Scene Stealer by Elise Warner

much too snug for my rib cage. A mauve, two-piece print was several sizes too large. The wardrobe woman rummaged amongst the racks and finally tossed me a burnt-orange crepe with shoulder pads more suited to Knute Rockne than a schoolteacher.
    â€œFinally,” she said. “The perfect dress.”
    â€œYou have a most interesting job, don’t you, dear?” I said, belatedly remembering my purpose in taking the job as an extra.
    â€œDon’t kid yourself,” the wardrobe woman said. “My legs have varicose veins, my back is killing me, my stomach is earning an ulcer and I smoke too much. Interesting, hah.”
    â€œStill, the stars you work with must be fascinating and I’m sure Willow Leigh is a charming young woman.”
    The woman shifted her cigarette and placed a number of straight pins between her lips. “The kid’s all right,” she managed to say.
    â€œTakes after her mother?”
    A pin dropped to the white-sheeted floor of the trailer.
    â€œYou are new to the business, aren’t you, dear?” She took a step back and considered the burnt-orange crepe, then selected a stole of fox fur and draped it over my shoulders. The glass eyes of the little creature stared at me.
    â€œYou’re almost ready for society, Gussie,” the wardrobe woman said and handed me a pair of long white gloves. “Just stop by make-up. Two trailers to the right.”
    The trailer was full; I waited and waited and waited. Making a motion picture seemed a long, drawn-out process. Not quite what I expected. I wanted to have my little talk with Willow Leigh’s mother, but saw no way to find her, much less start talking. It would be nice to get on with it.
    An elderly gentleman, dressed in a tuxedo, sensed my impatience and tried to initiate a conversation. My word, I wanted to concentrate on my mission. Fortunately, I was called into the make-up trailer.
    A cosmetician eyed me critically, squinted, sighed, then dabbed and smoothed a pale cream base all over my face.
    â€œSomething wrong, dear?” I asked, adopting the overly friendly idiom of theatrical endearment.
    â€œI’ve seen worse,” he said. “Don’t mind me, I’ve got a headache. Too much caffeine.” He picked up a cardboard container and took a sip. “Vile.”
    â€œI suppose you make up all the stars?”
    â€œHaven’t latched on to one yet. The big stars have their own make-up artists. Willow Leigh just got one. Her own hairdresser too. Can’t say I envy them. They make the big bucks and get screen credit, but they have to put up with Lorna.”
    â€œWho is Lorna?” I saw the opening I’d been hoping for, and took it.
    â€œWillow’s mother,” a reedy tenor voice said. “Take it from me, darling, a bitch in heat. Miss Thing thinks she’s the one starring in the film.”
    I peered from beneath eyelashes, made heavy with mascara, to see who would make such a declaration.
    The tenor, armed with a spray can and scissors—his glossy, black hair pulled back in a pony-tail—studied my face then attacked my head with a brush and comb.
    â€œI have just the chignon for you,” he finally said, rummaging amongst different colored hairpieces cluttering a shelf. He anchored the knot of hair to my head with a multitude of pins that he seemed to store in his mouth. A common receptacle, I noticed. By the time he stepped back and surveyed his handiwork, my scalp felt like a pincushion but he seemed satisfied.
    â€œI do love a challenge,” he said before blasting the arrangement and contaminating the atmosphere with great clouds of hair spray.
    â€œDid you ever fix Mrs. Leigh’s hair?” I asked.
    â€œOnce,” he said. “When Willow was doing all those auditions for the Big, Bad Burger commercials. In all modesty, I must say I outdid myself. Lorna’s frizzy hair is the pits to work with. She loved the