You Are Having a Good Time

by Amie Barrodale

  Victor came in and closed the door behind himself. He said, “Okay. Let’s play the scene.”

  The two women played it once, and Victor looked troubled. He dug his fingers through his beard and said, “Libby, try it again. Try being really hurt.”

  “Hurt?”

  Victor nodded, as if the direction were precise. She began the scene again. Victor slashed an arm through the air. “Stop! It’s boring. Take it again from the top.” She looked to Victor for direction, but he was waiting for her to begin. After an hour, when she was sure he would say he needed to rewrite the scene, he said, “Okay, let’s shoot it. We have something now.”

  * * *

  He sat with his back to them during takes and watched their performances on a small monitor. After all those late-night phone calls, Libby had expected him to be warm with her. She had even imagined rejecting his advances, but he spent more time giving notes to the camera operator than he spent with her.

  “Let’s try it again,” Victor said.

  Libby looked at the sound man and rolled her eyes. “I guess you can’t talk about the imp.”

  “Stop. Let’s start again from the top.”

  Libby mopped her face with her palms. “I guess you can’t talk about the imp.”

  Victor swept an arm. He was huddled over his monitor in his stupid parka, with his fat back to her. He looked like a gorilla, like a gorilla in $3,000 headphones. He was showing the operator where he wanted the crosshairs to fall and when he wanted them to move. He murmured, “Like that, and then, right on ‘deliberately,’ I want you to get it on her cleavage. But wide, not like a tit shot.”

  The operator had the focus crosshairs on Cynthia’s chest. “Like this?”

  “Pull out. I want to see them centered, but not obvious.”

  Libby cleared her throat. “Victor? What do you want me to do?”

  He hadn’t known she was listening. He started, but recovered, and kept his back to her. “What’s that?” he said.

  “In the take? What should I do?”

  He shrugged and craned his neck to halfway look over a heavy shoulder, so he was in profile. “Astonish me.” He turned his eyes back to his monitor and said, “Let’s go again.”

  Libby took off her coat and got it over the back of the chair. She incorporated the motion into her performance. “I guess you can’t talk about the imp,” she said.

  “What are you talking about?” Cynthia said. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, are we going to live in a portal to another dimension?”

  “Stop!” Victor swept his arm. “Let’s try it again.”

  “What am I doing wrong?” Libby asked.

  “No, you’re fine.”

  “Did you not get the tit shot right?” she spat.

  Victor kept his back to her, staring into the monitor. She realized he expected her to start from the top.

  “I guess you can’t talk about the imp,” she said.

  Victor swept his arm. “Let’s try it again.”

  The camera operator murmured something. Victor laughed. He looked at the camera operator and raised his eyebrows. The camera operator laughed.

  “I guess you can’t talk about the imp,” Libby said.

  “Wait,” Victor said. “We weren’t ready. Okay, let’s try it again.”

  “I guess you can’t talk about the imp.”

  “What are you talking about? What do you mean?” Cynthia murmured quickly. It was a simple, boring line, but Cynthia said it with venom and made it compelling.

  “Well, are we going to live in a portal to another dimension?”

  They went through the scene.

  Victor’s voice was hard. “Let’s do it again. Same thing I suggested before, Libby. It’s not credible, Libby.”

  “You never suggested anything,” Libby said. She looked to Cynthia for support, but Cynthia was fixing her makeup. Libby turned to Victor and said, “I want suggestions. I need suggestions. I’m happy to be directed. Please tell me what you want.”

  Victor was quiet.

  “Well, at least deign to reply.”

  Victor slowly took off his headphones and turned to face Libby.

  She said, “Deign to answer me. I’m a human being, after all, with feelings.”

  Victor got up out of his chair and came over to the set. He spoke calmly. He was intent and gentle. He said, “You’re the actress.”

  Then he looked at the scene from where he stood, turned to an assistant, and said, “Can I get a camera and monitor over here?”

