The extra series 1, p.1
The Extra Series, #1, page 1
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Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Acknowledgments
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons—living or dead—events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
THE EXTRA
Copyright © 2019 The Real Sockwives of Utah Valley
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, printing, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author, except for use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Design by Melissa Williams Design
Director's Chair and Film Lights copyright 2019 Quarta; artinspiring, AdobeStock
Movie Reel and Film Strip copyright 2019 Brainstorm331; aTomislav Forgo, Shutterstock
Janci's author photo by Michelle D. Argyle
Megan's author photo by Heather Cavill
Published by Garden Ninja Books
ExtraSeriesBooks.com
First Edition: May 2019
0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Ken Grey and Marilyn Koffman,
who always believed
One
Going out to lunch in Beverly Hills probably isn’t the best way to handle the loss of my thrift-store boutique job, but I’ve convinced myself the leftovers of my college fund will last a year or so yet. Now that I’ve stopped actually going to college, that is.
Besides, this lunch isn’t about me or my “shocking lack of enthusiasm for vintage Prada.” Apparently when the door to one career slams in your face, another one opens.
The door opened for my roommate instead.
“Seriously, Anna. I’m so excited for you. This is crazy.” I take another sip of the fruity Beaujolais Anna-Marie ordered for the occasion. It’s not my favorite, but it’s her day and thus her wine choice.
“I know, right? I can’t even believe it. I was so giddy between takes, I’m pretty sure I actually giggled. Giggled. The director probably thinks I’m a total airhead. Or insane.” She shakes her head in mock remorse, her long chestnut brown hair dancing around her shoulders.
“You’re a soap opera actress now. He probably thinks you fit right in.”
Anna-Marie laughs. She may have been the Ranchlands Beauty of Everett, Wyoming, every year in high school, but she also captained the debate team to a national championship and kills at Scrabble even when she’s drunk. She’s got more going on upstairs than most of the small town girls that swarm LA every summer looking to make it big.
The waiter brings our entrees, setting them down without taking his eyes off Anna-Marie. A bit of marsala sauce slops over the side of my plate onto the white linen, but he doesn’t notice.
“Can I bring you anything else?” With his soft Latino accent and mysterious dark eyes, he could be a younger, slightly-less-handsome version of Enrique Iglesias. I imagine that this waiter, too, is waiting for his big acting break, going to auditions between shifts. I wonder if I’m the only one in the restaurant not desperate to become a star.
“No, thank you,” Anna-Marie says, flashing her patented megawatt smile, soon to brighten the TVs of stay-at-home moms and retirees across America. “Gabby? How about you? More wine?”
The waiter visibly starts, only now seeming to notice my presence. I’ve been hanging around with Anna-Marie for over a year now; I’m used to the reaction.
“No, I’m good.”
The waiter nods and shoots Anna-Marie one last saucy look. Her lips twist coyly in return.
“Delicious,” she murmurs when the waiter leaves earshot.
“And I thought you were here for the risotto.”
She shrugs, then her blue eyes widen. “Did I tell you who my first scene was with?”
“Bridget Messler?” I’ve never been much of a soap opera fan and have only caught the occasional episode of Passion Medical when I came back from class early and Anna-Marie had it on. But even I know about Bridget Messler, legendary matriarch of the show and twelve-time Daytime Emmy nominee (though never yet winner).
Anna-Marie droops a bit. “No, not yet. But guess again! It’s pretty obvious. I mean, my character just got back from boarding school in Switzerland. She’s going to want to see the mother who abandoned her. And that mother is in . . .” She pauses expectantly.
“Um . . .” I fish around my brain for what she’s looking for, but come up empty.
“A coma!” She flourishes a forkful of mushroom risotto. “At Passion Medical!”
“I still think that’s a terrible name for a hospital. What doctor would want to list that on their resume?”
She ignores me. “And her attending physician is none other than Trevor Everlake.”
“The guy who used to be in the mafia?”
She sighs in clear disgust. It sounds like an eerie echo of my former boss after I said that the latest line of celebrity-inspired purses looked like they were attacked by a blind five-year-old with a bedazzler.
“Eww. No. That’s my character’s uncle. Trevor Everlake is the gorgeous young genius who has risen from obscurity to be the head doctor at Passion Medical after only two years of practice.”
“Two years? Sounds like Passion Medical has never heard of malpractice suits.”
“He’s the one with the incredible eyes, and the . . .” She gestures at her face vaguely, and I instantly know who she means. In a sea of blandly attractive pseudo-celebrities, he stands out as being the swoon-worthiest face on daytime TV.
“Hot Doctor!” I exclaim, loudly enough that the couple next to us—two well-dressed men in matching hipster glasses—frown pointedly in my direction.
Anna-Marie grins. “Yep, Hot Doctor. His real name is Ryan Lansing.”
