Comedy of Erinn (16 page)

“Erinn,” Jude said. “I know I'm a pain in the ass, but a rocking chair would really add dimensionality to this scene. This museum seems to have a ton of furniture. Don't you think you could find a rocking chair?”

Erinn let out a sigh and stood up.

She quickly looked at Carlos and Gilroi, who looked back at her with blank expressions. They were clearly waiting to see what she was going to do. As she got up from her chair and headed off the set, she passed Carlos, who whispered, “Wussy.”

“Bite me,” Erinn whispered back.

Erinn smiled to herself as she gathered her skirts. She knew that, far from being angered by this unpleasant exchange, Carlos would actually take great delight in Erinn's bad manners.

I'm learning
.
And that's never a bad thing.

As she moved through the closed museum, she saw the perfect rocking chair in a room that was cordoned off with a black velvet rope. She looked around. The entire museum was deserted. She took a deep breath, unlatched the velvet rope, and went into the forbidden territory. She grabbed the rocker and flipped it over. Examining the bottom of it, she sighed in relief. This was a replica, not a valuable antique.

In her Broadway days, she was always breaking the rules. And misbehaving always gave her a rush. As Erinn walked back to the set with the rocking chair, she realized that she was humming. Jude had a habit of making her feel young and restless. She should know better. But, as Hemingway would say—
the hell with it.

E
rinn found herself enjoying the rest of the day. Jude had some inspired moments as a director, the fetus running her camera didn't break it, and Erinn cut five-pointed stars one after another without a hitch. The only problem seemed to be Lamont Langley. By the time Jude called for the crew to wrap, Lamont literally staggered back to the trailer, wig perched precariously on his head. Erinn followed his weaving with her eyes, pity welling up inside her. She realized that she wasn't the only one from those halcyon New York days who felt lost. Jude came up beside her and watched Lamont disappear into the trailer.

“Dude,” Jude said. “Your friend drinks too much.”

“I know,” Erinn said.

“He really sucked today . . . even without any dialogue. I'd like to fire his ass, but I can't. We
need
a George Washington . . . and one who fits into that costume.”

“I'll talk to him.”

“OK.”

Erinn was surprised that Jude relented so quickly.

“Thank you.”

“Don't thank me. You do good work, Erinn. I respect your judgment and I know you'll handle it.”

Jude walked away. She looked after him, a lump forming in her throat. It had been a long time since someone had praised her work. She walked to the trailer, turned her full skirt sideways so she could fit through the door, and went inside.

Rita was waiting sullenly to help Erinn out of her stays, but Erinn indicated that that would have to wait. She settled next to Lamont, who was draining his flask, boots on the counter, head, sans wig, tilted back. His eyes were closed.

“Lamont, listen,” Erinn said. “Let's have a chat.”

“A chat, dear Erinn?”

“Yes. About your . . . your . . . well . . . about your . . .”

Lamont opened one bloodshot eye and looked at her.

“Is this the great Erinn Elizabeth Wolf, beating around the bush?” he said, waving his flask at her.

Erinn took off her own wig, stole a quick glance at herself to make sure she didn't have wig hair, and plunged in. She had internalized enough about drama to understand that you can't present yourself as a figure of authority with pathetic-looking flat hair. She steeled herself.

“No, this is the incredibly humbled Erinn Elizabeth Wolf trying to hang on to her job—and trying to help you hold on to yours, Lamont.”

Erinn saw Rita perk up at this turn in the conversation. She busied herself with steaming the costumes as Erinn continued.“OK, Lamont, let's face facts. We're not who we used to be. Nobody is going to give us the best tables or the best tickets or the best jobs anymore. But we still have our talent and our dignity, and it's our duty to bring them to this show. You need to rethink your behavior.”

“What exactly are you saying?”

“I'm saying, I'll cover for you this time, old friend, but that's all. . . . You can thank me later.”

“Gratitude opens a crack in consciousness that lets grace in,” Lamont said.

“Don't you quote at me,” Erinn said.