  They redid the scene all afternoon, into the night. After wrap, Libby and Cynthia went to a bar downtown. The bartender gave them a couple of appetizers on the house, but Libby was too nervous to eat. She drank her entire drink in a gulp and asked for another.

  Cynthia said, “I have to tell you something. If you promise you can keep it a secret. I think I’m in love with Vic.”

  “What?”

  “He made me promise not to tell anyone, especially you. But after I took the part, he started calling me all the time, sometimes several times a day, and we’d have these really intense conversations—like stuff nobody’s ever asked me. You know, we’d be talking about German philosophy one minute, and then he’d be talking about beer commercials and La Jetée, and I know he’s this short, dumpy guy with oily hair, in those beat-up trainers, but there’s something so sexy about his mind, you know?”

  “Sure,” Libby said. “Isn’t Victor married?”

  “Well”—Cynthia lowered her voice—“we’ve been fooling around on set.”

  “When?”

  “Only twice!” Cynthia said. “I don’t want to be a homewrecker. I totally respect the sanctity of marriage, but when Victor Vargas tells you to come into his office … I mean, he’s irresistible, you know that. There’s a reason the studios treat him like a god.”

  “Hm.”

  The two women were quiet. Libby wanted details, and she knew Cynthia wanted to give them, but to get them out of her, Libby started talking about her ex-boyfriend. When she paused, Cynthia returned to Victor.

  “The first time was after your second week of shooting. He asked me to dinner, and I took a call from my agent at the table, and I could tell that really annoyed him, so he spent the meal sort of slicing Jake into fillets, saying, ‘You should dump him.’ And then he took me back to the studio, and he had this pack of cigarettes in his desk. I was like, ‘Oh Jesus.’”

  “What?”

  “You don’t know? I thought everybody knew.”

  “He smokes?”

  “He’s one of those guys who’s into smoking.”

  Libby squinted.

  “He likes you to smoke while you give him a blow job. He likes to see the cigarette by his cock.”

  “What!”

  “I know!”

  “But so did you do it?”

  “Yeah, and then he was like ‘You can take a shower if you want. I have to get this lighting issue worked out.’”

  “Well…” Libby’s mouth was dry. “That’s okay with you?”

  “The French do it. The second time, he told me to get on all fours, and I was looking at the bathroom tiles in A. With a cigarette in my mouth.”

  * * *

  After that night she noticed the way sleeping with Victor had thrown Cynthia off balance, and the way being off balance changed her performance. She had come in a technician, but her uncertainty made her human. The shoot was supposed to wrap in three months, but Victor extended it. Five months later, Libby came in late for a rehearsal, and she was relieved to find Victor talking to the furniture people and the light people about the shine coming off the wallpaper. He was suggesting a light that the lighting guy hadn’t heard of and didn’t have.

  He said, “I’m okay with you using what you have, as long as you can light it so we don’t get that shine.” He turned to Vivian and said, “What time is it? Where’s Libby?”

  “I’m ready to shoot,” Libby said. “I’m sorry I’m
late.”

  Victor exchanged a look with one of the technicians. “That’s okay,” he said. “Are you ready to go? Do you know your lines?”

  “Of course.”

  “Really know them, Libby?”

  She wasn’t sure what he meant. She might have gotten into her habit of paraphrasing, but Victor hadn’t complained about it. He hadn’t seemed to notice.

  He said, “Hey, can you hand me that,” and extended his hand toward the technician, who handed him the shooting script. He turned back to Libby. “Let’s go through the lines. That sounds good, for you.”

  Everyone was quiet, watching her.

  “What?”

  He laughed. “It’s the first line of the scene, Libby. That sounds good, for you.”

  She was confused.

  “Okay, Libby. Everybody, Libby’s not ready. Let’s— Al?”

  The assistant director, a woman named Alice, stood up and came over to talk to Victor.

  Libby was confused. She said, “Does anyone happen to have a breath mint or a stick of chewing gum?”

