by Ruth Kaufman
No one offers to help me up.
“Dobby, bad. Bad dog. You know you’re not supposed to eat salami,” says the blonde.
Dobby and his owner get in their car.
“Are you ok, Betsy?” Fred asks.
I might scream. I stand and brush dirt off my jeans. Luckily nothing seems to be injured. Not even my pride.
“Well, Fred, I’ve got to be going.”
With a wave good-bye, the man meeting is over. I’ve survived my first foray into online dating.
Can’t wait ’til the next one.
“So, did you meet Fred? What’s he like?” Linda is calling.
I’ve just gotten home from work, and dump my mail and purse on my desk. “We met all right. In a pet store parking lot.”
“What?” Linda says loudly. “Did you say you met in a parking lot?”
“Yes. And he was much older than his picture. He brought me a salami and cheese sandwich from his deli, but it was hot and mushy from being in his car.”
I relate the tale of Betsy and the Portuguese Water Dog. When Linda stops laughing, she says, “Whenever Brad annoys me, I think of you and realize how lucky I am.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Wait, going under a viaduct.”
With strained patience, I endure buzzes and hisses. Why can’t she ever call when she’s not in her car?
“I’ve got to run...off to meet with the board of a potential seller. Their cash flow leaves something to be desired but....” More buzzing and hissing. “Keep me posted. And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”
At this rate, I’ll never have the chance.
I do get the chance two days later to be an extra for a broadcast network TV pilot the next Monday. If only one of the talent agents I submitted to would call. But no. I’ve been following casting sites and acting Facebook groups, but the few student films and web series I’ve submitted for haven’t asked me to audition.
Maybe I’ll meet someone on set. Then I can leave findmeafind.com and avoid e-Matrimony.
“It’s black tie. You’ll get a formal wear bump.”
How much does it cost to dry clean an evening gown? The only one I own is my wedding gown, which I haven’t decided what to do with. But Linda has a bunch.
Call time Monday is 5:00AM. That’s right.
Today’s the day. Though I’m a morning person, I almost couldn’t drag myself out of bed when my alarm went off at 4:00AM. My head pounds like Thor is testing a new hammer in it, and I have that achy, feverish sensation actors in medicine commercials so convincingly convey. No point taking my temperature. Once you’ve committed to being an extra, there’s no backing out if you ever want to get called again. I swallow a handful of ibuprofen and hope for the best.
Arms weighed down by three of Linda’s gowns, one covered in enough beads to embellish the others, I arrive at holding and check in. Filling part of a hotel ballroom with bright red flowered carpet and paneled walls are garment bags, suitcases, backpacks, and male extras munching donuts.
The female extras do not munch. Everyone except me and a lone older woman is absolutely stunning. All flat-stomached and young. Two of these things are not like the others. The jaunty Sesame Street tune joins the clamor in my aching head. At least I’m the younger one.
I’m becoming an ageist and not liking that. But growing old and becoming less attractive and independent scares me.
Wardrobe picks a sleek, black one-shouldered gown and gives me several stone-studded bracelets and dangly rhinestone earrings. They take my voucher to ensure that I’ll return the jewelry. If I don’t turn the voucher in after we wrap, I won’t get paid.
I change in the part of the crowded room curtained off and labeled WOMEN, trying not to look at and thus envy the giggling, wrinkle and SPANX free beauties around me. Several of whom have engagement rings at least twice the size of mine, which was—is—over a carat. My borrowed finery fits well, but even with shapeware, my belly bulge remains. You could balance a carpenter’s level on the young uns’ abdomens.
Having hair and makeup done is usually a lot of fun. Except when you have a blasting headache and the only thing you want to do is lie down. Cindy, the hair person, blabs on and on, making my head pound harder. She clamps the flatiron on each curl, pulls hard and holds. Then she twists and tugs the now straight mass into a tight chignon. Like an instant facelift, but my scalp already burns. The coup de grâce is a pair of rhinestone combs she jabs in so hard I think I’m bleeding.
