Читать книгу Pop Tart - Kira Coplin - Страница 8

Stardom isn’t a profession; it’s an accident.

–Lauren Bacall

‘Oh my God! What did you do to her hair?’ Robert screamed out, suddenly appearing out of nowhere, and not caring that everyone within a mile radius could hear him. I had to think fast and save face.

‘It’s a new look, everyone’s doing it in Europe,’ I lied.

‘I love it!’ Brooke gleamed, still staring in the mirror and ignoring Robert. ‘It looks amazing!’

Now, I knew it didn’t…and so did Robert, but time was running out and at this point I was just happy that Brooke liked anything I did. Scowling at me, Robert took Brooke’s hand and yanked her out of the makeup trailer.

Though the fear of coming face-to-face with that awful hairdo again was almost more than I could bear, I was booked for the length of the shoot, which included touchups for all three scenes. I winced as Brooke emerged onto the set, waiting for gasps of shock from the crew as the dancers rushed to avert one another’s eyes from the horror. But to my surprise there were no stunned silences or shrieks of terror–only the sound of giddy anticipation from those excited to finally begin filming. ‘Brooke!’ A petite male, one of her dancers I assumed, called out. When I realized his attention was focused on the top of her head, I cringed. ‘That is so beat!’

I wasn’t sure what ‘beat’ meant, but from the smile on his face as well as the admiring looks from the others around him it didn’t appear to be a bad thing. Happy to be the center of attention, Brooke cleared her throat as if she were about to make a speech.

‘I’ve dreamt of filming a music video like this since I was just a little girl,’ she sighed sweetly to her dancers–who jumped up and down, playfully cheering her on–and members of the video production team that were within earshot. ‘Thank you all for making my dreams come true today. The fact that I’m just standing here…well it’s all so serendipident.’ Serendipident? I cringed–she already looked so silly standing up there with that huge mop of misplaced extensions on her head–and now she’s making up words! But no one seemed to notice. They were all completely charmed by her.

Like the ‘Pillow Talk’ lyrics, the story idea for the shoot was pretty simple; therefore, the director spent an inordinate amount of time shooting what he kept calling ‘attention-grabbing angles’ to make the most out of what little they had to work with. Despite the title of the song, the first scenes we worked on–like the one where Brooke dances up and down the aisle of a school bus with girlfriends–seemed innocent enough. After that day, ‘Pillow Talk’ would be stuck in my head forever.

Looking up at the clock in the dressing room, I yawned. It had been a long day and I couldn’t wait for shooting to begin on the final segment–the slumber party scene. I went to work, prepping Brooke and two of the actresses hired to play her ‘BFFs’ while the production team set up.

With a tiara in her hand, Brooke made her way across the set, where the director was busy testing out different filters and gels, asking those around him which gave off the most surreal look.

‘Robert wanted me to give this to you–it’s part of my costume,’ said Brooke, clad in a fluffy pink robe.

‘A tiara, huh? That’s very fitting.’ I smiled, struggling to nestle the rhinestone-encrusted tiara in between the stacked wefts. Suddenly, I became aware of a presence eyeing me from the doorway. Looking up, I caught the gaze of a man–who I guessed to be a little older than me, maybe in his late twenties–wearing a suit. He was handsome, I decided, in an almost unconventional way–with perfectly textured dark brown hair that looked almost black, and kind chocolate brown eyes.

‘Hi.’ He moved toward me. ‘David Kagan, nice to meet you.’ As I introduced myself, I took note of his direct nature and air of extreme confidence.

‘So how did you get roped into working with Green?’ David asked.

‘Green–oh, Steve?’

‘Yeah,’ he smirked, patting Brooke’s shoulder, ‘that guy’s a real piece of work. Gotta love him.’

‘Are you–do you work together?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, I’m one of the lowly assistants at this firm,’ David joked. ‘So, a makeup artist–a creative girl, huh? I like it.’

‘And she’s really good too…’ Brooke half-whined before turning her attention to me. ‘I really want you to come on the tour with me…I love my makeup, and especially my hair.’ She looked back at David, batting her doe eyes like a little girl before saying softly, ‘Will you please tell Steve that Jackie’s the one I want?’

Anything you want, princess,’ he said as she stood from the chair. ‘Now get out there, they are waiting for you on set.’

Wearing robes almost identical to Brooke’s, the actresses commissioned to play her friends stood patiently inside the sound stage. There, three pink, candy-colored walls had been erected to create Brooke’s bedroom, where a white shag rug, oversized queen bed, and window shades painted to look like a cloud-covered sky completed the set.

‘Now remember ladies,’ the director yelled out before cueing the music, ‘the pillow fight is a sport and an art form, keep that in mind. And make it sexy!’