“I wouldn't dream of it,” Lamont said.

“Good. And you'll stop drinking . . . at least on my company's time?”

Lamont stood up.

“No, my dear Erinn. I will not. You accept me as I am, or not at all.”

“Lamont. Those days are over. We don't get to call the shots anymore. You stop drinking on the set or . . .”

“Or what?”

“Or you're fired.”

“That sounds suspiciously like you're still calling the shots.”

“All right, let me correct myself.
You
don't get to call the shots anymore.”

“Oh, really?” Lamont said, weaving dangerously. “Well, then, go ahead and fire me.”

Lamont struggled out of his costume, flinging the coat, britches, and boots around the trailer. He put his hands on his hips and struck what he must have assumed was a majestic pose, his middle-aged gut hanging over his jockey shorts. Erinn, though livid, tried not to laugh. She noticed Rita furiously steaming a blouse in the background, feigning nonchalance.

“Lamont, I'm warning you. You are on thin ice.”

Lamont grabbed his coat and put it on over his undershorts. He then flung a scarf around his neck, preparing for a dramatic exit.

“I am prepared to give you a second chance,” he said to Erinn.

“You're fired.”

Lamont opened the door and stepped out. Rita and Erinn looked at each other when they heard a horrible crash. Erinn, slowed by her costume, hurried to the open doorway. She looked down. Lamont was sprawled in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, having misjudged the steps. Luckily, he had the Jell-O-like constitution of the pickled, and he stood up, unharmed, and wandered away, muttering. Jude came running over and looked up at Erinn.

“Reader, I fired him,” Erinn said.

“What?” Jude said, following her back inside the trailer. “I told you we needed a George Washington. Get him back.”

“Jude, you said you trusted me. I had no choice.”

“This is Friday! We're shooting Valley Forge on Monday!”

“Then I'll get us a George Washington . . . who will fit our costume . . . by Monday.”

“How?”

“I'm the producer, and I'll take care of it.”

“OK. This whole thing is in your hands, then.”

Jude jumped out of the trailer without using the metal steps. Erinn was once again impressed with his agility. She bit her lip, wondering what she was going to do next.

 

When the group got back to the hotel, the boys, all rubbing their sore shoulders and lower backs, went off to the gym around the corner. Erinn realized that she would have to get herself in better shape if she was going to compete in the boys' club on a physical level. She felt badly that they had to trudge into the cold evening to relieve their aches and pains. Erinn looked around the lobby. She still loved the fact that while the hotel might not be full of conveniences, it positively reeked of atmosphere. She now wondered, though, if that was enough. There were so many lessons she would need to mull over when she got home.

But for now, Erinn shouldered her heavy gear box and trudged upstairs. When she finally let herself into her room, she was gasping for breath.

Erinn looked out her window at her brick view. Sunset had settled over the city, but she just stood looking out. What would happen if she couldn't find a new George Washington by Monday? She realized that, while she would certainly be horrified to let the company down, she was most afraid of disappointing Jude. Was he right to have trusted her judgment?

Was Jude right and she wrong?

Could that be possible?

When it was clear that the wall across the back alley was not going to solve her problems, Erinn flopped down on the bed in defeat. She didn't have an after-hours number for the local casting office. There was no way they would be able to settle this crisis by Monday morning. She closed her eyes.

Her cell phone, silenced for the shoot, vibrated in her pocket. She fished it out and looked at the blinking number. It was her mother. Erinn flipped open the phone.

“Hello, Mother.”

“Hello, dear. How is Philadelphia?”

“Colonial. How is New York?”

“Fabulous, as always. I still can't believe you left this city.”

She knew her mother wasn't exactly rubbing it in, but she still found herself annoyed by the accusation that she didn't live in New York. The entire family, save Suzanna—who was born and raised entirely in California—had bounced between New York and California their whole lives. Erinn and Suzanna's parents, Virginia and Martin Wolf, had been big believers that dramatic change was good for the soul. They had met in college—in Philadelphia, ironically—gotten married, and moved to New York, where they had Erinn. Deciding that Manhattan was no place to raise a baby, they bought and remodeled a dilapidated old barn in Napa Valley, took jobs as college professors, and raised their girls.

