King of Her Desire

17

"How's it goin' over there?" I asked Gerri.

And she said, "I've gained two pounds already. My God, she can cook!" Which made me laugh because her cooking was how we met, of course...

So, I sat down on this equipment chest thing nearby--I had a break because there was something weird with the "continuity" or something that they just couldn't get right.

Okay, "continuity." Let me explain. These things are new to me, too, though so I hope I get it right.

Anyway, it's just like how sometimes in a movie somebody's glass is full one minute and then they cut away and come back and it's half full—that's a continuity error.

The script supervisor takes pictures and does a sort of "inventory" thing to keep track of stuff like that. You can't have a chair jump from one side of the room to another—or in this case, it was cars and some other really obvious things on a street. Man, the director was pissed.

So, he sent us all off to do whatever we wanted and I grabbed my cell to call home.

And the second thing I asked was, "She's okay, though, right? Sochi?"

"She misses you. I miss you, for that matter—is it going well?"

I didn't even know what to say.

But I was grateful that she'd volunteered to stay in Tucson with Sochi to help get her "acclimated." Because I'd had to head for LA only a day after we took her across.

Sochi pretended it was cool. Kept telling me how exciting it was, this TV thing. And she was all into the little translator apps we downloaded so that she could talk to people in English. We were all walking around talking into our cells for a bit. It was hilarious.

But she kept saying, "I will learn now," bless her sweet little heart.

Only I told her English was kind of a weird language compared to Spanish. The sibs and I learned Spanish really easily because you could predict things after you knew just a few verbs and whatnot. But English--how is "rough" RUFF and "through" THRU? That's what I mean.

Gotta say she was in good hands with Gerri, though. Who got all into the "spirit healing" kind of stuff that she learns at those spas and whatnot. But she was right on, though, about that. The girl had been through holy hell and then moved across the border a few hours later.

The stupid shit I was going to LA to do was nothing compared to that. And I kept telling myself that, whenever I felt overwhelmed. I mean, somebody smearing makeup on your face is not the same as having your relatives bleed all over you, you feel me? I had nothing to complain about.

And I have to confess that I wasn't all that shook up. I picked up on something from the minute this young guy hopped out of the car they sent me before dawn. Just grinning and gabbing away...

The way they fawn all over you, the smooth "banter" they keep up to amuse you, for a hard ass like me, it's annoying as hell. I've had to read people to stay alive, right? So that kind of phony crap sets off all kind of alarms.

It's like nobody wants to get on your bad side when you're new, in case you wind up doing real well. But I could also see how they treated people who hadn't done all that well. And I made a "note to self" about that. May be lonely at the top but it's way worse when you're sliding back down.