I lift my hand to check.
“Do. Not. Touch,” Cindy orders.
Given my possible illness, I’m glad the makeup woman sprays alcohol on her brushes. And that I don’t sneeze or throw up all over her.
The earrings sparkle admirably, but drag down my lobes. The last thing I need is something else that hurts.
It’s only 7:00AM. Everyone else laughs and talks as if they don’t have a care in the world. I’m watching them through a wavering haze. My aches and pains have overwhelmed the ibuprofen.
Someone comes in and takes a bunch of the models to set. The glittering lovelies float away on heels so high and thin I wouldn’t be able to balance, much less walk. A few of the unchosen pout prettily. For once, I’m happy to remain behind. As the day progresses, more and more people are taken off to Heaven. I’m left in Purgatory. By lunch, guess who’s still here?
The older lady, Marge, tried to start a conversation, but I told her I wasn’t feeling well, perhaps not as politely as I could have. She and I are taken to join the others for lunch in another ballroom. I wonder what the looky-loos peeking in the open doors think we’re there for, a hundred of us in tuxedos and evening gowns with fancy updos and bedecked in jewels having a delicious buffet of lamb, grilled chicken and mahi mahi.
By 5:00PM, I’m still stuck in holding with about twenty others who were returned. Please let me go home. Please. Slumped in a chair but careful not to mess up my hair, eyes closed, I console myself with the fact that we’re on overtime, meaning one and a half times pay.
Raised voices make me open one eye. Then the other. A brunette with a chignon in a silver gown is talking to a production person.
“I can’t stay any longer,” she says. “We’ve been here twelve hours. I thought for sure we’d be done by now.” Her voice is high and screechy.
“Weren’t you told you had to stay until wrap?”
“Well, yes,” she admits. “But the other two times I was an extra we didn’t have to stay this long, so I thought…. Look, my kid’s daycare closes at six. I have to pick him up.”
“You’ve already been established. We may need you for continuity.”
“Well, I don’t need you. Or the damn 84 bucks.” She grabs a garment bag off a rack, hauls a huge duffel bag over her shoulder and hurries away.
Several extras shake their heads. The production guy looks pissed. No matter how good her reason for bailing, she’ll never get called by EXTRAvagant again.
The way I’m feeling, I don’t want to do get called again, either. Yes, I’m earning around $15.75 an hour just to sit here, and lunch was much better than I’d have made, but I used up a valuable vacation day.
Because I’m not acting. I’m not even extraing. I’m an extra extra.
I vow not to be any kind of extra again. And to get a real acting job. Somehow.
Chapter 4
The WZRJ office reconstruction is complete. Belongings that wouldn’t fit in my single drawer have been shipped home and are piled on the floor of a closet, behind the couch in my home office and in the TV cabinet. The last time I opened the closet to get a sweatshirt, a box of red and yellow WZRJ pens spilled everywhere.
I’m sitting in one of the new spaces. I can reach both black cloth-covered walls without spreading my arms wide. The new carpet is the indoor/outdoor kind and has no padding.
Today the inn is full. The cacophony of ten crammed together people talking on the phone at once yields an instant headache. I can barely hear what’s strea
ming so I can monitor ads on other stations and check on the competition.
I listen harder. Drat. Candy’s Candy is running spots on the country station. Candy had said she could only afford one station. Guess I lost that deal. I toss my earbuds into the corner of the small counter as “Achy Breaky Heart” begins to play. I call a client, but can’t hear his voice mail message.
Catherine Henderson comes by with her “I’ve got good gossip” look. She bends low so our neighbors won’t hear. “Have you noticed that the outdoor people are never back there?”
I hadn’t. We return to our former space and see a field of empty cubes.
“This is ridiculous,” I say.
Upon returning to our new space, chatter blasts us with the force of movie theatre speakers when the volume is turned up too high.