  “A stick of chewing gum,” Victor said. He and Al went through the door out onto the lot to confer. A few minutes later, the assistant director came back on set and said, “Victor wants to do the love scene today. Everybody clear out. Cynthia, you have the day off. Maria? Get Michael in here, into wardrobe. And Vivian? Victor wants you to dress Lib.”

  “Who?”

  “Libby—Libby. Get her changed into the—” She gestured around her chest.

  * * *

  A year and a half later, back at her mother’s house in Texas, Libby got a message from her agent. She said, “Good news!” and asked her to call. Libby had been nominated for an Academy Award, for best supporting actress.

  “Oh.”

  “You don’t sound excited.”

  “No, I am. I’m honored about it, of course.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “I guess I feel like Victor should have told me. I feel like since we wrapped, he’s ignored me. Also, wasn’t I the lead?”

  “Well”—her agent always got nervous when Libby talked to her like they were friends—“I set you up with Stella McCartney. A woman there, I think it’s Tiffany, is going to be in touch. Can you go in sometime this week to borrow a dress?”

  * * *

  Libby tried on a red floral-patterned party dress. It was mid-calf length, with a ruffled one-shoulder top. It made her look like she was forty years old and three times divorced. But she wasn’t sure if that was how she looked. She walked across the floor to look in a mirror in the daylight.

  “Are you shopping for a special occasion?” the clerk asked.

  “I was nominated for an award,” she said. “From the Academy of Arts and Letters.”

  “Libby Mullins, Best Supporting Actress.” He laughed. He said, “I recognize you now. It didn’t hit me at first. Come in back and let me show you the line.”

  Libby blinked.

  “I mean, you’re welcome to anything out here, but we have the spring line in back. I already did some pulls.”

  Libby was trembling. The little clerk made her nervous. He took her to his office. “That way you don’t have to stand in a changing room.” A few minutes later, he rolled in a rack with eleven dresses hanging on it. Libby chose four to try on, and narrowed it down to a white strapless jumpsuit.

  Libby turned and looked over a shoulder at herself. “Isn’t it a little 2004?”

  “Not at all,” the clerk said, “not for night. The sleeveless corset top makes it now. I mean, yes, it’s not Oscar de la Renta pink, but who wants that for the ten thousandth time. You’re unconventional.”

  He went away and came back with a pair of shoes. They were black patent platforms. Libby put them on. She thought she looked like Minnie Mouse.

  “Aren’t they a bit much?” she asked. “The contrast.”

  “The platform helps you.” The clerk held up the right shoe. “It’s an illusion.” He drew a line, showing her that a three-inch heel appeared to be four-inch.

  “Not the heel,” Libby said. “The black against white.”

  “Oh.” He looked disappointed. “You want to go with a silver or a skin tone?”

  “I guess not.”

  She admired the shoes. She walked a few steps and turned.

  “You’re shy!” he said. “I love it.”

  * * *

  It was a beautiful day. It was sunny. On the red carpet, a few reporters stopped her. A woman asked her what it was like to work for Victor.

  “Well,” she said, “it was a new experience, of course.”

  “Are you ready to take home that award?”

  “I’m certainly ready to go home.”

  The reporter looked confused. Libby lost her footing for a moment, and the reporter regained hers. She said, “What are you wearing?”

  “The dress is someone I picked out in Stella McCartney.” She corrected herself: “It’s something I picked out from Stella McCartney.”

  “And your rings?”

  “Those are all family heirlooms.”

  A jazz band played inside. Good and generous people wore their fine clothes. There was space, and light, and air. Libby’s mother said, “It’s full of magic. It’s a magical evening.” Libby thought about the speech she would make. If she actually won. At first she had planned to say, “Thank you,” but then she had written a speech. It was on a notecard which her mother kept for her, along with extra Valium, inside her purse.

  Libby said, “I’d like a glass of white wine.”