When the girls went off to live their own lives and Martin died, Virginia retired and moved back to New York, just as Erinn was settling (in defeat) in Santa Monica. But as soon as she could, she planned on getting back to NYC.

In reality, Erinn was much more like her father than her mother. Although her father had been dead for nearly ten years, Erinn still missed him. An introspective intellectual, Martin Wolf had always wanted to live in the heart of New York City. When he and a pregnant Virginia went looking for their first apartment, Manhattan was the only place they looked. No other boroughs, no suburbs, no
Connecticut
for his family. He believed in the city the way other people might believe in a new love. Even when the family had uprooted itself to California, his attachment to New York was an infatuation that lasted until he died . . . and one that he had passed on to Erinn.

When they were younger, Martin took Erinn and Suzanna to museums, libraries, lectures, and concerts. Erinn loved these outings with her father, while Suzanna moaned and complained and begged to go shopping. Suzanna favored their mother both in looks and in her outgoing persona. Virginia was an intellectual in her own right, but had more of a well-rounded personality. Although it was never stated, the family came to understand that social outings would as often as not be divided, with Erinn and their father going one way, Suzanna and their mother going another. Over the years, Erinn and her mother had made a mutual effort to get closer, but there always seemed to be a barrier between them. Sometimes it was just a veil, sometimes a brick wall.“How are you getting along with . . . everyone?” her mother asked.

“I'm getting along with everyone just fine.”

“That's nice to hear. I know how you can be.”

“Oh? How can I be?”

“Prickly, dear.”

“Prickly?”

“I don't think I'm telling you something you don't already know. I don't believe anyone has ever accused you of becoming the next Miss Congeniality.”

“Very true,” Erinn said. She had to admire her mother's biting wit—perhaps this was where Erinn got her “snarky” attitude.

And she did have to admit to “prickly.”

“No problems with that young director person? Suzanna tells me he's very handsome.”

“No, Mother, there are no problems with the young director person. And yes, he is very handsome.” Erinn wondered
, Was he very handsome or just handsome?
She would have to dwell on that . . . but not now.

“Are sparks flying? Good sparks, I mean.”

For a fleeting second, she pictured herself in the throes of . . . Valley Forge, but it made her blush just imagining it.

“No, Mother. He is much too young for me.”

“Nonsense, dear. Didn't you see
Sunset Boulevard
?”

“Yes, well, the woman in
Sunset Boulevard
turned out to be crazy and the young man ended up dead in a pool. But thanks for thinking of me.”

“And what about your fabulous renter? How is he?”

Suzanna was certainly keeping their mother abreast of Erinn's life. She had to give her sister credit for that.

“He's wonderful,” Erinn said, thinking of Massimo with his regal bearing and broad shoulders. “As a matter of fact, he's perfect.”

E
rinn, with the help of her GPS, had managed to find her way back to the Philadelphia airport. Traffic had been terrible, and she arrived with just moments to spare. She parked quickly in the parking lot designated A
RRIVALS
and vaulted into the terminal. She was relieved to find that the passengers from the Los Angeles flight had yet to arrive at baggage claim.

Erinn had a habit of playing out scenes in her head before they happened. Ever since she was a child, she would try to figure out how a particular event would occur. When she was in grade school, she used to get her report card and, on the way home, create the scene of domestic bliss that would certainly transpire when her parents saw yet another semester of straight As. As she got older, Erinn added subplots. On the way home from high school, she would write her parents' dialogue not only praising her accomplishments but also the speeches required to admonish Suzanna, who had only just started grade school, for her less-than-stellar performances.

Sometimes, she would write a scene so convincingly that if it didn't happen exactly as she had planned, she was at a loss for how to deal with the reality. When she wrote the dialogue that was to serve for breaking up with her first boyfriend, she was speechless when the boy didn't follow the script and broke up with her first.

