The Numbers Game (43 page)

            And that
was how they ended the call.

Work was a savior when
one was feeling depressed, lonely or suicidal.

            This
Serena realized with an utmost of gratitude every morning when she awoke.
Pre-breakdown (a.k.a. the golden days), the sound of her alarm buzzing used to
be enough to make her send the clock flying across the room; anything for five
more minutes, five more minutes of sleep. But nowadays the craving for more
sleep seemed like a distant dream. Like clockwork, Serena now set the alarm for
some ludicrous hour (four o’clock, five o’clock weren’t uncommon) and half an
hour beforehand her eyes would snap open like a whiplash, akin to the good ole’
high school days prior to an exam or big dance.

            When this
automatic eye opening started to happen increasingly earlier, Serena figured
out she had a problem and it was called insomnia. At first this was her biggest
nightmare come true– after all nighttime was typically her savior, her escape
for eight hours straight.  But after coming to work seven days straight looking
like hell warmed up, Champagne passed her over some purple pills to help her
sleep.

            “They will
do you the world of good. And from the way you look, they’re not a luxury but a
necessity.”

            Serena had
always underestimated prescription drugs before. But if they helped her sleep
and sleep helped her function like a normal human being, why the hell not go
there? In essence, her life had fallen into a hum-drum routine. Wake-up, work
and pass time on the movie set, come home, pop some pills and collapse on the
couch, then start all over again. Maybe it was because of this lack of time or
maybe due to the depression, Serena socialized with no-one outside her work
colleagues.

            That in
itself was funny because Serena used to consider herself the proud beneficiary
of many friends. She had friends everywhere she turned: people calling to
invite her and Markie to this launch or that, another dinner party, wedding or
engagement party. Where had all those friends gone? It was as if the moment
their break up had filtered down the grapevine (and obviously it had), Serena
was rendered too small to matter. 

            Oh well it
was better like this. It gave Serena time to think. Like about Markie’s
incredible job offer for instance. This was a two part dilemma for her, part 1)
being: did she want to move to LA? And part 2): with Markie that is? There was
no point in deciding to pack her bags if she couldn’t envisage living with
Markie or even loving him.

            The sad
truth was with all that was going on, Serena didn’t really care anymore. LA, Calcutta, El Salvador, they all sounded wonderful now that her life had hit rock bottom.
After “Never, Ever Again” wrapped up she had no definite projects lined up,
just a lethal load of promises. So moving to LA would probably make for a
really good career move. She knew loads of directors and producers out there,
who knew to call on her when in San Francisco. But by in large they were based
in Hollywood, many miles away. The lucrative jobs especially in Frisco were
sparse at best while in LA they came by the movie-truckload.  And wasn’t there
a saying: if the cat won’t come to the mouse the mouse should pay the cat a
visit?

            Yes but
they probably meant the mouse should love the person they were taking the trip
with. Serena was still severely confused about this.

            Yes, she
did love Markie, she knew this without a doubt, but how did she know if that
love was enough? How did she know if she loved Jasper more or less than Markie
or that another Jasper-type wouldn’t also enter her life somewhere down the track
and complicate her life further?

            Serena
needed to talk to someone who knew both parties but unfortunately only one
person sprung to mind: Tabitha, her ex-best friend who had evidently gotten
over her obsessive stalker phase. Serena hadn’t seen or heard from Tabitha in a
way, way long time. Weeks it must be… since she slept with feckwit Enrique, who
by the way had NEVER called her back.

            “Maybe you
should call her?” Violet suggested. From the way Violet bed-hopped with men who
treated her like crap, Serena took it she wasn’t a big fan of holding grudges.

            “But I
can’t! Tabitha was the bitch to me so she should call first to apologize.”

            “Mmm.”
Violet narrowed her eyes. “How long has it been now?”

            “Too
long,” Serena sighed. “After a week of almost torturous hassling, she’s given
up I think.”

            “Hang on,”
Violet raised her eyebrows. “You mean to say she did actually call you? But you
were just too stubborn-assed to respond?”

            “Sort-of.”

            “And
because Tabitha probably has some degree of self-respect she hasn’t tried
since?”

            “Plausible
once again,” Serena agreed reluctantly. Damn. She was hoping Violet or at the
very least Champagne would advise her to hold out a bit longer.

            “So I
guess you’re saying I should swallow my pride and do it myself, huh?”

            “Whatever
you think is right,” Violet responded, going back to organizing the scissors in
size order.

            Right,
well…

            Serena
tried to come up with every excuse in the book why she shouldn’t call Tabitha.
They included:

• She came home too
  late at night.
  
• What Tabitha did
  to her was unforgivable.
  
• Tabitha probably
  wouldn’t be home anyway.
  

            They were
all good excuses, so Serena allowed herself to suffer a little while longer.
Every day Champagne and Violet asked:
have you called her yet? Have you
called her yet?
And every day the answer she returned was the same:
No!
So can you please lay off my back for Christ’s sakes?

            Serena
wasn’t sure exactly when she started caving in to the pressure – it came as
such a surprise given the strength of her original pig-headedness. At first it
featured simply as an item on her to-do list: drop-in dry cleaning, pick up
milk, call Tabitha. Of course it featured for some time before she got the guts
to do it. But she got to it nonetheless.

            Sneaking
back into the trailer at the first valid opportunity, Serena picked up the
phone and quickly tapped in the numbers before she lost her nerve. Champagne
and Violet said they could buy her at least a good fifteen minutes by telling
the director she was having period problems, changing a tampon or something.

            “Hell, we
could even get you off work that way for the day.”

            Luckily
Tabitha’s phone didn’t click straight to message-bank, which was what had been
Serena’s biggest fear.  It simply dialed in that innocent yet rather
threatening way, in two toots. Toot, toot. Toot, toot. She knew Tabitha was
probably right now shuffling through that horribly big rucksack of hers and
trying to pull the phone out from between some tofu salad sandwich and her
beatnik beanie.

            “Hello?”
Yep Serena was right, Tabitha sounded like she’d just finished an energetic
session of sex. And we both knew how unlikely that was.

            “Tabitha
it’s me.”

            “Me who?”
Tabitha enquired, sounding genuinely stumped.

            Please it
hadn’t been that long! “It’s Serena,” she repeated, doing her best to suppress
the ‘stupid’, “Your old best friend, remember me?”

            “Oh,
Serena!” Tabitha’s voice came suddenly alive. “Oh hi, how are you? What are you
doing? How have you been?”

            The
questions came shooting at Serena like a machine gun. Any fear Serena had that
this might be awkward or uncomfortable was instantly erased. It was as if Tabitha
had a bad case of amnesia, she was off jabbering about the rather delicate
situation Serena had just caught her in.

            “I’m in
bed, if you must know,” Tabitha whispered. “He’s just gone to the bathroom to
take a leak.”

            “You’re in
bed, with whom?” Serena exclaimed.

            “Shh, I
can’t say right now because if he hears, he’ll know I’m talking about him
again. I’ll tell you over coffee. When are you free?”

            “I’m free
whenever…”Serena stuttered, realizing how terribly true it was. “Whenever
you’re free…”

            “Okay,”
Tabitha giggled, sounding excited. It was nice to know the girl hadn’t fallen
apart without her best friend. “How about tomorrow for lunch, I’ve got an hour
off for lunch and I can come over to the set.”

            The same
way she presumably made time for a bit of jiggy-jiggy in bed.

            “Um…We’re
not really supposed to have people visit but the director has been killing us
with overtime so I’m sure he’ll make an exception just once. Does one o’clock
sound fine?”

            “Perfect!”
Tabitha insisted. “Look I have to go; I just heard the toilet flush. See you
tomorrow then.”

            Yes
darling, I’ll see you tomorrow…

If Serena didn’t know
Tabitha better she could’ve sworn her old friend was waltzing onto the movie
set with a new massive “big star” attitude.

      Prima Donna
behavior: that was something she and Tabitha were dead set against. It came
partly from having experienced more than their fair share of trauma from
cinematic princesses who thought money equaled power, which in turn equaled
bitchiness. And being lethally bitched at left its scars. 

            Once when
Tabitha had scored a fluke editing job on the same movie as Serena (making
unnatural lines sound totally natural was her job description), the two leading
actresses – we won’t mention their names out of fear of litigation – took it
upon themselves to make Tabitha’s life a living hell. They spread rumors about
her nose (fixed), body type (part anorexic/part bulimic), breasts (fake though
the same size as Sienna Miller’s), even her Chanel 5 perfume (sprayed to cover
up her terrible flatulence problem apparently).

            Now you’re
probably thinking what did Tabitha do to deserve this? Maybe she said something
offensive in a smartass sort-of way…about the casting couch conduct which
apparently got the lead actresses their jobs. Or maybe they thought Tabitha was
simply jealous…about their money, their good looks, the way everyone tripped
over their tongues to make their life one long Disney ride. One could guess a
million things and never be right because Tabitha didn’t do one bad thing
-unless one counted simply being herself.

            She would
come into work, do her measly job, which involved proofreading, observing takes
and getting paid next to nothing, then leave for the day, after narrating to
Serena her new humiliating experiences. One time it was bubble gum in her hair,
another time it was Vaseline or glad wrap covering toilet seat and then salt
rather than sugar in her tea.  And Tabitha thought high school was bad.

            When
Serena suggested, Bitch 1 and Bitch 2 were probably just jealous of HER, Tabitha
had looked appalled.

            “What in
the world do they have to be jealous about? They get all the attention, they
have all the money. I’m just a down-to-earth nobody who lets people trod all
over her.”

            Serena
disagreed, well not about the doormat thing, because Tabitha did act docile and
tolerant of crap whilst on the set. Bitches 1 & 2 had to be jealous, why
else would they pick her out from the rest? There wasn’t anything alien about
Tabitha, if anything she was taller and skinnier than them, with naturally
clear translucent skin (Serena knew for a fact that underneath the inches of
makeup the Bitches were really as pimply as overly hormonal teenage boys – she
after all instigated their transformations and was secretly worried about acne
scars showing through the layers of foundation.)

            The bad
behavior continued until the end of Tab’s three-month stint and at the wrap up
party (to which both girls were invited) Tabitha reluctantly confided the
wisdom she had gathered from the debacle.

            “It’s true
what they say: what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger,” she had sighed.
“If anything I now know that while you can’t control other people’s behavior,
you can control your own. And nothing is more aggravating than in-your-face
niceness.”

            Serena had
nodded her head. Yep, the bitches definitely hated it when Tabitha played the
part of the perfect sweet girl. The boys had soon laughed less loudly at their
cruel antics and had even begun to defend innocent Tabitha.

            “So your
advice is to just let it roll like water off a duck’s back?”

            “Why not?”
Tabitha had shrugged, “I’ve can’t compete with movie stars, I won’t even try
to. That would be like banging my head against a brick wall. Like the song goes
you simply gotta know when to hold them, know when to fold them and know when
to walk away.”