  People were watching her. Some openly, and some were just aware of her. She spoke to a few people she knew from other movies. Her former heroes watched her from different parts of the room. Everybody wanted a chance to speak to her. She spoke briefly to Victor. He said, “You look so pretty,” in a voice that was funny, as if he were surprised. He acted like a friend, like it hadn’t ever happened. Like he hadn’t cut her as the lead and made her Cynthia’s backup girl. Like he hadn’t ignored her for almost two years.

  “I’ve missed you,” she said.

  “I’ve missed you! This is my wife, Terry.”

  She shook hands with a woman who looked powerful and hard. The woman said something polite.

  Libby remembered the afternoon they shot the sex scene, when Victor took her aside. After all that time craving direction … He had sent the crew away, and he had changed his manner completely. It was just the two of them, and Mike, on set. She’d spent so many hours in her bra and underwear she felt like she was fully dressed. He was looking at the ground, looking off into the distance, shaking his head, doing the little routine he did when he wasn’t getting what he wanted out of her. It was their fourth day shooting the scene. She had been miming sucking Mike’s cock for four days. He rubbed her side with his fingers.

  “You had a smudge.”

  She shrugged.

  “Do you want to put on a robe and walk with me?”

  “Actually, what I’d really like is to sit down.”

  “Why don’t you get a robe on and come to my Winnebago.”

  In the trailer, they sat on opposite sides of a Formica table. He had an elaborate vacuum coffeemaker, and as he filled the bottom jug with water, he asked her why the scene wasn’t working. She said she thought it was the blow job. She said that it made her uncomfortable.

  “What’s making you uncomfortable?” He filled the top funnel with ground coffee and put it onto the bottom jug. “It’s just me and Mike. I mean, I can understand feeling uncomfortable at first, but after the initial, natural discomfort, I would think you could relax into it. I mean, I couldn’t. But you’re such a great actress.”

  She nodded. She watched the water boil, rise, and mix with the ground coffee. He took it off the burner and set it on the table to his right. He said, “I learned how to use one of these when I was a kid. My stepfather used them, and he always asked us to make his coffee for him. He had two children of his own, but neith
er of them would do it. I always did because I had these deep feelings for him, homoerotic feelings, and I thought maybe if I got his coffee right…”

  “Hm.”

  “Do you know anything about stitches?”

  “What?”

  “I cut open my knee a few days ago, and it’s—” Victor lifted the leg of his trousers. He had a gaping wound.

  “Why didn’t you go to the hospital immediately?”

  “I hate doctors. Is it that bad?”

  “Victor. Yes.”

  “Bad enough I should go now?”

  “Well, no. I mean it’s too late now.”

  Victor dropped his pant leg. He ran his fingers through his beard. It was the first time he’d spoken to her this way since their phone conversations.

  He said, “I’ve been thinking about the love scene quite a lot, and I’m concerned. It isn’t a matter of discomfort. “Where is the love in this scene? Is Kate in love with her husband?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Then why does she give him a blow job?”

  “I think she’s tired, and it’s easier than saying no.”

  “Not a very good reason.”

  “Well,” Libby shrugged.

  He blew on his coffee. He sighed. He said, “Can I tell you the truth? I need you to be aroused in this scene. What would you do if I—” He stood up and crossed the Formica table to stand beside her. He put his hands on his belt buckle. He said, “What would you do if I took these off?”

  * * *

  Libby realized Victor’s wife had said something and expected an answer. She bumbled. His wife smiled and said, “I read an article all the young girls are wearing them. So hip!”

  Victor took her arm—“So nice to see you. Good luck!”—and he moved along to the next person admiring him.

  Libby and her mom had thirteenth-row seats, on an aisle. But at least Victor was behind her. That meant something. He would feel that. She gave him a few glances, but he honestly didn’t seem to notice.

  “I need a Valium,” she said.

  “Are you sure? You’ve already had two, sweetheart.”

  “I need one.”

  Her mother palmed them to her with exaggerated caution, as though she were passing her a vial of cocaine.

  At the top of the second half of the show, Libby’s presenters took the podium. Libby didn’t hear any of the words they said. The presenter opened the envelope and read another actress’s name.