His comment caught me a little off-guard, considering that it was supposed to be a simple slumber party scene that featured BFFs doing things like eating pizza and making prank phone calls. But what really took me by surprise was when the girls dropped their robes, which I had naively assumed were costumes. This has to be a joke–Brookes so wholesome! So innocent!

Clutching large white feather pillows, all three girls kneeled on the bed with Brooke positioned in the middle, facing the camera. The blond to her right, who looked way too old to be playing a high school student, was wearing a pink soft-cup bra with double ruffles and a magenta satin bow paired with matching bottoms. A double strand of fake pearls was draped around her neck and on her feet she wore pink bunny slippers. The girl to her left, who thanks to her dark skin appeared ageless, wore a retro-inspired lace-up halter camisole and garter skirt with scalloped lace edges and contrast piping. Brooke’s ensemble, even though it covered more skin than the others, was perhaps the most shocking. Certain aspects of the two-piece outfit–the top’s puffed sleeves and the lace ruffles that lined the boy shorts–looked very cutesy, almost childlike. And at the same time, accents like the bold leather trim and lacing screamed seductress. My eyes suddenly focused on her chest, which swelled beneath the sweetheart neckline of her top. Even though it made me feel like a creepy old man, I stared in shock, and so did everyone else. What had Robert done to her?!

‘That top looks a little small,’ Steve barked from the sidelines.

‘Well, it’s the biggest size we have,’ Robert answered in a tone plagued with annoyance. Signaling toward Brooke’s mysteriously perky chest, he scoffed, ‘Unfortunately there’s not much I can do with those things now.’

Before I even had time to mull over Robert’s biting response, a production assistant whizzed my way, tossing a bottle of baby oil at me.

‘She needs to glow! Make her look sweaty,’ he barked.

After drowning her in oil, I plopped down on a chair off set. David took a seat next to me, somehow able to ignore the fact that the shoot had turned into what looked like a soft-core porno flick.

‘Be glad you’re not on the business end of things…ugh,’ he said out of the blue, taking a sip of the bottle of water in his hand.

‘That bad?’ I asked.

‘It has its ups and downs, just like everything in life, but out here it’s nonstop. It wasn’t this crazy in New York.’

‘Did you just move here?’

‘When my old boss decided it was finally time to retire a few months back, he felt bad leaving me without a job so he called up a friend of his out here who was expanding his client list and the rest is history. It was pretty hectic at first. I’d never even been to L.A. before and there I was, moving across the country to work for a guy who really puts a lot of pressure on himself and his employees–I feel like I’ve gotten the hang of things now–but it’s shown me that even a veteran like Steve has to continually prove himself out here. But, he’s good at what he does…’ David paused for a moment before turning back to me. ‘Oh yeah, the job is yours if you want it.’

‘What job?’

‘Brooke’s tour dates with the Emerson Brothers…you’re interested, no?’ David raised an eyebrow. ‘I talked to Steve about it–and when I say talk, I mean that he waved his hand at me and nodded while on his BlackBerry.’ He laughed, waiting for my response.

‘Oh really? Wow, I thought she was joking…’ I said in disbelief as I watched Brooke break into song, the two other girls trailing her every move. She had seemingly morphed into a different being–one bursting full of energy and boasting an undeniable sex appeal.

‘So…do you want it or not?’ David asked again.

‘Yeah. Of course, that would be great,’ I muttered. It wasn’t that the job prospect didn’t interest me, it did. But at that moment, I was fully intrigued by the anomaly performing in front of me. The young woman on the video monitors wasn’t the same naive girl that had just been sitting in my makeup chair while I piled fistfuls of synthetic hair a mile high on her head. She wasn’t the same girl who chomped her bubble gum obnoxiously or snorted when she laughed too hard. And she certainly wasn’t a girl who would use a word (if you can call it that) like ‘serendipident.’ This was a girl with total power and control. Brooke flowed through each directed step–dancing for a few seconds before turning back to swing her pillow, which burst open with feathers on every take, at her girlfriends.

It was pretty late by the time the director finally called ‘cut!’ As the lights went down, prompting a team of assistants to begin attacking the feather-filled stage with brooms, Brooke sprinted back to the dressing room, grinning from ear to ear. I began packing up my belongings, which were scattered everywhere, so that I could go home. I peered over at Brooke who, standing in the corner surrounded by dancers (her besties, as she called them), had erupted into a fit of giggles. I smiled as I scanned the mess of hair clinging to her scalp. It was a strange coincidence, I thought suddenly, recalling an old art history course I’d taken, that she had compared herself to Cleopatra earlier in the day. The Egyptian queen was known to use her melon-shaped hairstyles and wigged headdresses to enhance her power and fame. And maybe Brooke wasn’t just the dumb gum-chewing, pageant princess she appeared to be. Tossing her head back with laughter, Brooke looked beautiful. She looked like a star. Maybe she wasn’t as innocent as she would’ve liked everyone to believe.