“Oh no,” she said knowingly, and hands on hips, she nodded sagely as she sized Leah up. “Oh, honey,” she said, with a sympathetic shake of her head. “You look like shit. That’s the deal with these movie guys—they’ll say anything to fuck you. So what did he say this time?”
What hadn’t he said? Leah shifted her backpack from one shoulder to the other. “Nothing, really.” She didn’t want to rehash it all again—she’d just spent the better part of one night rehashing it over and over and over, until her head felt like it was literally going to explode off her shoulders. “So don’t we have a meeting with the director this morning?”
“Yeah,” Trudy said, and put her arm around Leah’s shoulders, squeezing her tight. “Let’s go show him that Yin and Yang are the best he’s got.”
Leah let Trudy pull her along.
They rehearsed the battle scenes all morning with the director and Charlene Ribisi and Nicole Redding, who, Trudy pointed out in a stage whisper, couldn’t carry her cell phone if the director asked it, much less the scene. Charlene Ribisi, on the other hand, was a professional and about as buff as any woman Leah had ever seen. In one scene, Charlene had to push her down, and for a woman weighing all of 110 pounds at 5’10”, she sure packed a punch.
The most telling part of the rehearsal came just before they broke for lunch, when the director, looking through a camera lens, shook his head and yelled cut.
“Were we filming?” Nicole asked, clearly annoyed.
“No. And it’s a good thing we weren’t,” Harold said. “Honey, you’re going to have to lose a few pounds in the next week. You’ve got a couple of places that aren’t coming across very well.”
Next to Leah, Trudy gasped. Leah was shocked, too—Nicole was so tiny that she was hardly even there. Not in particularly great shape, but tiny nonetheless.
Nicole apparently thought the same thing, because she said, “Me? I’m the smallest one out here! Why doesn’t she have to lose any weight?” she cried, pointing directly at Leah.
Leah instantly looked down; Trudy gasped again.
“Because she’s nobody. You’re the star, Nicole, and you need to drop a few L.B.’s, or it’s going to look like we’ve got Attila the Hun lumbering through these scenes.”
“Shut up, Harold,” Nicole said, and flounced off.
“Her ass is looking a little large,” Trudy whispered.
But Leah was mortified. “What does that make me? How huge am I?”
“Not to worry, hon,” Trudy said confidently. “You probably won’t have that much time on screen anyway.”
Talk about going from bad to worse. By the time lunch rolled around, Leah was really in a foul mood. She begged off lunch with Trudy, Jamie, and Michele, who were intent on shopping for rafting clothes. “What are rafting clothes?” Leah asked.
Trudy’s mouth dropped open. “Are you kidding? Cute little bathing suit tops and shorts.”
“And don’t forget the sandals,” Michele added. “I am definitely getting some of those new all-terrain sandals. You can run in them, too.”
Right, like Michele was ever going to run after they wrapped this film.
“Thanks, but I’m going to pass,” Leah said. “I don’t know if they carry size jumbo where you’re going. And besides, Jumbo is really hungry.”
“Don’t do that to yourself,” Trudy said, shoving her psychedelic sunglasses on her face. “You’re beautiful! But maybe just a salad,” she suggested.
“Come on you guys,” Jamie cried. “We’ve got to be back in an hour and a half, and the outdoor gear store is across town.”
Leah watched them run across the parking lot to Jamie’s car, then made her way to the commissary, where she intended to have a salad of lettuce, period.
Later she was sitting at a table near the back, her lettuce leaves consumed and leaving her wanting more, reading a novel she’d started months ago, when someone jostled her table by falling into a seat across from her.
Leah glanced up; a smile instantly curved her lips. “Hi, Adolfo.”
“Mi amor, my heart is warm now that I see you,” Adolfo said, and took her hand, brought it to his lips, and with his gaze on her eyes, he kissed her knuckles lovingly.
Leah laughed and tugged her hand free. “So what are you up to, today, Adolfo? Trolling the commissary tent looking for women?”
“Women! I have no need of women!” he said dramatically with an incongruent wink. “It is only you I wish to see, mi amor. Only you who fills my dreams with smiles,” he said, his hands doing a flowery little flitter. “Only you with the nectar that lures me to you.”
“Nice,” she said, nodding. “Your lines are getting better all the time.”
“Gracias,” he said, inclining his head in acknowledgment of her compliment. “I do it all for you.”
Leah snorted, resumed reading.