I wrinkle my nose, and take a bite of my chicken marsala. It’s fabulous, but I can’t help thinking of the price listed next to it on the menu. I really should have gone with the side salad, celebratory lunch or not. “That sounds almost as soap-operaish a name as Trevor Everlake. I’ll just keep calling him Hot Doctor.”
“Your call. But now that I’m working with all these famous people, you’re going to have to learn their names eventually. And their dramatic backstories.”
“Well, I’ll certainly have more time to watch TV now.”
Anna-Marie pauses with her fork midway to her mouth. “What do you mean? Oh god, Gabby, did you get fired?”
The speed at which she jumps to that conclusion doesn’t give me great hopes for a future in on-trend retail.
“It’s okay,” I say. “Now I don’t have to wear any more perfume designed by the latest reality star of the month. My clothes all reek of desperation.”
She shakes her head with a rueful smile. “The way you talk about that stuff, you’d think you were the import from hillbilly land, and not the one of us who probably learned how to pronounce Louboutin in preschool.”
It’s not just the way I talk that would make anyone think that, but I try not to compare my stocky build and thoroughly average features to Anna-Marie’s seemingly made-for-LA willowy body and perfect facial symmetry. That way lies madness.
“Well, it just means I’ve had long enough among all this crap to realize how little any of it—” My attempt at deep philosophy is interrupted by the return of Anna-Marie’s fawning waiter, who refills her water glass even though she’s barely touched it.
As she laughs at a witty remark he makes about the risotto, I consider my comment. The truth is, I’ve learned in the last several years just how fleeting all the money and designer labels and any prestige associated with it can be. But that doesn’t mean I don’t miss it. Just a little.
I drum my fingers on the cheap Target purse on my lap, feeling through the faux leather to the Chanel wallet within, a gift from my mother when I went off to college. I’ve gotten rid of so much of my former life, but not everything.
After the waiter leaves, I manage to turn the conversation back to Anna-Marie’s new acting gig—not difficult, given her level of excitement. Which I totally get. This is a huge breakthrough for her, considering her biggest previous star credit had been as “girl in white dress running through field of wheat” in a tampon commercial. And I really don’t need to go into details on my most recent life failure. This isn’t the first job I’ve lost, and we both know it won’t be the last.
“You know,” Anna-Marie says, pausing after a very detailed description of her scene with Hot Doctor. “My new job might open up certain . . . opportunities for you.”
I raise an eye
She smiles. “What do you think about becoming an extra? For Passion Medical.”
“An extra what?” A brief moment of confusion imagining myself fetching coffee for some production assistant is replaced by the dawning realization of what she really means.
“An extra,” she says again. “You know, the people in the background of a scene. Ordering coffee or walking through the park, that sort of thing.”
“The people smiling like idiots while they mouth the words ‘strawberry watermelon strawberry watermelon’ to each other, you mean.” She looks a little surprised and I shrug. “I grew up in LA, remember. I do know some things about the acting business.”
“Then you should know they get paid pretty well for doing that. And you need a job, don’t you?”
She takes my silence for the consideration it unfortunately is and pushes ahead. “The best part is, Passion Medical tends to use the same extras over and over. They want the sense of it being a real town, so somebody used in a hospital scene might show up in the coffee shop in an episode the following week. Which means it might even become a regular gig. Well, as regular as it can be.”
“If they use lots of the same people, why would they hire me?”
Her smile widens. “Because they just fired a couple of them today. Two of the ‘nurses’ at the hospital”—she puts the word “nurses” in air quotes—“disrupted a scene by getting into a fight when they found out Ryan Lansing slept with both of them this morning. There was hair pulling and everything.”
“He’s into hair pulling? Hot Doctor sounds kinky.”
She laughs. “In the fight. But yeah, he probably is. I guess you’ll just have to find out for yourself when you take the job.”
“Hmmm, a paycheck and the chance to bang a soap opera star, all in the same day? Sounds like my parents’ dreams for me are finally coming true.”
“I’m serious,” she says. “About the job, anyway. I don’t suggest you do Ryan Lansing, but you wouldn’t be the first. Or the fifty-first.”
“I don’t know, Anna. I don’t really have any acting skills.”
“Well, then you know what that means.” She smiles as the waiter brings us our check, and hands him her credit card, shaking her head at me as I bring out mine. “I’ve got this,” she says.
Despite a brief flush of pride, I gratefully allow it. “Thanks” I say, as the waiter leaves again. “So what does my lack of acting skills mean?” But I already suspect what she’s going to say.
“You can finally come with me to my acting class on Tuesday.”
I groan. She’s been trying for weeks to get me to go to this acting class with her. And for weeks, I’ve been coming up with excuses to spend Tuesday nights in my sweatpants watching Netflix instead.
“It would be good experience,” she says. “Get you used to being in front of people. My instructor has offered free trial classes to people before. And there’s lots of cute guys there . . . ” She trails off with a waggle of perfectly groomed eyebrows.