Erinn loved Henry Miller's statement that “We create our fate every day we live,” and she did that literally—she wrote her fate every day.

The problem was, she didn't edit. She often thought about how a given situation might play out and wrote the scene, but then didn't like the outcome she had devised. Instead of rewriting, Erinn would often just avoid the situation. When she thought about how an editor would react to the fact that Erinn hadn't finished whatever play she was working on, she was so hurt by the words the editor was uttering in her head that she just moved to California rather than deal with it.

Mimi, who knew all about this little quirk of Erinn's, pointed out that the editor's command of the English language was no match for Erinn's and that she should stop putting disapproving words in people's mouths—nobody but Erinn would ever come up with this stuff on their own. In reality, Mimi said, the editor would “just ream you a new one” and everyone could just move on. But Erinn had never mastered that. Once she had written the script and it had played out in her brain, it became her reality.

As she watched passengers straggle toward the luggage carousel, she reflected on her current situation. She knew her mission had been to find a new George Washington—someone who would look good in uniform and know how to act from his soul, since there was no dialogue. She knew Mimi would not be happy with how she was handling the problem, but as hard as she tried, she couldn't envision anyone from the production company caring how she solved this—as long as she solved it. Once she settled on that, Erinn put her plan in motion and never looked back.

One second, he was nowhere in sight, and then there he was, smiling at her. Massimo, wearing a light-blue dress shirt and dark-blue trousers, looked fresh and overdressed among the bleary-eyed travelers staggering toward their bags. He had his jacket slung over his shoulder, dangling from two crooked fingers, in that classic continental way that Erinn found disturbingly attractive.

As he continued toward her, Erinn wondered if she should confess to her dalliance in Valley Forge. She had, of course, taken this into account when she wrote the scene in her head involving Jude meeting Massimo. But Jude was maddeningly unmoved (in her head), which annoyed Erinn so much that she threw caution to the wind, called Massimo, and offered him the job of George Washington.

Erinn was so proud of herself for thinking of Massimo, it didn't occur to her until after she'd hired him that the production company might not be thrilled that they were importing an actor from Los Angeles, when there must be thousands of perfectly serviceable George Washingtons in New York or Philadelphia. But Erinn would have to deal with that question when it came up. She'd written the script in her head and she was powerless to stop herself from hiring Massimo.

“Bella,”
Massimo said as he approached Erinn, kissing her on both cheeks.

“You spoke with Suzanna about watching the cat?”

“
Sì
. She is fine with the cat.”

Erinn nodded. She knew she was a coward for pushing that conversation off on Massimo, but ever since Valley Forge, she had been keeping a low profile with Suzanna. Some sisters ran to the telephone whenever they had even the least interesting news to share, but that was not the relationship between the Wolf sisters. Erinn felt it was her duty to be a role model for Suzanna, so even at this stage in their lives, she didn't think it would do any good for Suzanna to know her sister had fallen—if not head over heels, at least ass over teakettle—into temptation.

Erinn retrieved the new Explorer from the parking lot while Massimo waited for his bag. She pulled up to the curb, and he shoved an enormous suitcase into the back of the SUV. Erinn smiled to herself. In her mind's eye, when she envisioned Massimo's arrival, she intuited a large suitcase. She had made his room reservation on the first floor of the hotel, so he wouldn't have to lug it up several flights of stairs.

A light snow was falling as Erinn pulled the SUV into traffic. Massimo looked out the window.

“Prevedono freddo?”
he asked.

“
Sì
. The forecast says snow today and tomorrow, but cold the entire week.”

“We shoot outside?”

“Yes. All week. But the costume is very warm.”

“Well, we die for our art, no?”

“I hope not,” Erinn said under her breath.

While Massimo got himself settled in the hotel, Erinn busied herself in her room. She had wrestled the Washington costume from Rita, who did not want it out of her sight. Erinn promised to guard it with her life, but she thought that the fact that Rita (who was a local hire) would have had to come out to the hotel on a snowy evening to fit the thing was what persuaded her to leave everything in Erinn's hands. Erinn wanted control of as much of this process as possible. She knew this was a house of cards she was building, and every step was . . . delicate.