I sigh. “Why can’t they see that hoteling reduces productivity? The people we work with are the best thing about this job. And sharing information and ideas is essential.” I shout to be heard, even though we’re standing close together.
“Maybe they want us to quit,” Catherine ventures.
“What?”
“It’s obvious they don’t value our experience. I think they think we’re easily replaceable.”
“Aha.” She heaves a sigh. “So we quit, unhappy with our confusing compensation plan and unpleasant work environment, and they hire cheap, new people who won’t know how things should be.”
Who won’t know what work was like before Barnaby Broadcasting bought WZRJ.
Barnaby Broadcasting is so vast that finding out who does what in the home office is often a challenge. I can stand up in my first come, first served office space and ask, “Who handles _________?” or “What do we charge for ________?” and get three different answers. At least I have options to follow up on.
Working at home cuts off this source of knowledge. Occasionally we comment in our Facebook group, but it isn’t the same. BB won’t spring for Chatwork or other business platform.
At home, I’m isolated and uninformed. I can’t concentrate. But my laundry is always done, my condo is spotless and I listen to a lot of radio. We have proved John Donne’s “no man is an island” theory.
Righteous indignation whisks through my veins. “It’s like Network. We’re madder than hell. Our jobs have value...we bring in the revenue. We don’t have to take it, at least not without making our views known.”
I stride to Brenda’s new, much smaller office lacking a window. Her back is practically up against the wall. She’s wearing a khaki shirt dress and dangling gold earrings.
“Yes, Marla?” She doesn’t even look up.
“Brenda, can I have a minute?”
Her phone buzzes, but thankfully she ignores it. “Ok.”
I squeeze myself into the chair between her desk and the other wall. I think I feel the tomatoes and cucumbers I had for lunch bouncing in my stomach. I relax my shoulders and make sure to speak in my calm, radio announcer voice. “I don’t mean to speak for the other AEs, but I’m not the only one who thinks hoteling makes it much more difficult to get work done. It’s hard to hear because the space is always so crowded.”
“Be glad you have a job.” She put her hand on her phone, as if signaling that my minute is up.
“Oh, I am. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be more efficient and bring in more revenue under better conditions.”
“My mother always said, ‘Don’t be part of the problem, be part of the solution.’”
I was prepared for that. “Is there any chance we’ll get our cubes back? The outdoor people are rarely there.”
“No.”
“Could we share them, at least?”
“No.”
“What about a signup sheet for even half of the spots, so we’d be guaranteed a place to work?”
“Hmmm. No. Marla, management above Sue set the rules. We implement them.”
Our managers have no authority? Or even input?
“What happened to being part of the solution?” I actually said that out loud. Not my smoothest move.
As Brenda opened her mouth, her phone rang. “I have to get this.”
Whew. I’d escaped relatively unscathed.
Later in the day, an e-mail reiterates the rules. As I scroll, I see the initial e-mail from Brenda to Sue. And almost choke when I read, “That Marla. What a whiner.”
I’m speechless.
I really, really, really want to quit. I will quit. As soon as I book a couple of acting jobs.
Bra-aack brak brak brak braa-aa-ck. Chicken squawks assail me.
I will seriously consider quitting. Tomorrow.
It’s Saturday night, the time of week I most wish I had someone to date. Most of my friends are married. Only on rare occasions will a married couple spend a precious Saturday night with a single friend. Apparently not even during the first few months after her divorce, when she feels most abandoned and unsure and could most use the support, company and diversion. Something to put on the calendar when the search for happiness seems akin to climbing Mount Everest. Everyone works very hard, a few succeed and others die.
Divorce is like a scary disease you don’t know much about and has no cure. Your friends aren’t sure if it’s contagious, but in case it is, they stay away. Maybe because they don’t know what to say or how to help. Or maybe because divorce is too personal, too intimate of a subject even for most close friends to deal with. What if they don’t want to accept how perilous, how insecure their own marriages are? If “it” could happen to Marla and Adam.... On the other hand, what if all they have to say is, “I told you so?” and they don’t call because they know that’s the last thing I want to hear?