I almost make a joke about how I’ve been dying to meet a narcissistic starving actor, but rein it in just in time. Anna-Marie gets my sarcastic nature in a way few others do, but that might be crossing the line.
“I’ll think about it,” I say.
“Which part?”
“Both.”
“Okay. That’s all I ask,” she says. But I can tell she’s formulating more reasons why I should try my hand at being an extra on her soap opera, none of which will be more convincing than the paycheck argument she began with. My bank account isn’t exactly empty, but if it ever becomes so, I’d end up having to leave my apartment and the life—meandering and uncertain though it may be—that I’ve built for myself and move back into my parents’ house.
The thought is terrifying.
As she signs the bill and we get up to leave, Anna-Marie flashes one last broad smile at the waiter, who appears ready to desert the table he’s currently taking orders from to come talk to her one last time. He frowns, then turns back to his customers. I’m not overly worried for him. Anna-Marie may be beautiful, but beautiful girls to flirt with aren’t exactly rare here. This is LA, after all.
We leave the dark restaurant and pass into the bright early spring sun, both of us blinking and squinting and pulling our sunglasses from our purses. A light breeze, the faintest remnant of a winter that never really touches this sun-drenched city, tickles my arms. The valet brings around my silver Hyundai. He looks slightly insulted as he hands me the keys, as if being forced to drive such a pedestrian car has sullied him.
We climb into my car and jack up the volume on the hit single of this debut band, Alec and Jenna, so loud the valet jumps. We laugh the better part of the way home.
Faking a good mood isn’t so hard. Maybe I should be an actress, after all.
I drop Anna-Marie off at our apartment in WeHo, telling her I have errands to run. Then I pull my car into a metered spot only two blocks down the road from our apartment. I do indeed have some errands I can run, but today’s latest firing seems to require a celebration of its own.
The rundown Chinese/American restaurant squished between a dry-cleaner and a liquor store fits my mood much better than any swanky Beverly Hills restaurant or celebrity-laden taco truck.
Fong’s All-American is dimly lit inside, but with far less prestigious atmospheric effect than the restaurant we just had lunch at. I don’t particularly care about the atmosphere, the flickering lights above the bar, or the chef who always pokes his head out from the kitchen when the door chimes just to scowl at me. The food here is the best in all of LA, but I’m not here for the sweet and sour pork and beans or their oddly delicious cheeseburger lo mein.
I slide into a cracked-leather booth, and refuse a menu from the pretty, petite Chinese waitress who seems to live here for all the many times she’s served me, and who always has a wide smile and her hair pulled into strange configurations with plastic neon hair clips.
“I’m going for the big guns, Su-Lin,” I say.
Her smile drops. “Oh no! Boyfriend?”
“Not this time. Got fired.”
“Awww, that sucks,” she says, then yells back to the kitchen, “One Breakup Tub. Extra cookie dough.”
I wish she wouldn’t yell my order like that every time, but the few other patrons here at four in the afternoon barely stir.
“You’ll get a better job next time,” Su-Lin says. She brightens suddenly. “Maybe you can work here!”
The chef’s hearing must be extraordinary, because he pokes his head out of the kitchen at that and scowls at me a second time.
“I don’t think so,” I say. “Where will I go for my Breakup Tub when I get fired from here?”
She smiles a little sadly and pats my head like a fond aunt, though she looks like she’s several years younger than I am.
When she leaves, I allow myself the thoughts I felt too guilty to acknowledge in my best friend’s presence. Anna-Marie is getting her big break, another perfect feather in the ever-fashionable hat of her life. She’s moving forward, toward something she loves and is really good at, and I, as usual, am stuck in some kind of early-adult pothole of pathetic jobs I don’t care about and college plans I can’t muster the interest to see through.
She’s moving on, and it won’t be long before she’s left me behind. Like my family.
My nanny LaRue used to say to me, “You have a smile so bright, Gabby, you make everyone around you shine.” It was meant as a compliment, I’m sure, and at six years old, I took it as such, beaming gap-toothed grins wide enough to illuminate the world.
She said other things, too, about the teenage girls who zoomed past our house every morning on the way to school in a shiny silver convertible (“Daddy’s money is the only difference between them and the streetwalkers”) and about men (“Fellas who fish off of too many docks are only gonna catch crabs,”) but none of that seemed to apply to me. LaRue was let go a year or so later, after Mom found her smoking pot out by the pool while my little brother Felix and I were inside watching Dora the Explorer.
I remember the day she was fired. Pressed against the sliding glass door, I had heard the screaming. My mother, bright and Easter-egg pretty in her pastel cardigan and slim white pants, shrilly denouncing the apple-cheeked Southern woman who’d cooked fat-back bacon for me on the sly and played Johnny Cash for Felix and me to dance to.
