that consists in massaging one's eyelids with the thumb and index finger while shaking one's head slightly. Seated on his chair with a fabric back. “Let's see. What's your name again?”
“Penny,” she says, with that voice of hers that is both smooth and gravelly. Filled with sharp edges that make up for her lack of lung power.
“Very good, Penny. Let's not waste any more time. The script says: 'Girl one grabs girl two sensually and kisses her and brings her over to the bed and they both sit on the bed. Cut.' You are girl one. So you have to grab girl two sensually and kiss her and all the rest. You understand?”
Iris Gonzalvo nods. She scowls almost imperceptibly. Her skin is so white that it's almost iridescent. Too bright and magnetic to be real.
The director signals to the guy in charge of the clapper board. The director's assistant calls for action. The guy in charge of the clapper board claps it and everything seems to stop. The director, along with his assistant and the cameraman and the lighting and sound technicians and the guys in charge of the spotlights and of holding up microphones in exact locations, all create some sort of a completely immobile and vaguely baroque tableau. Inside of which a second tableau comes to life, the one made up of the two young women clumsily portraying eighteenth-century ladies with thong underwear and Brazilian waxes who are about to begin an interlude of lesbian sex. The transition between the outer tableau and the inner tableau looks like those trompe l'oeil visual tricks in puzzle magazines.
Iris Gonzalvo takes a step toward her costar. She puts an arm around her waist and brings her mouth close to hers. She places her other hand on the nape of her neck and caresses the soft tangled hairs that stick out from beneath her powdered wig. She is about to kiss her when the director's shout interrupts her approach.
“What in the hell is wrong with you?” The director slaps his copy of the script in exasperation. “Didn't I tell you to put your hand on her ass? On her ass! And that's a sensual kiss? Doesn't look sensual to me. To me it looks depressing. Look, I'm depressed.” He makes a face that's hard to decipher. “And what's wrong with your face? You don't feel well? Because that's the face I make when I have heartburn.”
Iris Gonzalvo turns somewhat to look at the director with a defiant face. A face so full of defiance and contempt that for a moment the director and the other members of the crew on the low-budget production stare at her in terror. Someone even goes so far as to take a terrified step back.
“I'm acting,” she says to the director. “Trying to live the situation as if it were real. I'm sure there are other ways that she and I can communicate besides putting a hand on her ass.”
The director stares at her for a moment with a perplexed face. Then he frowns. Then he stands up. His subordinates seem to move slightly away from him in that incredibly subtle way that subordinates have of giving the impression that they're moving away from their furious superiors without really budging from their spots. The director's face is literally red with rage. Especially in the upper part of his cheeks.
“Communicating?” he says. “And how the fuck do you plan on communicating? She only speaks Polish. We had to use fucking sign language to explain to her that she didn't have to do an enema before the shoot.” He moves toward his assistant, who seems to have backed up a few steps more, or perhaps shrunk in size, and who is now hugging a copy of the shooting plan in such a way that any armchair fan of psychology could see is a clearly defensive gesture. “I don't care if the boss got you this job. Find me another girl the same size. And get this one out of my sight. Send her upstairs to the boss.” He rolls his eyes. “I can't believe that someone can be incapable of acting in a movie where the only thing they have to do is show their ass.”
Five minutes later, Iris Gonzalvo is dressed in a bathrobe and seated in the production company owner's office. Stroking her recently washed and still wet hair with an absent gesture. With her face clean. Taking pensive drags on a cigarette.
The owner of the production company making the low-budget film Iris was just fired from sniffs two lines of cocaine from the inner reflective glass surface of some sort of cigarette box. He lifts his face from the table and inhales sharply. He's a muscular guy with a shirt that's too small for him and waxed eyebrows. His eyebrows are waxed in that way that used to be associated with homosexuality before male cosmetic treatments became commonplace. The owner of the production company massages one wing of his nose with his fingertip.
“I don't know if I can keep giving you work,” he says. With the concerned expression of someone who holds all the power. “People say that you cause problems. And honestly, I think so, too. What do you expect? That some Hollywood producer is going to see one of your films and discover your enormous talent and hire you? If you're very lucky I can get you an audition to do a porn film, but honestly…” He looks her up and down. A clear note of skepticism seems to have been added to the mix of concern and absolute power. “I don't think you're that hot.”
Iris Gonzalvo looks up, scandalized.
“Of course I'm hot,” she says. “I'm incredibly hot.”
“Not hot enough. And you're old. You must be twenty-five years old.”
“I'm nineteen.”
There is a moment of tense silence. The boss's office at the production company for hotel cable movies is one of those corporate offices where everything conveys the idea of impermanence. The only furniture is a table and two chairs. The computer on top of the table is a laptop. There is no decoration of any kind. The light comes from bulbs without lamp fixtures. The walls haven't been plastered since the last occupant left, so you can still see holes and marks where the wall was drilled to hold up furniture that is no longer there. The precise term in the jargon of that specialized market that refers to the type of films prepared and filmed in the industrial space where Iris is sitting in a robe smoking is not “low-budget film.” The precise term is “ultra-low-budget film.” Of which ideally two or three are shot a day. To reduce costs in rental equipment.
“Listen,” says the head of production. He makes a weary face designed to show that he is willing to be patient and agreeable beyond the requirements of his position. “It's fine to be ambitious, and if you feel young, that's great. That means you are on the inside. But you have to be realistic. We both know why you're here. You're here because your boyfriend hooks me up with coke and does a little job for me once in a while. Even though it's not nice to say that.” He shrugs his shoulders in a self-exonerating gesture. “So okay. If I see some change in your attitude, I don't see why we can't stay in touch. In spite of the fact that your boyfriend hasn't answered my calls this week and owes me money. But you and I are another story. The only thing I ask is a small gesture on your part.” He separates his thumb and index finger a little to make the universal sign of things small in size. Then he looks at his wristwatch. “I think we have one of the sets downstairs free.”