Erinn second-guessed herself. Erinn knew that she was going to have to answer to Cary, who not only might wonder at the cost of bringing in an actor from out of town but might correctly think that Erinn was rash in casting Massimo—since Erinn really had no idea if he was any good or not. Jude might not like it because Erinn would have an alliance with the lead actor and that would shift the balance of power.

Erinn shook off her doubts. She had faith in her abilities as a producer. When she was working on Broadway, she was often called “The Lone Ranger,” which was not usually meant as a compliment. Erinn had to admit, she never really got the hang of “collaboration.” Why should she? She knew what she wanted and, after playing out any scene in her head, usually determined that she was right.

She tried to push away any fears that she might have overstepped her bounds. She had been given the responsibility to take care of business, and that was exactly what she had done. There was a knock on the door. She opened it and caught her breath as Massimo filled the doorway. She stood aside, and he walked in as if he owned the space.

Massimo, having slipped into his costume's waistcoat and breeches, stood in front of the full-length mirror as Erinn slid General Washington's blue wool coat onto his shoulders. The coat had a light-tan wool collar, lapel, and cuffs. Gilded buttons trimmed the length of the lapel. Erinn smoothed out the lines on the coat. She pressed her spread fingers along his broad back and they both admired him in the mirror.

The uniform looked as if it had been tailored for him. Erinn retrieved the wig from the wig stand on the desk and went to place it on Massimo's head. Realizing the height difference between them was too large a span for wig adjustment, she dragged her desk chair over to the mirror and jumped on it. She looked at the wig critically and stood in position to place it on Massimo's head.

Massimo put up his hand.

“No wig,” he said.

Erinn caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, balanced precariously on a hotel chair, with the wig poised as if she were about to complete a coronation. She realized she carried no authority in this position, so she stepped off the chair.

“Massimo,” Erinn said. “It's true that George Washington didn't wear a wig and just powdered his own hair . . . and I'm proud and touched that you did your research. But your hair is not like Washington's. You'll have to wear a wig.”

“No wig,” Massimo said. “It will . . . how do you say? . . . make my hair not quite wonderful.”

“Oh! Well, I see your point. OK, let's not worry about the wig tonight. But tomorrow, at Valley Forge, you'll have to wear it.”

Massimo scowled.

“We die for our art, no?” Erinn said. “And we wear wigs.”

Once she was sure Massimo was safely back in his room, and she knew that the costume would fit, she sent an e-mail to everyone involved.

Due to unforeseen circumstances
, the e-mail said,
Lamont Langley will no longer be featured as General Washington. Massimo Minecozzi, an accomplished actor, will play George Washington in all further scenes. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

She snapped the computer shut and went to bed. She tossed around the queen-sized bed, getting herself so tangled in the sheets, she was afraid the circulation would be cut off in her legs. She tried to will herself to sleep. It was always after the fact that Erinn started second-guessing herself. Was she making the right decisions? She had cast Massimo and sent the e-mail. She knew that they might have to reshoot a few scenes where George Washington was in close-ups, but she was sure most of the footage could be saved. Now it was up to fate . . . or destiny. Erinn remembered one of her favorite quotes by the poet James Russell Lowell: “Fate loves the fearless.”

And she fell asleep.

 

The alarm rattled Erinn awake. She leaped to the computer and signed on to her e-mail account. She knew that, technically, the people on the West Coast shouldn't be opening her e-mail about Massimo for another couple of hours, but she also knew that the whole lot of them—those on both the East and West coasts—tended to be night owls and compulsive e-mail checkers. She had no doubt everyone involved had probably read it during the night.

She sighed in relief as she read the e-mail from Cary, which said:

From Jude, she got a curt:

From Gilroi:

And from Mimi, to whom she hadn't written, but who had obviously heard about it from Cary: