If it weren’t for Grandma Jones being so over the moon about her senior citizen heartthrob’s return, I don’t think I could have endured the girdle, the Tab, the Bumps No More, or the Old Spice cologne. Not to mention the coal black Afro toupee he religiously wore, cut to topiary perfection, glued carefully against his gray fringe.
I’d assumed casting might have considered someone younger than a senior citizen, silly me. Luckily, the fans hated the pairing. Enter Ethan Walker.
“How’s it going, Calysta?” he garrulously asked on the go, dressed in Sean John sweats and a Clippers fitted cap, attempting to hide yet another nasty case of pinkeye.
“It’s going,” I replied. “Wanna run lines?”
“Sure, cool, right after I check my fan mail. My bin is overflowing, dude. Meet you in your room, say fifteen?” The elevator doors closed.
“Sure, fine, fifteen,” I shouted to the stainless steel. “Pompous ass,” I muttered as I walked toward my dressing room. “They must be half crazy if they think I’m gonna kiss his contagious butt today.”
“Talking to yourself, Calysta? You’re a girl after my own heart,” said Maeve Fielding, shuffling up next to me in slippers, robe, and sunglasses. “Did you hear Beyoncé is starring in a new movie about Etta James?” she mumbled, noshing on scrambled eggs from the commissary.
I pretended not to know. “Really?”
Maeve was one of those people who felt the only things they could talk to me about were black entertainers and, of course, Nelson Mandela. Yes, I’d met people like her before, but Maeve took it to a whole ’nother level.
“Yeah, I loved Etta, but one of my all-time favorite blues singers was Bessie Smith, now that was a singer and a half. Listen, Calysta, would you follow me to my dressing room? I could really use your help. Alison is hogging the new hairstylist again. Randall is insisting she change her hairdo for the third time today.”
Reluctantly I said, “Sure, Maeve,” knowing exactly what she needed my help with.
Walking past her plastic ficus tree decorated with one lone Christmas bulb, she peeled off her kerchief, dropping the paper plate into the trash, oldies music playing in the background as she growled, “Damn scrambled eggs are always cold.”
Forty bright vanity lightbulbs betrayed the icon’s prunish face as she sat down in her director’s chair, stamped Lady Leslie Lovekin on the back. Makeup was not her friend. Each wrinkle illuminated, her Clara Bow lips gripped yet another cigarette.
“That’s Tommy Dorsey and His Clambake Seven, you know. Bet you never heard of them,” she announced, tossing the metal lighter onto the vanity.
“Bet you’re right.”
She took in a long drag, swaying to the tune before exhaling, smoke curling toward a struggling air vent plugged with dun-colored Kotex. Maeve’s dressing room quickly went from semi-smoke-free to a suffocating carcinogenic hell. Pushing mounds of makeup to the side, she reached across and snapped off two pieces of medical tape, attaching them at her temples.
“I bet you can sing, Calysta,” she said, looking at herself in the mirror. “Seems like all you colored—I mean,” she went on, enunciating carefully with the cigarette in the corner of her mouth, “African American people can carry a tune.”
Clamping the petite metal clip to the thumbnail adhesive, she stretched the flesh-toned lanyard over the crown of her head, asking me to secure it with my finger as she continued to pull it across her wig cap, attaching it to the other side, giving herself an instant face-lift.
I’d helped Maeve before with her freakish stage trick. But hey, who was I to judge? Times were tough for everybody and no one had “extra” for nip/tucks these days.
“Yep,” she continued, pulling on her wig, “I even saw Billie Holiday perform in New York City, she was—”
Cutting her off, I said, taking shallow breaths, “Listen, Maeve, I’d really love to hear more and I’m a big fan of everyone you’ve mentioned, but I gotta do my hair and makeup and run lines.”
“Oh okay. I gotta be honest, I’m dreading your wedding. I hate being a glorified extra in those damn scenes. All those long boring hours, and the overtime stinks to high heaven. Anyway, thanks, Calysta.”
As I opened her door I said, “The movie Beyoncé starred in is Cadillac Records and it’s been out on DVD.”
“Already?”
“Yeah, the studios tend to do that after a year or so. And Maeve, did you know that Carol Channing was black?”
