I'm Glad My Mom Died(34)

“Jennette. More. Head. Movement.”

He turns and walks away.

“WHY AREN’T WE ROLLING!” he shouts.

The cameras roll. We start the scene. I don’t even know the words coming out of my mouth, but I trust that they must be the words that were written on the page because nobody’s stopping me and saying I’m speaking gibberish. It’s an out-of-body experience, doing the scene leading up to the kiss. My heart is pounding. My hands are clammy. Here it comes here it comes here it comes.

We lean in. Our lips touch. Lips feel nasty. They’re like little gross fleshy piles of flesh. It’s disgusting to be a person.

Shoot, I’m supposed to move my head. I start moving it. Back and forth. Back and forth. I sway it around. It doesn’t feel natural so I’m sure it doesn’t look natural. Nathan, as his character, Freddie, finally breaks away.

“Cut!” The Creator shouts. I can tell by his tone that he isn’t happy. He looks to the assistant director.

“Do we have time for another?!”

“Not really, sir, we’ve gotta head to scene J if we’re gonna wrap on time.”

“Fine,” he says angrily. “That was not ideal but FINE, we’ll move on. I’ll be at crafty!”

The Creator storms off, heading to crafty for his chips or his bagel or his minestrone soup. I watch him go. I’m sad I didn’t please him.

“Hey, we’re done,” Nathan says kindly, knowing how nervous I was to do my first kiss on-screen with him.

“Yeah,” I say with a nervous half laugh. “We’re done.”

Just like that, my first kiss is over with. And my second kiss, and my third kiss, and my fourth and fifth and sixth and seventh, technically, since we did seven takes.





33.


“MAKE SURE YOU SMILE A lot. With teeth. When you do your no-teeth smile it looks kind of forlorn,” Mom tells me as she changes lanes on the 405.

We’re on our way to a lunch meeting with The Creator. I’m nervous because Mom says a lot is at stake. She thinks this could be an “I’m thinking of giving you a spin-off” lunch date, since it’s very common for him to write spin-off shows for characters of his current shows. I’ve thought about telling Mom I think we might be disappointed if we put that expectation on it, but I haven’t said a word. She does well when she has something in my life to look forward to.

“And don’t forget to act really interested in whatever he says. Really engaged,” Mom tells me. “Try and make your eyes a little wider if you can, it’ll help ’em pop.”

I nod along.

“One of us should bring up my cancer, too, to really get him on our side. I can take that if you’d like…”

“Sure.”

“Great. Great great great,” Mom says excitedly.

We get to lunch right on time. The Creator’s already there, sunglasses on even though he’s indoors. He lifts them up when he sees us. He stands up from the booth, hugs Mom first, and then hugs me into a tight squeeze, picking me up off the ground.

“McCurdy Curds,” he says, finally setting me down as he repositions his sunglasses. “My favorite little actress.”

Mom beams.

“You know, I work with a lot of young actresses. A lot of them are pretty, some of them are funny, but none of them are as talented as you.”

Mom’s face looks like it’s gonna rip if she smiles any bigger. I smile too, with my teeth like Mom specified.

“Thank you.”

“I mean it,” The Creator continues on, spooning some of the tuna tartar he already ordered onto his appetizer plate. “You act circles around them. You could win an Oscar someday.”

“Thank you.”

This is how conversations with The Creator usually start. He’ll heap the compliments on, while undercutting other talent that he works with. I appreciate the compliments. The Creator’s approval means a lot to me. He’s the reason I’m a series regular on a television show. He’s the reason my family and I don’t have to worry about money anymore. But at the same time, I wonder if he’s trying to pit me and his other talent against one another. I wonder if he says the same sorts of things to each of his talent so that we each stay in line and think we’re in his good favor.

I wonder this because, now that we’ve worked on an entire season of television together, I’ve had plenty of time to get familiar with The Creator’s ways. To understand him.

I feel like The Creator has two distinct sides. One is generous and over-the-top complimentary. He can make anyone feel like the most important person in the world. I’ve seen him do this when he made the entire crew give our production designer a five-minute standing ovation for the jail set he built in two days, or when he gave a speech thanking our stunt coordinator. The coordinator cried with gratitude. The Creator knows how to make someone feel important.

The other side is mean-spirited, controlling, and terrifying. The Creator can tear you down and humiliate you. I’ve seen him do this when he fired a six-year-old on the spot for messing up a few lines on a rehearsal day. And when a boom operator accidentally dropped the boom into a shot and The Creator stomped over to him and screamed in his face that he was responsible for ruining a magical take and he hoped that he would regret it for the rest of his life. I’ve seen The Creator make grown men and women cry with his insults and degradation—he’ll call people idiots, buffoons, stupid, dumb, sloppy, careless, retarded, and spineless. The Creator knows how to make someone feel worthless.