On Command

This is also an oldie, but I still like it.

On Command

Sitting at the small wooden vanity in her trailer, her feet hidden under the teal flounce, Meredith flips through a magazine, comparing herself with the women laid out on the pages: glossy hair, bedroom eyes, parted lips. She looks in the mirror, nods, she is Meredith Haynes, up and comer. Recognized occasionally on the street from the relatively small part she had as the secretive Olivia in a “smart sad drama” (People, November 17, 1998) about high school life which ran for a season. In October of 1998 she had a quarter-page photo in Entertainment Weekly. It was a studio shot, Olivia sitting alone at a long cafeteria table, her face in profile, her eyes blended in soft flattering shadow. She had a ponytail and a black leather jacket that was half-tough. She kept the jacket and wore it around town for a couple of months. That was when fans had approached her. The caption read “The 25 year old Meredith Haynes has made her mark as forlorn 18 year old Sadie on Life Is.... Next challenge, can she play happy?”

Next year maybe, it will be a one page shot. With a wind machine and her hair blowing loose around her face, her eyes sultry, her smile welcoming. It’s up to the photographer of course, but that’s one good possibility. She adds it to the mental file. Her friends from home and her new friends from L.A. will recognize her, save the page; anonymous strangers will fall in love with her. Lust. They will fall in lust with her. With the picture. She lights a cigarette and frowns at herself. She shakes her head, inhales, blows out the smoke peacefully. Her scene is in fifteen minutes. Meredith, as Sarah, will meet Billy, the guy that Joan Ann has just started dating. Sarah thinks Billy would be better for her. She must convey how subtle the cooling towards her friend is, how subtle the shy smiles towards the boy are. The smiles must have a secret behind them, not nerves, but some little thing in reserve.

She puts the magazine down and places her hands on either side of the long oval mirror. Shoulder length hair of varied light color, brushed fifteen minutes ago. Wide eyes, long eyelashes, small nose but not too small. A little interesting. Perfectly understated lips. She focuses on the lips and tries out a shy but knowing smile. The smoke from the cigarette in her right hand flows across the mirror’s surface and back to her, shaping and releasing the air around her head, a soft halo, an exhaust line of cloud suspended in the wake of a fast moving vehicle. She slips another smile around her lips. Ah, this one is closer, keep the eyes focused, straight ahead, the lift of the lips small, quick. She takes a drag of the cigarette, stubs it out, pushes away from the mirror. She opens the door gathering her hair into an elastic and stops, stunned by the bright blue New Mexican morning.

She anchors her vision on the small white spot in the near distance and walks across the parking lot to the director’s chair set up before a false suburban backyard. She pats Stan on the back and smiles at him, not the shy smile but a genuine, tired one. “Why so early, Stan? It’s always so early.”

He grins back, “Hey princess, some of us used to have office jobs. Do you know how early I had to get up when I was working at Merrill Lynch?”

“Liar. You were never a banker, or broker, or whatever the hell they do over there.”

“Got me. Coffee’s on the banquet. Come back when you’re feeling friendly.” She slaps his back and shrugs over to the banquet where something akin to brunch is laid out. An actors brunch: smoothies, granola, Power Bars, carrots, cauliflower, cherry tomatoes, Reese’s peanut butter cups, tiny airplane boxes of cold cereal and three aluminum coffee pumps next to which sat personalized mugs, a small extravagance. The mugs were named, one for each of the small crew. For the actors it was their movie name spelled out in Varsity jacket script along the side of each mug. She picked up the mug marked Sarah and filled it with hot coffee, glanced back at Stan, appreciative of the small joke.

The coffee was one rubber band in the fluctuating nexus that kept her able to do her job. Lately she couldn’t sleep nights, not until the sun was almost up and the New Mexico night passed from still to restless. Inside her trailer she lay exhausted on the couch next to the bed until the darkness opened up and she slid inside.

She would sleep better if someone’s head lay against her chest, someone to breathe rhythmically beside her. In the morning she would look at that person, mocking, cool. Smile and try to make her eyes sparkle. “Breakfast?” She’s done it enough in the past eight months to know a good performance from a bad one. Even if she doesn’t manage to instill the right amount of fresh-faced enthusiasm in her eyes, it doesn’t much matter, the audience is rotating. During the bad performances she gets a stare that is meant to puzzle out something before it’s finished. Then she flashes a cold look and offers breakfast again. The good performances make her feel expansive and small at the same time.

The last time she’d had anything more than that she had not known what to do. She tried smiling, tried her serious face too, even a contrite one and nothing. She got only an extended look of amusement. She had seen him twice more, but she only went home with him when she was very drunk and in the mornings she was afraid to look at him.

Flopping onto the couch, she throws the couch pillow over her eyes. Lying there like her Lady Macbeth she drums up that hurt that should be at her center. Is. The hurt that is there. She’s alone. Lost. She’s wasting herself, and she won’t let a goddamn soul save her. She starts to cry softly. She wipes the tears from her cheeks, adjusting the pillow on her face to make room. She takes in a deep breath and listens to the night quieting around her.

She stirs sugar, cream into her coffee, looking around for the other actors in her scene. Dixie/Joan Ann and Rob/Billy--are doing partner stretches outside of Dixie’s trailer, sitting on the dusty ground, their feet touching, pulling at each others arms like a pair of oars. Meredith goes back to sit next to Stan.

She waves her cup of coffee at him and smiles, “When are we rolling?”

“As soon as Diego and Rich get the cameras checked. You OK, princess? You look a little tired.”

“Fine.” She looks at him out of the corner of her eye, the rest of her gaze filled with the impossible blue of the sky.

Meredith and Dixie sit side by side on the garden bench from props. Rob comes out of the sliding doors of the house and waves at them both. Meredith who has been gazing into the distance away from Joan Ann perks up, begins to fidget. Joan Ann smiles and jumps up waving. “Hi Billy!” She says her lines with her arms around Rob’s waist. “Were my parents just awful, or what?”

When Joan Ann and Billy are gone Meredith stands in the garden alone: sweeps her hair up with one hand, lets it fall. Puts one foot in front of the other, sticks out her chest, puts a hand on her hips, tilts her head, parts her lips and smiles. She shakes her head, uncrosses her feet, sweeps her hair up again, smiles, stops, smiles.

Stan yells Cut! She doesn’t turn. She laughs a little breathlessly, sits down on the bench again, drapes herself back into it, hanging her head over the edge, laughs again and continues to smile, runs her hand slowly up her thigh and back down. “Bil-ly.” She says it slowly, splitting the “l”’s, her mouth staying open on the last syllable, eyebrows raised. She hangs a hand over the bench back. “Bil-ly.” She laughs again and shoves off from the bench, walking casually back to the crew.

When she returns to the banquet table there is a silence around her, the smooth water surrounding a toy boat gliding out to sea. Stan breaks it; slaps her on the back, says great work, beautiful job. Her hair ceases to brush her cheek in slow motion. She looks up at him, her cheeks reddening. She looks down again, puts four pieces each of cauliflower and carrot on her plate and walks toward her trailer. Before she gets there Rob catches her by the elbow, almost spilling the careful arrangement on her plate.

He smiles earnestly at her, “Wow, Meredith, you were great.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“No, I mean it, you were wonderful. Natural and. . . honest. It was perfect.” She considers him again, smiles, keeping her eyes on his, lifting only the edges of her lips.

“Thank you.”