by Vendela Vida
“Well,” says the practical secretary, never one to admire silence for long, “I have a room key.”
“Oh, good,” you say, as casually as you can muster.
“She’s taking over Ivy’s room,” she explains to the actress. She hands you the key card and tells you your room number at the Grand. You place the key card in the front pocket of your jeans, and push it in deep. You want to make sure there’s no chance it could fall out. “Can one of you walk her over?” the pale practical secretary says to the security guards. To you she says: “Maybe you want half an hour to pack your things?”
Your suitcase is already packed and stashed under the massage table in the poolside dressing room.
“That should be enough time,” you say.
You take the elevator back to the pool area, and you retrieve your suitcase from under the massage table. You’re relieved it’s still there. You sit dressed by the pool for twenty-five minutes, and then meet the redheaded bodyguard in the tenth-floor lounge. He takes the handle of the suitcase; it has wheels but he chooses to carry it. You don’t check out of the Regency. Instead you just leave. If the hotel ever receives any inquiries about the charge on Sabine Alyse’s card, they might remember you as a woman who disapproved of the film crew’s attire and was sent champagne.
You walk across the street and into the lobby of the Grand, the bodyguard carrying your suitcase all the while. He leads you up to your room, and opens the door for you.
“Thank you,” you say. You want to make sure he leaves. You don’t want to talk about evolution anymore.
The room is standard, without the luxuries of the Regency. Outside the window you have a better view of the band shell you could see from your last hotel room. You realize the band shell is part of the Jazzablanca Festival. A jazz trio is playing something experimental, and the stage is surrounded by a small crowd of men in leather jackets and girlfriends holding their arms. Everyone seems unsure of whether they should be dancing, so they slightly sway this way and that. You turn your attention back to the hotel room. Housekeeping has come, so there’s no sign of Ivy. You wish you knew something about her. The wastebasket, of course, has been emptied.
Waiting for you on the desk is a large envelope with the name “Reeves Conway” on it.
You shake out the envelope and find a small packet. It seems to be a script, but printed and sized in miniature. It’s one-fourth the size of normal pages, as if for a movie being made by tinier people in a tinier, other world.
The top page says: A Different Door, which you didn’t know until now was the name of the film. A “call time” is listed for each member of the cast and crew. You search for your name. It’s not there. You go through it again. Then you see your sister’s baby’s name is there. Strange, you think. The name you must start recognizing as your own.
“Transportation” will greet you at 7 A.M. outside the Grand and you will be taken to “California, Casablanca.” The famous American actress will not be showing up until 2 P.M., and that will be for makeup.
The hotel phone rings as you’re flipping through the pages.
It’s the secretary to the famous American actress.
“Did you get the sides?”
You have no idea what she’s talking about, but glance at the small stapled pages in your left hand.
“Yes?” you say.
“Good.”
“So you know you’ll be picked up at seven tomorrow.”
“Yes, and I’m going to . . . California?”
“Isn’t that funny,” she says, sounding very serious. “There’s an affluent neighborhood in Casablanca called California where the homes are Beverly Hills–big and there are palm trees and all that.” She could not sound more bored as she tells you this. “They couldn’t find this site until a week ago, but the house is perfect for A Different Door.”
After she’s hung up, you flip through the small pages that you now know are called sides. It occurs to you that you have no idea what the movie is about apart from what you’ve observed so far: a young American woman entering a hotel. The sides don’t provide much illumination. They tell you that in the first scene that’s being filmed the next day the main character, Maria, arrives at Kareem’s family home in Casablanca.
You have no idea who Kareem is.
In the scene, Kareem’s mother greets Maria and it’s a somewhat tearful encounter. You can’t say for sure but your guess is that Maria and Kareem were dating in America, and now—for reasons that are unclear to you in the small sampling of the script—Kareem is dead. Then Kareem’s best friend comes for dinner and there’s an attraction between him and Maria that they have to hide from Kareem’s mother.
You read the sides twice. You can see why the famous American actress took the part. It’s a good role for her, and one that will surprise audiences since she’s returning to her more independent-film origins. You once read a film critic’s opinion that a film can never be better than the script, but you were never sure if you agreed with that. Which is why it stuck with you. In this case you think the film might end up being better than the script. She’s a good actress.
