Mexican immigrant wanted to charge me fifty bucks for it on the Upper East Side,” she exclaimed in her trademark raspy voice. “I said, ‘You’re not even allowed on the Upper East Side!’ I tossed him a twenty and told him to give me the poncho or I was going to call INS.”
“Damn those leaky borders,” I replied.
Before I could tell her how the yellow angora of the poncho almost perfectly matched the yellow jaundice of her skin, the Loretta everyone knew, hated, and fawned over announced her arrival in typical Monday morning fashion.
“People!” she shouted very much like the male passengers on the Titanic when they were told there really were no extra life jackets. “Where’s my fucking coffee?!”
Experience had taught me that when Loretta screeched, you had to get out of the way or risk being trampled by the throng of interns, entry-level producers, personal assistants, and nervous executives who inevitably responded to her banshee cry the way the Oompa-Loompas responded to Mr. Wonka’s piccolo whistles. (Which I always believed was a nod to Captain Von Trapp’s ingenuous way of calling his children to order before Maria swooped in from the mountains and offered the captain two new favorite things to wrap his lips around.) My adrenaline kicked in and I, along with my trusty Starbucks Usual, sought cover in the first office I could find, which luckily was the site of the production meeting I was almost late for.
“Steven!” cried Laraby Simmonson, my boss and a closeted homosexual.
To be honest, no one knows if Laraby really is gay, but he is definitely gay-ish. And all that’s needed to start a rumor about the sexual status of a single man working in the soap opera industry is the ish part. Personally, I never understood the fascination about Laraby’s sexual preference because he looked like a cross between Dick Cheney and Jeff Stryker. Even if he did possess an incredibly long, thick and mouthwatering dick, he was also fifty-something, short, balding, pasty, and when he wasn’t being arrogant he was being charming in order to persuade you to believe in or do something you knew in your gut was false and evil. But in defense of all the “Is he or isn’t he?” rumors, Laraby is the only person I know who can transfeminate from frat boy to sissy queen in three seconds flat. And transfemination usually occurred on Monday mornings as a tonic to thwart Loretta’s hungover harangues.
“Dude!” Laraby shouted like my college dorm buddy. “We went up one-tenth of a point in the ratings!”
“That’s great news,” I said with a fake smile since I had already heard the news over the weekend.
Then Laraby shifted gears and sounded like my other college dorm buddy, who went to bizarre lengths to try and catch glimpses of me partially or fully naked.
“That’s fabulous news, Stevie! We should celebrate. Is it too early in the morning for canapés? What about a mixed fruit parfait? Chez Vouvez downstairs has the freshest berries all year long, all year long, can you believe it? And the chef, Roget, who I think is from Prague, puts them in the most darling parfait glasses that have slender necks and plump bottoms. They remind me of my mother. What do you say, Stevie? Should we do it? Should we celebrate?”
At that moment I realized even if Laraby was gay, I didn’t care. I was not the canapés, parfait, or Vouvez type. I like things simple. And he was a very complicated man.
“Why don’t we just raise our coffee cups in honor of everyone’s hard work?” I said.
A light mist appeared over Laraby’s eyes as suddenly as a San Francisco fog. My words had touched him.
“Your simplicity and honesty never cease to amaze me, Steven,” Laraby said as his eyes welled with water. “Perhaps one night we can go to dinner. Some place simple, and talk about the simple things.”
I took an extra-long sip of my Starbucks Usual (which I will refer to henceforth as my SU) and was contemplating how to articulate a response that wouldn’t get me fired or groped, when the rest of the production staff barged into the room. Perfect timing is a soap’s mainstay.
“Bitchola is in rare form this morning,” cried Lourdes, the continuity girl. “She got all up in my face crazy cuz I told her that hot coffee is only gonna make her hot flashes seem hotter.”
“Did she throw her coffee in your face?” asked Leon, the lead director.
“No, she spit it on me,” Lourdes replied, showing us her coffee-stained shirt. “I’m letting the stains settle, then I’ll sell it on eBay to one of her psychotic fans. Give me a bitch, I’ll make bitchinade.”
“Excuse me,” Laraby said as a cue that the Loretta-bashing should cease. “I’d like to propose a toast.”
With the same conviction that Brigitte Nielsen once adopted to convince Sly Stallone that she would remain faithful to him even if the Rocky franchise went bankrupt, Laraby explained that despite the harsh truth that the world of soap opera had seen much better days, ITNC was still able to perform a miracle every now and again. At least one-tenth of a miracle. And before we entered the madness that is Monday morning, he wanted us to raise our coffee cups and pay homage to all of those who helped make this mini-miracle come true.
While no one was looking, Laraby raised his coffee cup one-tenth higher in my direction and winked at me, just like Frank had at Starbucks less than twenty-four hours before. I smiled weakly; was this a sign from above that I should sprint to my office to call Human Resources, or to call Frank? Regardless of what signals I was being sent, the phone calls would have to wait; Monday morning had begun and all else, including my Frank, would have to be put on hold for the next nine hours. When I’m at work, I am all business.
A half-hour later I ran to my office to check my messages while there was a break in taping. Lorna and Loretta were in the middle of a crucial scene that was an extension of last Friday’s cliffhanger in which Lorna as Ramona reveals to Loretta as Regina, Ramona’s older sister, that she has always known that Renata, their baby sister, never died in the boating accident five years ago, but has been in a coma in a secret location somewhere near Butte, Montana. It was this final part that was holding up production. Loretta was having yet another emotional breakdown because unbeknownst to the head writer, Loretta was, in fact, born somewhere near Butte, Montana, but had been run out of town when she was sixteen years old after her father discovered she was pregnant by one of the ranch hands. She got a botched abortion, was told she could never have children again, and that she could also never return to Butte or the surrounding area as she had shamed and defiled her family’s name. Some people have every reason to drink. And when I checked my machine and realized Frank still hadn’t called me back I felt like I was quickly becoming one of those people.
Fortunately I’m obsessed with planning so my day wasn’t as horrible as it could have been. I had prepared for what I knew would be a HINE—which is pronounced Hi-Nee and stands for Highly Intense Neurotic Experience—and forwarded my home phone to my work phone so during the day I would only have to check the messages left on one phone and not two. Seven years of therapy had not taught me how to corral my uncontrollable neurotic thoughts, but it had taught me how to make them seem more controllable.
Three hours later, while the writers were trying to decide if Renata should be moved from her secret location in Butte to one near Boise, Idaho or Cheyenne, Wyoming, I raced to my office again. Still no message from Frank, just one from my mother asking if Lorna Douglas had agreed to sing for the Salvatore DeNuccio Tenants Group. Frank may have disappointed me with his inconsistency, but my mother never would. At four hours and counting, I made my assistant check my messages, but Frank still remained silent. Five hours later I couldn’t help myself and walked out of a budget meeting claiming a weak bladder. When I realized I was still in the no-Frank zone I almost threw the phone out the window. My mother, bless her heart, remained consistent and left two more messages of increased urgency about Lorna and her New Jersey debut. I wrote Lorna & Salvatore on a Post-it and put it on my desk to remind me to deal with this matter when my head wasn’t drowning in thoughts and images of Frank.
Seven hours later Frank still hadn’t called me. I didn’t care that Loretta was taking valium with a bourbon chaser or that Laraby kept winking