The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty (16 page)

You look to your right to see if the famous American actress is enjoying the concert as much as you are. But she's not there. You look to your left. She's not there. In the midst of the chaos, the famous American actress and her two bodyguards have vanished.

You are by yourself for the remainder of the show. The women in front of you who recognized the famous American actress now turn to look at you with disapproving, judgmental eyes, as though you're the one who drove her away.

When the show ends you wait for the crowd to clear out and then head toward the stage. A security guard stands before a staircase, monitoring backstage access. You explain the situation. You tell him where you were sitting. You tell him you were with the actress.

He has three conversations via walkie-talkie. Then you are patted down and allowed backstage. You are given a silver sticker that looks like a sheriff's badge and told you must wear it on your shirt. The security person walks you to the green room, which is up a set of stairs. As you climb the stairs you
hear laughter. It's only as you get closer to the laughter that you realize the “green room” is in fact the changing area for jockeys.

Approximately fifteen people are gathered around Patti Smith and her band. You did not know the backstage crowd would be so small. Plates of vegetables and hummus and cakes are arranged on a table. Enough food to feed sixty.

“Hello!” a man says from a distance, and as he approaches he frowns. “Sorry, I thought you were someone else.” He puts on his glasses as though to explain his mistake.

“It's okay,” you say. “I'm with her. I mean, I was with her, but she had to leave.”

“Great,” the man says, removing his glasses. He seems relieved to not have to wear them. “Have you met Patti?”

The man who hasn't yet introduced himself to you introduces you to Patti Smith. You shake her hand. You watch your hand being shaken by Patti Smith. You have grown accustomed to the actress's elaborately manicured hands; in contrast, Patti Smith's hands with their short unpolished nails are clearly those of a serious musician.

You tell Patti Smith the actress had to leave and she tilts her head ever so slightly and says she understands, that you never know with crowds.

You are introduced to other people—men who worked with Patti in various countries, and their girlfriends, who are taller than the men and are wearing low-cut shirts. One wears a bustier with a suit jacket over it. She is bursting from it and you try not to stare. You can see that everyone is trying not to stare.

You are the first to dip into the hummus, the only one to eat the shallow glazed cake, topped with an array of orange fruit. When you feel you have stayed too long, you walk to the exit and turn and give a small wave. Everyone returns your polite wave with a more enthusiastic one. You try to interpret this as a good sign—they enjoyed meeting you—and not as a sign that they're relieved by your departure.

The next day, shooting starts at 9
A.M.
You are reeling from the night before, and wake up at 7:30, earlier than you wanted to. You decide to swim laps. The pool at the Grand is smaller than the pool at the Regency, its shape more traditional. You dive in.

You've swum twenty laps when you see the famous American actress approaching, flanked by her bodyguards. It's 8
A.M.
You swim underwater to the other side of the pool. When you lift your head, the three of them are standing there before you.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” the famous American actress says.

You have the feeling you're in trouble but don't know why.

“In private,” she says to the bodyguards. “We'll be over there.” She points to two chaise longues out of the forty facing the pool. All are vacant.

You hoist yourself up out of the water. The two men look at you for one second too long. You grab your towel and wrap it around your waist.

The famous American actress sits at the foot of a chaise
longue, and you sit down at the foot of the one next to hers.

“Look at them,” she says, staring at the bodyguards. One is three chaise longues to your left, the other four to your right. They are both looking in opposite directions, waiting, watching. There's no one else in the pool area.

“I guess they got frightened last night,” you say. Then you add: “That was scary.”

“You consider that scary?” she says. “You don't know how it usually is in like L.A. or London or something. Last night was tame. I think the boys just got excited because before coming here we were in the desert for a month. There was no one around us for miles and they had nothing to do.”

“It was a little weird how fast it happened,” you say, taking another towel from the chaise longue you're sitting on and placing it on your lap like a blanket. Like an elderly lady who gets cold in her living room.

“It's always like that. One person spots you and then suddenly you see, like, a ton of heads turning your direction and—
bam
—it's time to get out of there. Anyway, how was backstage? Did you get a chance to say hi to Patti for me? Tell her I was there?”

“Yeah. I can't believe I was talking to her. She said she understood and she was glad you came.”

“Good. Thank you for doing that. I didn't want her to think I was a no-show.”

You tell her it was an honor to meet Patti Smith.

The famous American actress looks at you for a moment and then gives you her famous lopsided smile. “You crack me up. You use words like ‘honor' and stuff.”

“It
was
an honor.”

“You're too much,” she says.

You look at her and see her brain is already miles away, thinking. You've come to learn something about her that she tries to hide: her mind never rests.

“What are you doing tonight?” she asks.

“I have to work till seven or so. Which means you're probably working later . . .”

“Yeah, I work late tonight.”

She looks at the pool, as though considering diving in. “I was wondering if I could ask you a favor.”

You shrug, but she's not looking at you—she's still staring at the pool—so you say, “Sure.”

“I'm wondering if you'll go out with someone tonight. I'm supposed to meet him for dinner at eight, but I have to work, and things are complicated . . .”

“Who is he?”

“It's a long story,” she says, and sighs. “I was sort of dating this man . . . he's a little older, Russian, debonair really, except for some of the bars he took me to in Moscow. Which were really fun, by the way. Bars in Moscow are amazing. Everyone gets naked onstage. Anyway, it was casual but then he fell for me pretty hard and . . .” She doesn't finish the sentence.

“So you want me to go have dinner with him and break up with him for you?” You laugh a little laugh.

“No, no, no . . . the thing is he didn't really fall hard for me, personally. He just fell for the
idea
of me.”