You look out the window of your hotel room, at the plaza below. Tonight’s show is ending. People are radiating out in all directions from the central stage. From where you stand, they form a flower, blossoming. A firework, exploding.
Tomorrow you will go to California.
At just before 7 A.M. you stand outside the entrance of the Grand. Your schedule says 7 A.M. Transportation to set: but you’re not sure what “transportation” means—taxi, bus, plane? You see a large white bus with green Arabic letters on it. A man with a silver clipboard stands by the front door and you approach him.
“Are you going to Meknes?” he asks.
“No, I’m going to California?” you say.
He stares at you. “This bus is tour bus going to Meknes twice a week.”
“Oh, I’m going to California. Just for today.”
“We don’t go to California,” he says.
You nod as though you knew this, and walk back to the bench in front of the hotel.
A van pulls up and a man with hairy arms and no facial hair comes over and introduces himself as the driver who will be taking you to the set.
He opens the side door of the van and you slide into the first row of seats. He gets back into the driver’s seat, but leaves the door open. You sit in silence for a full five minutes.
“Are we waiting for someone else?” you finally ask.
“Yes, two people.”
“Oh,” you say. You sit in the parked van not knowing exactly what to do with yourself.
You read over the sides again. You study the stage directions in particular. You have memorized your lines, though you know you are probably not expected to. They are not actually your lines. You have to remind yourself of this. Over the course of the night you have begun to think of the Maria character as a hybrid between you and the famous American actress. You imagine her as a third person the two of you have created.
“You must be the new stand-in!” a voice booms. You turn and see a thin Indian man in his early forties stepping into the van.
He introduces himself as a producer on the film and you introduce yourself as your niece.
Another man, an overweight American producer with a goatee and expensive-looking sunglasses, enters the van. He looks like he’s twenty-five. After listening to him talk for a minute you think it’s likely he actually is twenty-five. You imagine he’s recently been able to access his trust fund and is trying to make it in the movie business.
The driver whose name you didn’t understand closes the van door. “We are off to California!” he says.
“Not all movies are made in California,” the trust funder whispers under his breath.
You consider telling him it’s the name of a neighborhood in Casablanca that resembles California but refrain because you don’t want to insult him and potentially make an enemy so soon.
“California is the name of a neighborhood in Casablanca,” the Indian producer says.
The young American producer is silent, which means he didn’t know this. How could he not know this? It’s possible he is being used for his money and not being consulted on or informed about decisions.
You must not have disguised your amusement at the Indian producer’s comment well enough. The young American producer stares at you with his challenging twenty-five-year-old eyes. “What happened to the other stand-in?” he says to no one in particular. “How come no one told me there was a new stand-in?”
“Didn’t you hear about the scandal?” says the Indian producer. He is clearly excited by the use of the word “scandal.” “She fell in love with someone.”
“On set?” the young American producer says. He’s annoyed that he wasn’t informed of the affair. No one tells this young man anything.
“What I heard is she flirted with a man who worked at the hotel in Marrakech,” the thin Indian producer says. “Now he thinks they are in love and he followed her here to Casablanca. She has to be sent home because she can’t focus at work and because her husband is going to divorce her.”
“If the husband at home is going to break up with her, she might as well stay here, right?” says the young American producer.
He doesn’t wait for a response, but leans forward to direct a pressing question to the driver. “Are we going to be late?”
“Lots of traffic in Casablanca,” the driver admits.
“But you know where we’re going, right?” says the young American producer.
“Yes, I know the area. The streets in California are not all with signs.”
“Fuck me,” says the young American producer.
The drive from the hotel to California, according to your schedule, is supposed to take fifteen minutes. In twenty minutes you have moved ten blocks, maybe twelve.
“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.”
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“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.
The color of the wig is shades darker than your own—it’s the dark color your hair appeared to be on the video taken by the surveillance camera at the Golden Tulip. And the length of the hair on the wig is the same length as the actress’s. It’s the same length your hair was before you cut it to look like Sabine Alyse’s passport photo. You are putting on a wig so you more closely resemble the way you looked before you weren’t you.