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CHAPTEREIGHT
Jill Parker
Pre-production wheels had begun to turn on Devil’s Party and Jill was happy to have Kline there as they started to rehearse and move through the late stages of costuming. She hadn’t done a feature before and the pacing was wildly different from the stage. It seemed like every time something started to move forward, something else halted the momentum and it took an hour to fix to move on again.
Even the blocking was stop-and-start for the lighting and the angles. She was exhausted by the end of every day, even though she felt like she was doing nothing. Getting in and out of the character of Devon at the drop of a hat was as challenging as she had feared it would be, but she was a professional and she was going to make it work.
She was equally glad that August hadn’t signed on for costuming. There’d been some drama just before he left, and the lead designer was fired. She and August had shared happy pillow talk of how much fun it might be for him to have that job, if only the timelines with his other projects had worked out. Fun. Sure. That would have been mortifying.
While they waited on set for something that was supposed to take five minutes and not fifty, meaning they didn’t have time to drift away elsewhere, Jill sighed to Kline from beside him on a sofa, “Wardrobe! They are so mean!”
“Mean?”
“What’s a breakfast body?”
Kline started laughing. “Where did you hear that?”
“Two of the girls were talking about how hard it is to fit me. They said I had a breakfast body.”
“Fried egg tits and a pancake ass,” Kline said, still laughing. “They’re calling you skinny.”
“I’m supposed to be skinny! This character is a dancer!”
“Have you seen the dancers out here? The Laker Girls?”
Jill glowered at him. “A ballet dancer.”
“It’s not bad. It just means they’re having to do their jobs. I’m sure Mel’s creaming over you. She hates thick actresses.”
“Devon is a fragile, overworked dancer. She’s not supposed to inhabit a cheerleader’s body.”
“Babe, I know.”
“No one’s ever complained about my body before,” she said sulkily.
“Welcome to Hollywood.”
“What are they saying about you?”
“Behind my back? No idea. But to my face they all appreciate the work I’ve been doing. Mel says I’ve never looked better.”
“I’ve never looked better!”
“You want me to take a look?”
She considered the offer and was about to answer when everything buzzed back to life around them. “Mic’s hot,” came a voice. “Lights. Good. Set that a little left, Joe. Good. Good. Okay. Camera ready. Ready on set.” The AD picked up the slate. “In three, two, one…” And the voice trailed off as the director pointed.
Kline had his hands on her shoulders, gripping them hard. No, not Kline. Andrew. Andrew had his hands on Devon’s shoulders, gripping them hard. He was angry because she’d embarrassed him in front of his friends. She was afraid he was going to hurt her and was cringing away from his snarling words. He lifted his hand and the director called cut.
“Great! Good! Mark that. This is one. Let’s get set up for beauty one and beauty two, then long one and long two. I like it. This is going to be beautiful.”
Jill tried to shake off the fear she’d channeled between the set ups, but with each repeat, it was that much harder, until at the end of the day, she was a shivering mess. “Kline,” she said, taking a seat next to him in the golf cart that would drive them to their cars. “This is hard!”
“No shit! You’ve been up there on the boards looking down on all of us movie actors, and now you know.”
“It’s entirely different muscles!”
“Entirely. But you can do this, Babe. You did great today. When we actually get filming, it’ll be better. The studio will be quieter and not as insane in the background, and you can just kind of roll better. You don’t have to get in and out of the body, you know? You can just kind of stay in it between setups. Just go to your trailer and rest, or whatever.”