“He fell for the idea of dating an actress?”

“Not even that,” she says, examining her pedicure. “He
just fell for the idea of youth. Of a young woman listening to everything he said.”

“How long were you . . . ?”

“I didn't date him for that long. We'd see each other in different cities. Have dinner, that sort of thing.”

“That sounds serious,” you say. “It must have taken some effort.”

“It wasn't that serious,” she says, and you sense she's lying.

“Is he an actor?”

“God no. He's a Russian businessman. A really successful one, actually. Like
really
successful.”

“So he's in Casablanca for business?”

“No, no. He came to have dinner with me.”

“And you're going to stand him up?”

She sighs as though you're to blame for the situation she's in.

“I don't feel like it. I know he's seen pictures of me with other people recently and I know he's going to be pissed and I'm just not up for it. I think he'll be just as happy to see you.”

You tell her there's very little chance he'll be excited to see you if he's expecting her.

“He might be upset for, like, five minutes,” she says. “Tops. Then he'll be happy to have a young woman to talk to.”

You look at the sky. You look at the pool.

“I don't think I can do it,” you say.

“I think you can,” she says.

“I don't know.”

“I think you can, Reeves, or whatever your real name is.”

You look at her, but she's lying flat on the chaise longue now, staring at the hotel as though its profile is interesting.
She's threatening you, you're sure, but she doesn't look threatening. She is brilliant. You're confused. You start to sweat.

“Okay,” you say. “I'll do it.”

“Really?” she says, sitting up now. She acts as though you're doing her a favor. She's acting as though there's no way in the world she could have implied she would turn you in if you didn't agree. And she's so convincing that for a moment you think you might have imagined that she would blackmail you.

“Promise you'll make sure to show him a good time?”

You wonder what this means. “My clothes are staying on,” you say.

“Of course they are,” she says in a slightly reprimanding tone. “The car will be here at seven thirty. Just give him my regards and say I'm so sorry I got caught working late.”

She stands to leave.

“What's his name?” you call out after her.

“Leopoldi,” she says.

You watch her and the bodyguards as they reenter the building. The Moroccan sky above you is pale blue and cloudless, like the sky in a musical production for children.

When you return to your room, you find a green silk dress on your bed. It's lying flat with one sleeve down and the other raised up, as though holding a glass and making a toast. You shouldn't be surprised she already has a dress picked out and has sent it to your room. It was most likely already lying here on your bed even before she approached you at the pool. It's 8:30
A.M.
You have to get to the van.

You shower and dress for the day on set. It's a relatively simple shoot compared to yesterday's scene in traffic. In today's scene Maria enters a mosque to pray for Kareem, but she's uncertain about how to position herself. At first she's on her knees with her palms pushed together the way she readied herself for prayer during her Catholic childhood. Once situated, she furtively glances around and sees the Moroccan women are on their knees, but seated back on their heels. Their eyes are closed and their palms extended, as though holding open a book. Maria ends up sitting the way the women around her are sitting, and praying the way they are praying. She prays until she starts sobbing.

There are no lines in today's scenes. The script supervisor has warned you that the director is very indecisive about today's shoot; much of it will be improvised on the spot. So much of it will depend on how well the famous American actress can pull off the scene. There are tears involved: a risky proposition. The famous American actress was criticized for the last film in which she cried. It was an ill-advised romantic comedy set in Rome. Her chin quivered melodramatically. You have a vague recollection of a spoof of her crying scene on
Saturday Night Live.
But then your memory becomes clearer and you remember she was
in
that spoof; she went on
Saturday Night Live
to make fun of herself. And it worked to her advantage; the public forgave her, the public loved her for mocking her own performance. She has good PR people, the American actress does.

You wonder for a moment if it's the PR people who have instructed her not to go on the date tonight. Maybe her cancellation
on the businessman has little to do with her level of affection for him, and more to do with how it will look to anyone who sees them on a date and documents the sighting. Photos of her and the current young boyfriend on a sailboat named the
Ooh La La
have been prevalent in the weekly magazines as of late. One headline said:
YO HO HO ON THE
OOH LA LA
!

You descend to the lobby and exit the hotel and step into the van, where the Indian producer and the twenty-five-year-old are already seated, waiting for you. You don't know how you fell a few minutes behind. You blame the actress, and mention that she needed to talk to you about something important.

“Is she nervous about the scene today?” the Indian producer asks.

“No,” you say, and because you've already learned that he likes scandal, he likes gossip, you reiterate it. “No, she's not at all nervous.”

“
I'm
nervous about the crying scene,” says the young American producer. “If it were up to me, she would
not
be shown crying. Not after what happened in that ridiculous Italian rom-com fiasco.”

You think he has a point, but you can't say anything. You can't betray her. This is the unwritten contract between the talent and the stand-in. Or at least in your case.

You arrive at the mosque and you think you hear yourself inhale sharply. Or maybe it's the three of you—the Indian producer, the twenty-five-year-old, and you—who are collectively caught off guard at the same time. The mosque is enormous, and situated on the water—at first you think it's on
its own island. It's white and turquoise with an intricately tiled minaret topped with a gold point as firm and narrow as the needle of a compass. There's a short line of tourists waiting to get into the mosque. You've been told it's one of the only Moroccan mosques that allows non-Muslims to enter.

The van pulls up to one of the trailers parked outside the mosque and the costume department outfits you in a long skirt and a long-sleeved blouse, and the wig. You are given a scarf to place around your hair. No shots of you in the distance will be filmed today, so they let you arrange the scarf yourself.