“Where did you hear that? That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s true. It made national news. My Grandma Jones always believed Dinah Shore and Ava Gardner belonged to our club too. You know what they always say, ‘Check the cuticles.’ See you on-set.” I fled, leaving Maeve staring down at her fingers.
Sixty seconds later, I dumped my makeup kit into the dressing room sink. After starting to apply foundation to my neck and face I suddenly stopped, taking in the reflection behind me, flooded with memories of room 21J fifteen years earlier.
“What’s up with the Africa poster and the leopard couch?” I’d asked a college intern.
“Oh, Mr. Roberts told us to put this stuff in here.”
“I moved from New York, not the Congo, for crissakes. Might as well kept goin’ with palm wine and Kola nuts.”
Now in the refuge of my warm Jamaica pink dressing room, tastefully decorated by moi, its atmosphere one of sophistication and calm, with an inconspicuous herbalist staff in the corner and photos of Ivy and Grandma Jones throughout, I prided over a framed Cliffhanger Weekly cover boasting Derrick and myself, the only soap cover anyone of color ever got.
My landline rang.
“Calysta?” an R&R office staffer asked.
“Yes.”
“I have a call for you from a Zylissa. Says she knows you.”
“Put her through,” I said with a sigh.
“Calysta?”
“That’s me.”
“Hey girl, whatchu up to?”
“Gettin’ ready for a scene. How ’bout yourself?”
“Hmph, gettin’ ready to get evicted if I don’t book this dumb Valtrex commercial, I know that much. I’m so tired of auditioning. I didn’t get any play during pilot season either. I coulda’ peed all over a role if one existed.”
“I know, but you can’t give up now.”
“Who says? If I could find me a sugar daddy like Kara did I sure would. Yeah honey, he’s like in his seventies or somethin’ and gives her whatever she wants.”
“Yeah, but what does she have to give him? Never mind, I don’t even want to think about it.”
“Pays her rent, got her teeth fixed, she drivin’ a new Mercedes, got diamonds, shops on Rodeo not Rod-e-o, and he takes her to Europe on business all the time. And for that, I think I’d find me a way to give my sugar daddy whatevah he wanted. ’Cause right about now, these casting directors are cookin’ my last grit and I ain’t about to go back to Americus, Georgia.”
“Don’t talk like that, Zylissa.”
“They’re never gonna cast me in Hollywood, and you know why. Same reason I can’t get arrested on your Creole-lovin’ soap as a damn day player. They either go for shallow or LL. Ain’t even thinkin’ ’bout my deep chocolate ass, my gapped tooth, my dreads, my dream, my truth, my me. I get to the callbacks, then the callbacks for the callbacks, meanwhile I’m tryin’ like hell to hold on to my killa performance and they already done picked long hair, light skin . . . as usual. Those phony-ass-kissin’ producers with their big Chiclet-capped teeth smilin’ back at me like I got the dang job, knowin’ I ain’t got shit.”
Near tears, she said, “All I want to do is act, Calysta, and sink my Chi-town theater experience into somethin’. I jus’ wanna work. I swear they only bring me in to fill up that sign-in sheet and make their sorry casting office look busy.”
“I know, Zylissa. I know, but you can’t wait on the phone to ring. Check out Whoopi. Or CCH and Latifah. Even Mo’Nique. They’re always crea
tin’ their own stuff ’cause they know they have to. They’re in a movie or producin’ one, writin’ a series, and in their downtime they’re doin’ a play or writin’ books. Look how many auditions it took me before I even got this gig.”
“Yeah, you right, but Calysta, you be the exception to the rule, girl. Even though you in that LL package you just as darkskinned as you please on the inside. Everything about you is chocolate. I ain’t nevah seen someone lookin’ like you workin’ as hard for the money.”
Laughing, I said, “You so crazy.”
“You think I’m jokin’, I’m serious.”
“Remember in NYC when Weezi booked me on that crazy music video that went all night?”
“Who could forget? Up twenty-four hours for zip.”
“But be honest, Zylissa, it’s how we met and we did have fun, and we did meet Hammer.”
“Sure did. Girl, don’t make me laugh.”
“Where is he, anyway?”
