Meanwhile in the World where Kennedy Survived

by Lacey Ann Carrigan

  Chapter Eight

  Nothing had prepared Jacy for what she would see the next day on the set when the workmen shoved aside a huge soundstage door for her.

  The room had been fashioned with an arcing, domelike ceiling. It would be lit from the rear half on top, where it opened up for the key scaffolding. Strangely, she thought of church when she looked at it because of all the ornate carving and snakelike banisters trailing down from the rafters. A worker told her it was made entirely of wood and Styrofoam. Someone had painstakingly carved all the delicate designs and cherub-like figures into it. Tall, narrow windows had been cut into the stony material between the latticework and filled with a clear amber glass that had been beveled at the edges. There was a high, golden throne shaped like a sphinx. Jacy wondered what kind of building they were trying to copy since she could count at least four different earthly locales and eras represented. The walls shone like polished stainless steel in places yet had been tinged with matte black elsewhere. “It looks a little small and cramped,” she said. “Isn’t there supposed to be a court, ladies in waiting, a jester and all that kind of thing?”

  “They’ll all fit,” a stagehand announced. “People will flit in and out of it.” They made their way to the other side of the soundstage and dropped Jacy off near her dressing room. A gaggle of wardrobe matrons and costume girls awaited her. Wanda, the oldest and heaviest of them said “Let’s see this killer costume everybody’s been abuzz about.”

  Jacy flipped the locks of her suitcase and tugged the iridescent fabric out of it, holding it up for everyone to see. A chorus of “Oh my gods,” and hushed gasps filtered throughout the room. Wanda showed Jacy to a stall, saying “Let’s make television history, honey.”

  Jacy shed her street clothes and, wearing only panty hose and a bra, stepped into the Empress Tigra costume. The seam in back stretched and strained while she tugged the crotch closely to her form. “This thing is so tight,” Gilda had said, “that they’re going to be able to read your lips. If you know which pair I’m talking about.” There was extra material causing ridges beneath the seams. Jacy wondered if she should take it back and have Gilda even it out. She rolled the bodice upward to mold the fabric against her waist and hips. For the final effect, she looked at her reflection in the mirror. Tiger stripes slanted down from both sides, joining at a line running downward from her center. They looked like arrows pointing toward her nether region.

  Shrugging that off, she brought the bust upward and cradled her breasts in the extra panels of fabric that had been sewn in to cradle them. Lastly, she poked her hands through each arm opening swaddling the long sleeves onto her limbs. Too much, she thought, when she saw ho the nylon had cut her narrow waist even smaller and had lifted her breasts upward. Gilda had paid her heed: only a tiny sliver of cleavage had been revealed. Too much, she thought. A pang of anxiety spread through her and she wondered whether the arm band, the necklaces, and the shoulder shawl would tone it down.

  Once she had stepped into her low heels, she gathered her hair upward in combs and pulled it back, forming thick swirls of it at both sides of her crown. The feline ears would perch atop the combs. Once finished and ready for makeup, she inhaled before tugging on the doorknob. A moment later she revealed herself to the wardrobe girls. Wanda, as the spokeswoman for them said “My god, girl. You’ve outdone yourself.”

  She strutted as delicately as she could onto the soundstage, her shoulders dipping in self-conscious anticipation. Lots of time and work had gone into the costume and she took great pains keeping up the type of body that could wear it well. Before she rounded a corner she inhaled, lengthening and straightening herself, using a yoga trick she knew, stretching her limbs from her toes to the top of her head. She tossed back the locks of dark brown hair that fell over her right shoulder and tried to think happy thoughts as she approached the stage. Bright lights flooding the castle interior washed out her line of sight.

  She saw Warberg first. He had been earnestly conferring with Rohrig, who had his back turned to her as she entered. There were a couple of stage technicians nearby, listening in. The metamorphosing expression on Warberg’s face was one she was sure she would never forget. He had been in a taut-lipped, stern demeanor in discussing shooting manners with his boss and the equipment urchins. He caught a glimpse of her and at the first instant his face carried the same businesslike scowl. Then his hollow eyes turned away for a flash and returned to her, exploding open, his mouth dropping. Rohrig and the technicians whirled around. They backed away, in a reflex reaction.

  “Holy mother,” someone said. All conversation stopped as Jacy walked further into the brilliantly lit room. She was brushed against from the side and when she turned she came face to face with Neil Neiman. He was in full Galaxia regalia, as Korg. Eyes looking out from dark pancake makeup, horns protruding from his temples. When Jacy looked at him, she had to stifle a laugh. A wide smile caused Neil’s eyes to slant, turning them into slits. The horns reminded her of Puck from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” He said “Very nice to meet you, Empress. Can I be your slave?” She pushed him away playfully.

  Rohrig crept closer to her, narrowing his eyes, squinting. “I didn’t approve a costume change. Who the hell do you think you are?” he said, his lower jaw jutting out as if he had been grinding his molars together.

  The hard steeliness of his gaze frightened her. Jacy fought to keep her eyes straight ahead, resisting the impulse to look down, in shame. Neil Neiman came to her aid, putting himself between the two of them, shielding her from the damning rays emanating from the boss’ eyes. “Rory,” he started, “you know what they always say. The unexpected sometimes brings unexpected delights.” Rohrig tried to push him aside to get a better look at her. He regarded every inch.

  “The sponsors will go crazy,” Rohrig murmured.

  Warberg smirked, his arms crossed on his chest, feet spread wide apart as he looked at Jacy. “Well they’ve got that Barbara what’s-her-name in that little flimsy thing showing her belly button. I think the American viewing public is ready.”

  A deep voiced male technician from behind the light banks said “Ready to grab a cold shower!” Everyone laughed, even Rohrig.

  Jacy decided to speak. She said “Rory, there was no way I was going to wear that bulky thing. It reminded me of the Queen of Hearts.”

  Diahann Carroll, in her exotic eye makeup and short galaxian dress appeared. Her thick, warm-brown hair had been teased into a high upswept pouf. She approached Jacy then leaned away. “Oooh, lord, they were right. Honey, you’re going to flame out every TV screen from here to Boston.”

  When normalcy returned, Rohrig placed all the actors on the set. Light technicians milled about, checking meter readings, holding tiny instruments in their hands like transistor radios. Empress Tigra’s soldiers appeared. They all wore close-fitting leather tunics and boots with steel helmets. The headpieces were fitted with a short bar that pointed downward at their noses. Jacy looked at them admiringly. Casting had worked hard to find the young actors with the best physiques, she thought. Taut skin and rippling muscle gleamed beneath the lights.

  In the first scene, Vantage and Korg were to be entering the palace, encountering the Empress for the first time. When Jacy sat down on the golden Phoenix throne, she looked back out at the set toward the lights. Instantly she had to look away, shielding her eyes, a headache coming on. “Why do those lights have to be so bright?” she asked. “I’m going to need sunglasses!”

  “The light bathes the scene in an ethereal glow,” a technician explained. She could only see him in silhouette as light reflecting off his tousled hair formed a halo around his head. A makeup assistant dabbed blush on her cheekbones and dusted her face with loose powder. Somebody knelt down beside her and looked out at the directors.  

  “Good god, you’re right,” he said. Assistants and light technicians scurried about as he barked out directions to them and the other crewmen straddling scaffolding above.<
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  Rohrig said “Wait a minute. This is what we planned on.” He sprang to his feet. “Whose show is this anyway?”

  “Rory, I can’t see,” Jacy said. “When the camera goes on, my pupils are probably going to look like two little pinholes. Do you want that? Is there some other way you can achieve your look? That’s not going to blind me?” She noticed that some of the crewmen along with a few of her soldiers had backed away. At first she was confused about what could have intimidated them but then she realized that she had taken the golden scepter and jabbed the end of it into the stage floor. A golden serpent had coiled around the staff of it and his fanged mouth screeched out from the top, near the globule end.

  “Holy shit,” Neil said. “You’re not going to argue with an empress, are you?” Above her the technicians tugged and maneuvered various burning lamps and slid amber scrims onto others. Somebody called out something about adding a rose scrim to one of the uppers. Gradually Jacy saw the light around her begin to dim.

  “That’s better,” she said. “Now I’m going to be able to look into the faces of the people I’m talking to.” That done, the stage managers and Rohrig arranged all the cast in their places and Jacy was amazed to find out that he was right: the small room did hold an incredible number of people. The bright lighting with the well-placed color did add a heavenly glow to the castle interior. If they had just hung regular spots there, Jacy thought, the walls of the structure would have looked unbearably harsh and dingy.

  Soon it was time for Jacy to show how well she had memorized her lines and those of Vangage and Korg. When she had spoken with Jake the afternoon before, he had even told her that she should consider taking up smoking, to give her voice the throaty edge that would convey power.

  Rohrig, instead of barking “Roll” would say “Let’s go,” in a quiet voice Jacy could barely hear. Then, her cue, once Vantage and Korg swaggered toward her. She called out their names and then said “To what do I owe this unexpected delight?” As they had approached she swiveled her hips on the hard throne, swinging her legs over the armrest, kicking one foot skyward as an exclamation point on her sentence.

  “Hold it, hold it, hold it!” Rohrig shouted. His chair clattered as he pushed himself out of it. He stomped across the rug-covered floor to their dais. “Jacy, this is science fiction, not flipping Broadway. Can we do it again without the Rockettes kick?”

  “I say we go with it,” Warberg said. “It works.”

  Rohrig leaned his shoulders downward and glared evilly at his biggest star. “Who’s directing here?”

  “Well, it’s playful,” Warberg said. “Coy. Seductive. If we have some grim, no-nonsense type up there, it may as well be a man.”

  “This is the ruler of a planet, not Patty Duke,” Rohrig said.

  Neil laughed heartily, bending at the waist. “If you think Patty Duke looks like that, then you’d better go get an eye exam pal. This is the Empress.”

  The shooting after that seemed convoluted and discordant to Jacy. But then screen acting, whether it was on a large or small one was also convoluted. She missed the fluidity of the theater, where her performance seemed like one long steady orgasm. With television there were little bursts of frenzied activity where she was called on to display hostility or sexual coyness and then stop on a dime to move on to something else completely different. Rohrig still didn’t seem to like the leg kick and in subsequent takes kept trying to get her to tone it down. Yet she continued, propping herself up on the arms of the throne, arching her back, hissing at Vantage and Korg. After ten retakes of a scene only covering a couple of pages of script, she lost count. In between takes, she allowed the most peculiar thoughts to run through her mind while the makeup girls powdered down her face, touched up her eyes and rearranged her hair. She thought “Why am I here?” and “What is all this for?”

  Renee, the hair stylist noticed. “I always wonder what goes on in that pretty head of yours,” she said. “You have to be one of the most intense people I’ve ever met on a show.”