Nine Women, One Dress(51)
When we arrived at Miss Florence, my anxiety seemed to melt as quickly as the cubes of butter on my scrumptious blueberry pancakes. I don’t know if it was the quaint town, the good company, or just that hopeful feeling that seems to ride along on a road trip, but I was thinking less about the possibility of a disastrous outcome and more about just enjoying the ride. In true buttinski form, Tomás convinced us that we should go all out to surprise Jeremy. Going all out for Tomás always began with the right outfit. Now that I was enjoying myself I was totally game. His plan included a stop at a ski shop in Bennington, where I would buy head-to-toe skiwear so I could disguise myself on set. I thought for sure Albert would veto the whole thing, but he was so smitten with Tomás that he didn’t want to dampen his spirit. I was all in—it was the most fun I’d had since Turks and Caicos. But once I zipped up my ski suit my nerves kicked back in and I begged Albert to call Jeremy and feel him out. What if he never wanted to see me again? Albert dismissed me, saying he didn’t want to bother him during filming—a pretty absurd answer, considering we were driving up to crash his set. But I let it go.
According to my close friend and personal concierge, Siri, we would arrive at the set just before dark. This was apparently of great significance, because Albert became particularly adamant that we not interrupt the last hour of daylight at the shoot in any way. We swore we wouldn’t, arrived on the set, and did just as we’d promised. I even wore my ski mask to ensure that Jeremy wouldn’t recognize me and blow his scene. Albert ran off to pee and Tomás and I stood quietly on the side as discreetly as possible. We were both nervous and excited. It was in between shots and the director was calling for the extras to come up. A group of ski bunnies paraded right by us, and Tomás nudged me into the line. Swept away in the moment, I didn’t protest—the right outfit can really give a girl confidence, I guess!
A stylist quickly perused the group, tucking, zipping, and unzipping seemingly at random. When she got to me, she ripped off my face mask. “Where did this come from?” she asked.
“Quiet on the set!” someone shouted, saving me from answering.
I remembered the scene well from reading the script. Spoiler alert: it was the final scene, an après-ski in front of the lodge, following that frustrating ten to twenty minutes in the last act of a romantic comedy when the boy and girl break up due to some unavoidable obstacle, only to realize the foolishness of their ways and travel by foot/cab/horse, or in this case snowmobile, to reach each other and confess their undying love. The irony was not lost on me.
Jeremy was supposed to sit with his feet up, gazing at the mountain, melancholy, while sipping a hot chocolate. I looked around for him but only saw Albert wildly gesturing for me to cease and desist. I searched the crowd for Tomás, hoping for a nod of support, but he was nowhere in sight. He had been eyeing the craft services cart when we walked in; hunger or nerves must have gotten the best of him. Some ride-or-die chick he turned out to be!
Jeremy walked onto the set in all his glory and my heart dropped to my knees, which both began to wobble. All the confidence that I’d had around him when he was gay seemed to have disappeared, along with any anger I’d felt over the whole misunderstanding.
The director yelled, “Action!” The scene began just as I remembered from the script. Jeremy sat, sipped, and gazed up at the mountain, the sound of a ski patrol rescue snowmobile revving in the distance. Another skier, fresh from the slopes, ran to him and grabbed him by the jacket. It was Lance Ludwig the Third, Jeremy’s character’s arch-nemesis.
“It’s Nancy—she took a horrible fall,” he said, sobbing. “I’m not sure she’s gonna make it.”
Jeremy stood and shouted with guttural anguish up the mountain, “Nancy!”
As his cry echoed in the woods, he grabbed his ski poles and headed for her. He was so convincing and I was so crazy for him that my gut impulse was to stop him from reaching her. It was a legit knee-jerk reaction—I stuck out my leg and tripped Jeremy Madison mid-ski, causing him to lunge forward and bang his head on a tree stump. As he grabbed his head and rolled to his side, groaning, I ran to him and kneeled down, taking his face in my hands. He opened his eyes and smiled at me, and I responded by kissing him sweetly on the lips. He stood up and shook the whole thing off like a tackled linebacker at the Super Bowl. He grabbed my arm and raised it in the air like we were champs, and then pulled me toward him for the kiss of all kisses, the one formerly destined for his leading lady.
The director screamed, “We’re wasting light here!” while Albert ordered everyone with a camera to take photos and post them to their feeds. We were trending by sunset.
And so it was that I finally ended up on the pages of the New York Post. “Who is that mystery girl with Jeremy Madison? The enchanting”—that’s a quote—“Natalie Canaris.”
Go on, ask me if Flip Roberts saw it.
My answer? “I don’t know and I don’t care!”
CHAPTER 31
A. This Story Ends Badly
B. You Won’t Feel So Bad About It
By Ruthie, Third Floor, Ladies’ Dresses
There are three different types of salespeople in a department store: those who hang out in the dressing rooms (“Do you need another size?” “We have that in a beautiful aquamarine if you’d like”), those who hang out by the register and get the “Did anyone help you with this?” leftovers, and those who walk the floor asking if anyone needs assistance. When I first started out I was a big floorwalker, not much interested in gossiping in the dressing room with the other salesgirls.