“Mmm-mmm, preachin’ or somethin’.”
“Tell you what, I’ll front your rent, but this is the last time. You still owe me from last year. I ain’t forgettin’.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Calysta, ’cause you know I love ya, but girl, you’re tighter than Dick’s hatband. You be squeezin’ a penny so tight Abe be sittin’ on his own lap.”
“Very funny. Stop by the set tomorrow for the check.”
“A check? I ain’t got no bank account. I don’t even have a cell no more. I’m callin’ you from a pay phone and had to take a bus to that.”
“What happened to your ride?”
“Got a boot on it. Didn’t have insurance any old way and could barely afford gas, so good riddance, repossess the friggin’ leased ride. I even called my ex-boo Seaweed last night just so I could get some free food. I’m sorry, Calysta, but I need cash and I need it now.”
“Okay, okay, come at lunch and don’t be late like always. And don’t throw me under the bus and sneak upstairs to casting saying I sent you, like last time. That really pissed me off; I took all kinds of heat. You know I gave them your picture and résumé four times.”
The loudspeaker broke in: “Calysta, you’re needed on-set in ten minutes for item twelve, page sixty-nine, Ruby and Dove’s bedroom.”
“Ten minutes?” It wasn’t uncustomary for our show to shoot out of sequence, but man, was it a pain in the neck.
“Did you say be there in ten minutes, Calysta?”
“No, I mean—never mind. Gotta go, Zylissa. Twelve sharp.”
“Cool beans, can I get some lunch in the commissary?”
“Yeah, go ’head. Later.”
“Calysta, five minutes for item twelve, page sixty-nine, Ruby and Dove’s bedroom,” repeated the stage manager.
After racing down the stairs to the honeymoon set, a taping schedule in hand, I asked, “What’s going on? My scenes don’t tape for at least another hour.”
“Not anymore. Randall moved them up. Emmy has a callback for Big Love so we’re taping out of order.”
“But I’m not ready. Besides, Ethan’s drooling over his fan mail, we haven’t had a chance to rehearse. And tell Randall he’s got conjunctivitis again, I’m not going near his face.”
“Tell him yourself. And he wants you to wear your hair up, Alison’s wearing hers down today.”
A blinking red tally light signaled that Randall and Edith were up to their old tricks again, taping my every move, watching on their office monitors.
If the duo managed to throw me off my A-game during my last days on the show, the press would roast me alive for “sour grapes.”
I coolly replied, “I’ll be back and ready to tape in five.”
I’m gonna turn in the best performances of my Rich and Ruthless career, I vowed as I marched back to my dressing room. They’re gonna be so spectacular, so breathtaking, so awe-inspiringly fierce, that fans and critics alike will never forget them.
CHAPTER 15
A Pachyderm in the Room
All right, people, let’s do this,” the stage manager said.
“Where the hell is Ethan?” Julius boomed.
“I think he’s still in wardrobe,” Ben Singh, the production assistant, answered.
“Don’t think, find out!”
Ben rushed off, cursing under his breath in Hindi. The East Indian couldn’t believe he was paying back a hundred thousand dollars in student loans to NYU Tisch to chase after wayward soap stars.
Running down the hall, he crashed into Fern and quickly asked, “Did you remember to fill out the paperwork for the Kangaroo Awards for Emmy and Alison and pack their fan mail bins?”
“Yes!” an exasperated Fern answered, rushing into the elevator cradling Edith’s lunch—Arby’s take-out and a Fresca.
“Good,” Ben muttered, walking away, “I don’t think I could survive another vicious fan mail tantrum from those stupid bimbettes. Why is it my fault the majority of their mail comes from prison inmates? I can’t wait to get back to Bollywood, what was I thinking?”
I waited on-set in a turquoise Manoush negligee from my personal collection, not wanting to run the risk of having the Pattern Cutter put me in one of Emmy’s cheap Hustler teddies.
A winded Penelope struggled to keep up, trailing behind Ethan’s billowing trademark peacock-embroidered silk set robe.
“See you after these scenes, Penelope, for my wedding gown fitting,” I called to the pickled costume designer.
She dismissed me with a look as Ethan blindly tossed his robe at her.