I realize I could’ve been a better friend to my friends who’ve gotten divorced. I could’ve called to say hello more often, sent a card or two via snail or e-mail, taken them to lunch or for a mani/pedi. Could have shown my support or simply listened, like I wish someone would listen to me. Next time, I will.
Most of my divorced friends have found new relationships. Maybe I can, too.
An extras casting agency I worked with years ago calls out of the blue about a feature film. I vowed to say no, but my efforts thus far to really act haven’t yielded fruit.
“You’ll be a staff member attending the company holiday party at Millennium Park,” says the owner, Jack. “It’s a two-day shoot. Are you available?”
Millennium Park is in the heart of downtown and has an outdoor ice skating rink. I’d done a day on the flick Surviving Christmas years ago. No stars, just freezing cold. And also, a warm, humid night on The Lake House, where I got to dress up, have my hair done and consume delicious desserts at an outdoor table while others had to roller skate for hours.
“How many people will be in the scene?” I ask.
“Around 145.”
Outside in late February for two days with 144 other people. Cold and crowds, two of my least favorite things. Haven’t I vowed not to do another outside shoot in the winter? Not to do another crowd scene? I have. Broken movie vows make me think of broken wedding vows….
But what if they don’t call again, or if they call for days I can’t get off work? What if this is my chance to be in a good scene? What if this is the farthest I’ll ever get in acting?
“Ok, I’ll do it.”
Knowing we’ll be wearing coats, I don’t take wardrobe too seriously. Clad in my black, hooded shearling, a maroon cashmere turtleneck, long underwear, a velvet scarf and armed with hand warmers, I take the “L” to arrive at the appointed location by 6:00AM.
Our holding area is the basement of what used to be an off-price store where I’d spent many happy hours and made many acquisitions. Steaming oatmeal and donuts await, signs we’ll be well-treated. After wardrobe looks us over, in a large group we’re led the couple of blocks to Millennium Park.
Huge banners read “Omniqual,” the media corporation we and one of the stars work for. Already set up and staffed are booths offering popcorn,
cotton candy, hot dogs and fries, beef and pepper sandwiches, burritos, pizza, and pop. BB has had similar events at our annual conferences with pasta or taco stations. They’re held inside and are for employees only, not their families.
The day begins well. I’m placed in a good spot for the first shot, buying fabulous-smelling and tasting popcorn and walking toward the camera and the ice rink where more extras will be skating. I skate, but they didn’t ask me to. The star, Adrian Andrews, an up and coming actor predicted to soon be a household name, starts only a few feet behind me. His stand-in is filling in. He’s gorgeous enough to be a star himself.
I’ve been a stand-in, which you can only be if you’re of very similar height, weight, hair and coloring to one of the stars to set up lighting and camera moves. This position is both better and worse than being an extra.
Better because stand-ins make more money. They’re treated as part of the crew and get to eat their sometimes higher-quality and always more frequently offered food. Many times, sandwiches or snacks are brought to the set and served on trays, like at a cocktail party. Crew and stand-ins lift the luscious nibbles to their mouths. Extras drool and go without, hungry and forlorn as the poor Shirley Temple gazing into a bakery in my favorite movie of hers, A Little Princess.
Also, key production staff, even the director, call stand-ins by name. Usually you can also be an extra, and because they know you, you might get a better scene and position.
Being a stand-in is worse because you take the physical place of the star, but of course are not the star. When the crew wants you, the AD calls for “Second Team.” It’s a lot more stressful because you must perform the exact same actions as the star, but get less rehearsal time. I once got called out because I opened a door with my left hand and the star, “First Team,” used her right.
After a few rehearsals, Adrian steps in. He’s less than three feet from me. I can’t stop smiling, and my pulse speeds up. Being this close to a famous person is always a bit surreal. It never gets old.