Daddy's Girls (17)
“We should have suspected it. Abrams always closes his shows on a high, and this one really outlived all the predictions for it, and the projections. But ten years is ten years. Who knows, maybe he’s right. And I’d rather be looking for work for you after a hit, than after a show that went down the tubes, so there’s something to be said for that.”
“How fast do you think you can find me work?” Gemma asked, sounding worried. It was no surprise to her agent. All his clients did the same thing. They lived high on the hog when they were on a hit show, but had nothing to live on if the show closed.
“I’ll have to get out my crystal ball. I don’t know, Gemma. There are several new shows starting in the fall, but they’ve already got their stars lined up. I can definitely get you some appearances, but a starring role isn’t going to fall into our lap overnight. You know the reality here. You were thirty or thirty-one when you started on the show. You’re over forty now. You look fabulous and you don’t look your age, but work for a female over forty is not the same thing as for a thirty-year-old. It’s the ugly truth.”
“Are you telling me I’m over the hill?” she almost shrieked at him.
“No, but I’m telling you that there’s more work out there for a thirty-year-old than for a forty-year-old. That can’t come as a surprise to you. There’s work, but not as much of it, and a lot of forty-five-year-old actresses are scrambling for those parts.” She almost cried when he said it, but wouldn’t let herself.
“Well, I need work. I have a hefty mortgage on my house.”
“So does all of Hollywood. I have to look up your contract, but I think you get a three-month severance if they fold the show. Maybe four, I’ll check.”
“Jerry, that will get me through the summer, and after that I’m screwed.”
“Don’t panic yet. You’re a gorgeous woman with a big name. We’ll get you something, maybe enough appearances to tide you over for a season, and then you can jump on a new show. They’re doing great series out of England right now too. I’ll see what we can drum up there. Take it easy, Gemma, your career isn’t over. This is just a rough patch. It happens to everyone, and the show was bound to close at some point.” But she hadn’t planned for this at all. She lived lavishly from paycheck to paycheck, and had almost nothing in the bank. Her father had warned her about that. She never listened to him.
She poured herself a stiff drink after they hung up, and spent the rest of the night figuring out her expenses, the ones she couldn’t avoid like her mortgage, what she paid her maid, although she could fire her, her car payments, and now she wouldn’t have the freebies she got on a show, like wardrobe and hair, which cost a fortune, and all the perks that went with a starring role. She was being catapulted back to real life. As much as she hated to hear it, he was right. At forty-one, she wasn’t going to have the wealth of parts to pick from that she had had at thirty-one. Work started to dry up at forty, and actresses her age, really talented ones with big names, were begging for parts.
She was panicked, and she didn’t have her father to fall back on now. Before her part on the show, he had bailed her out several times, and even paid her mortgage for a year on the condo she had before her house. She didn’t have him to turn to now, and she could hardly ask Kate to support her. She didn’t even know that their father had helped Gemma repeatedly for several years until she landed the starring role. It was their secret, and now she had her back to the wall. She could sell her house if she had to, but she didn’t want to do that. She’d give up the Bentley immediately, and hope they would let her out of the lease, but there would probably be a stiff penalty. She had a ridiculously expensive tennis club membership she didn’t need, and a fancy famous trainer she paid five thousand a month to, who came every day. It occurred to her that she could rent her house out for the summer, furnished, and charge a fortune for it, if she really had to. But if she did that, where would she stay? She had the chilling thought that she could stay at the ranch for the summer, but that sounded like a fate worse than death. She could hardly make it through a weekend there, let alone an entire summer. She’d rather rent a studio apartment if she had to, but that was expensive too.
She had to rethink it all now, and re-examine everything she did. No more designer clothes on Rodeo, on a whim, or two-thousand-dollar alligator shoes. For the past ten years she had been living a part, like the one on TV, that suited her, but now the party was over, and she had to scramble in all directions to survive. She had never been so panicked in her life, because she had gotten so used to all those luxuries that seemed entirely normal to her now, but she could no longer pay for them.
By the next morning when she got to the set, she looked like she’d been dragged behind a bus by her teeth for a week, but everyone else on the set looked the same. There were only a very few actors who either lived simply, or had put money away. Most of them were like her, riding a wave, with the illusion that it would never hit the beach. It just had. She felt as though she had been run up on the rocks, and no one else on the show looked much better. They were worried about alimony, child support, rent, mortgages, private school for their kids, ex-wives, current wives, expensive girlfriends, and all the things they loved to do, from fancy restaurants to facials, trainers, shrinks, vacations, hotels, Ferraris. Gemma was not alone in her panic and misery, but that didn’t make it any better. The atmosphere on the set was agonizingly tense, and the only time anyone came to life was when they were on camera, but even their performances were impacted by how upset they were by the news of the day before. Their lifestyles and futures were on the line, and everyone was calling either their agent or their shrink or both. Her panic over her situation obscured her grief over her father for the moment, which was something of a relief.