“What the hell?”
The buppie bubbler in his Kid ’n Played out haircut was standing over me, a Cheshire Cat grin on his face, wearing only a thong made in the shape of an elephant’s face, his infinitesimal boyhood loosely nestled in the limp trunk.
“Bitchin’, huh?” he asked.
Silence.
“Ethan, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Julius scolded.
“Ah, c’mon, Jules. What’s the big deal?”
“Trust me, not much,” I quipped. “It’s bad enough I have to deal with your damn pinkeye, now you expect to climb into bed with me wearing that thing? Nobody wants to see that madness.”
“I do!” Emmy excitedly interjected, standing on the fringe rubbing her thigh, salivating at the sight of Ethan’s elephant package. “Oh . . . did I say that out loud? Lighten up, Calysta, it’s not like it’s gonna bite ya. From what I’ve heard you could use—”
“What happened to a closed set?”
“Don’t be so serious,” Ethan chided. “Emmy’s right, have a sense of humor. Besides, Randall said it would be fun.”
“Oh, yeah? Then tell him to slap on one of his wigs and do the damn scene himself.”
“All right, what’s the holdup?” Randall rushed onto the set, unprofessionally assuming director’s duties—again.
“Where’s Julius, he’s directing this episode, right?” I inquired.
“Calysta, don’t make waves. What’s going on?”
“You know damn well what’s going on. And thanks for changing the schedule without any notice.”
“Yeah, thanks, Randy,” Emmy interrupted, boldly walking onto my set with her yelping miniature chien in the crook of her arm. “I think I booked the part on Big Love.”
Randall and Ethan adlibbed congratulations.
“Puh-leeze,” I mocked.
“They’ve already called my agent for my measurements. Even though when I first got there, after all that rehearsing I did with Ivana, casting said, ‘We’re just doing the last scene,’ which means they’ve already found who they’re lookin’ for, those bastards. But clearly, I was so on top of my game I knocked the competition right off the wire!” she squealed. “Oh, and Ethan, I hope I helped out last night, rehearsing those Ruby Stargazer lines with ya,” she said, laced with seedy innuendo.
“Yeah, thanks, Emmy. You’re the best!”
“Good luck,” she teased, trotting off.
“No wonder you
have pinkeye. You better hope that’s all you got from that skank,” I remarked.
“Oh, Calysta, you can’t be this upset about a thong, a little eye infection, and a schedule change,” Randall said.
“You won’t be satisfied till I storm off this set, will you? Well, I have news for you-all, you’re wasting your time ’cause it ain’t gonna happen.”
“Honestly, you’re making chicken salad out of chicken feathers.”
“Wow, you too?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.”
As Phillip sashayed over to the Fink Manor set, he hissed, “Are you ever going to finish your scene, Calysta? My gawd it’s been like ten minutes already. MPD must be a bitch.”
“What did you say, punk?”
“He said nothing, Calysta, absolutely nothing,” said Randall.
“Would that be the same nothing, absolutely nothing when I walked into your office and found you and—”
“Don’t go there,” he warned.
“Then get off the damn set so I can do my job.”
Randall glared, skulking into a corner outta joint.
“All right, let’s get back to item twelve, page sixty-nine. Ready to shoot, guys?” Julius asked.
Pulling back cranberry polyester sheets, I answered, “Yep, I’m not here to waste any more of my time or Augustus’s money. Come on, Ethan, grab your trunk and hop in. We got a job to do.”
“Five, four, three, two, go!”
Randall glanced over at a prying Alison. He hadn’t seen his wife since yesterday when they’d had a huge fight over Edith again. He’d spent the night on his office couch, not alone.
“We have to step up our efforts,” Randall whispered.
“Our efforts? You need to get some courage between your legs or borrow some, instead of wasting it on the extras,” Edith chided into the phone. “I heard about last night’s escapade,” she went on, glancing at her Movado. “Our uppity antebellum diva is proving to be a tough nut to crack and all you can do is bitch, bawl, and moan? Time is running out, Randall! You have until the end of the week to prove what a loose cannon Calysta is or the deal’s off,” Edith fumed, slamming the phone in his ear.
Secrets of a Soap Opera Diva Page 10