Divas Do Tell by Virginia Brown Page B

dark blue to pale blue. “You’ll like her. She’s really nice.”
    A young woman with short blonde hair, khaki cargo pants, a heavy jacket, and a clipboard in her hands strode energetically toward us. It didn’t take her long to get us all situated, who went where, what we were to do, and above all—wait for the director’s cue. No one was to do anything until the director gave the go-ahead. She had a hand-held walkie-talkie that kept up a constant chatter attached to her jacket pocket by a clip.
    “Abby,” said Bitty, and snagged her by the arm when she walked by, “do we look all right?”
    Abby stopped, smiled, and said, “You look wonderful, Betty. Just wonderful. Thank you for being here. Simon likes to shoot at the magic hour, and these first scenes are important.”
    “Did you hear that, Trinket?” my clueless cousin asked as Abby went on her way, occasionally pausing to talk to other crew members. “We’re important.”
    “Well, Betty ,” I said, “what I think Abby said is that the scenes are important. We’re just props. Like that old car parked in front of the courthouse. Isn’t that a sixties-era Cadillac?”
    “How would I know? Do I look like a used car salesman?”
    “Is that a rhetorical question? Because if it isn’t, I want to tell you what we both look like.”
    Bitty gave me a narrow-eyed glare that said she wasn’t happy with the direction of our conversation. That was okay. I wasn’t that happy being up at daylight when I could have been home in my nice warm bed. She crossed her arms over her considerable chest, stuck her chin in the air, and turned to look across the street. Then she made a sound like a snake. Or a leaky tire. Whichever, I knew it wasn’t a good sound for her to make.
    “Well, would you just look at that,” she muttered. “If it isn’t Miss Dark Secrets Under the Holly herself.”
    “I thought they changed the title for the movie,” I said as I turned to see the culprit.
    Dixie Lee Forsythe looked as perky as a new puppy. She had a cup of coffee in one hand, a sheaf of papers in the other, and was chatting away with Abby Bloom. Curls of steam rose up from the cup, and the wind ruffled the papers she held.
    “She’s all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, the old heifer,” Bitty almost snarled.
    Because I was cold and sleepy and unhappy about being there in the first place, I let myself be mean.
    “She certainly looks good for it being so early in the morning. Is that a designer jacket? It’s so cute. Dixie Lee knows how to dress, I’ll say that for her.”
    Through gritted teeth Bitty said, “That’s a Phillip Lim leather jacket. I recognize the ruffled hem. She’s much too old to wear that.”
    “Really? But she looks so nice in it.”
    “Miranda Watson’s pig looks nice in a silk hat, but she’s still a pig.”
    When Bitty brings up Miranda Watson’s pig I know I’ve gone too far. The pig—named Chitling—is spoiled just as badly as Chen Ling. Miranda puts cute little outfits on her, dresses her up in sparkly collars and sequined sweaters, and even though she doesn’t have Bitty’s canine couture budget, Miranda does a pretty good job of rubbing Bitty’s nose in it.
    I wisely shut my mouth and kept it closed while Bitty fumed. It didn’t help that we had to shoot the same scene a dozen times, walking back and forth on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse like we were going to go inside, up and down the steps, over and over while the director tried to decide the best angle or whatever he was doing. There were pieces of cardboard up on metal poles to block the sun, reflect the light, or whatever they were for, and if one little thing wasn’t right we had to do it all over again. I was pretty much through with my chance at stardom long before we took a break.
    Bitty and I went into Budgie’s for coffee. My hands were frozen. My feet were numb. January in Holly Springs can be cold. Budgie’s was busier than I’ve seen it in a long time.