How can I do this? How do I pretend to be Casey Lee? She does this every day, while I haven’t read from a TelePrompTer since college. What if showing up and trying to do her job is actually worse than if I’d called in sick? Won’t her cohost see right through me? She warned me Dean Anders is a total a-hole with a short man’s complex who looks for any opportunity he can find to steal her spotlight and bad-mouth her to the executives. It’s rumored he’s sleeping with Fiona too. Just that fact alone makes my stomach hurt.
“What are you doing out here?” I recognize Casey’s assistant, Destiny, a dead ringer for Beyoncé, tapping on my car window. “I’ve been texting you for the last thirty minutes,” she says as she yanks the door open. “Ryan McKnight cheated on his wife with some stripper on their anniversary! They want you to record a couple of teases about the shocking new details we’re going to reveal on the show tonight.” She rolls her eyes dramatically.
My head is spinning. What’s a tease? I struggle to think. And who’s Ryan McKnight? Isn’t he in one of those boy bands?
“Why would anyone care if he cheated on his wife? Isn’t he washed up?” I ask.
“Um, yeah, until he wasn’t! Until he got a part in that indie film and won an Oscar and is now an A-list actor who vacations with Clooney.”
I stare at her blankly. I really had been in a sleep-deprived haze since having Charlotte.
“Girl, what’s wrong with you?” Destiny stares at me long and hard.
I take a deep breath as she gives me a once-over. She knows I’m not Casey. I’ve already blown it.
“Oh, I know what it is. You’re not caffeinated, are you?” She shoves a Starbucks coffee cup in my hand and I obediently take a sip. “Come on. We’ve got to get you in hair and makeup and go over the script.”
I reluctantly follow her, my heart pounding in my chest as I think about what lies ahead. Now’s probably not a good time to reveal I have stage fright. It’s been more than sixteen years since I’ve been in front of a camera, and I’m certain it won’t be just like riding a bike, like Casey promised it would.
? ? ?
The next hour is a whirlwind as makeup is caked on my face, script after script is shoved at me (there’s a new color for every revision!), and getting my mic pac put on is more invasive than a full-body pat-down at LAX. About ten minutes before I have to go on camera I sneak off to the bathroom to try to calm my nerves. Luckily I’ve been to the offices before so I know my way around.
“I look like a man in drag,” I say to the mirror.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” A tiny blonde walks out of the stall. I know instantly she must be Fiona. “It’s normal for older women like you to have to wear more.”
Women like me. My heart sinks for Casey. She warned me that Fiona is a bitch, but I had no idea it was so blatant or hurtful.
She smiles, revealing a set of teeth so straight and bright white that they look almost as fake as her boobs.
I stare at Fiona as she fluffs her platinum hair in the mirror and I decide I’m not going to let anyone talk to my best friend like that. I don’t know what Casey would do in this situation, but I know what I would do. “Well, maybe if you’re ever on camera, you’ll know what it feels like,” I hiss, and walk out of the bathroom, momentarily forgetting all about my stage fright.
? ? ?
“Five, four, three, two . . .” The stage manager points to me and I freeze. Suddenly all eyes in the studio are fixated on me.
“Is something wrong?” A man wearing a headset—I decide he must be a producer—steps out from next to one of the cameras and walks over to me. I’m momentarily taken aback because he’s not acting rude and aloof like almost everyone I’ve encountered so far today. Even the production assistants have an attitude!
“I’m sorry. I was waiting for the . . . one?”
The studio erupts in laughter and my face burns with embarrassment. I knew I couldn’t handle this, I think as I stare at the crew members’ contorted faces, my humiliation growing. Suddenly I’m fourteen again, with a strand of toilet paper a mile long sticking to my pink pump as I walk into the freshman formal dance.
“We hardly have time for jokes,” Casey’s cohost, Dean Anders, says loudly, not bothering to hide his irritation. I look down at the box he’s standing on, shocked at how much arrogance he has for someone so short.
The producer shoots Dean a pleading look. It’s clear he’s been in the middle of this before.
“You ready to go again, Casey?” the producer asks.
The crew members, no longer laughing, now seem irritated. I hear one of the cameramen mutter under his breath, “We’re going to end up in overtime and lunch will be cut short.”
“Want a bottle of water?” Destiny calls from the side of the stage.
I nod.
“Don’t forget a straw. Her lipstick will take thirty minutes to fix if she drinks directly from it,” the makeup artist says curtly.
I take a long drink, smiling at the makeup artist through my straw. The smell of the lunch from the craft service area wafts onto the stage—is that lasagna?—and I notice the same cameraman sigh as he looks in the direction of the food.