“Ha!” Lisa guffawed. “You are the skinniest now that you’ve ever been in your whole life. I never see you eating anything except yogurt, or maybe an occasional piece of fruit. Hey. You don’t have an eating disorder, do you?”
“No. I have a perfectly normal appetite,” Gina said primly. “I just have to really watch everything I put in my mouth. I’ve got the Sewell women’s curse—small bones, big butt. And you know the camera adds twenty pounds.”
“I bet you don’t even wear a size eight,” Lisa said. “I tried on your Juicy Couture tracksuit, and it looked like it had been spray-painted on me.”
“Good. Stay away from my velour tracksuit,” her sister ordered. “You have a bad habit of staining and tearing other people’s clothes.”
“Bitch.” Lisa mouthed it—but slowly, so her sister could tell just what she was not saying. “You’re home later than usual tonight,” she said, changing the subject. “What’s up with that?”
Gina felt her right eye twitch. “It’s the last week of taping for the season,” she said finally. “We’re running out of money and time. Trying to cram two weeks’ worth of work into one. I’m going to bed now. Turn out the lights and lock up, okay?”
But Lisa had the headset on again, locked and loaded for her next video battle.
Gina trudged into her bedroom and shut the door behind her. In the bathroom, she dropped her clothes on the floor and stood under a scalding shower so long she looked like a boiled lobster when she finally emerged from the water. She knew she should slather eye cream on her face to combat the dark circles that were already emerging. She should blow her hair dry and lay out her wardrobe for the next day’s shoot. But she was too tired. And anyway, what did it matter?
She pulled back the coverlet on her bed and folded it neatly at the foot, as she always did. Got under the sheets and reached out a hand to turn off the lamp. Sitting in the middle of her bedside table, she saw her answering-machine light blinking. Call waiting.
Let it be Scott, she thought. Let him be calling to apologize. To tell her it was all a horrible practical joke. Let everything go back to the way it was before today. Her hand hesitated, but finally, she punched the play button.
“Hello? This is Mrs. Birdelle Foxton calling for Regina…” Her mother’s voice, sweet, slow, and southern as sorghum syrup, dripped concern. “Honey, your daddy’s cousin Flossie called here today, because she’d picked up your cookbook at a yard sale over in Bessemer. Flossie said she’d used your applesauce cake recipe, but it didn’t come out too good. I had her read me the recipe, and sure enough, it only called for two eggs. Gina, you know I always use three eggs and an extra stick of oleo, and my cake never comes out too dry. I think you should call up those publisher folks and have them change that…”
Not tonight, Mama, Regina thought wearily, punching the machine’s stop button. She cut off the light and lay back on the pillows, willing herself to sleep. Her stomach growled loudly.
No! she thought. Absolutely not. She rolled onto her stomach. Five minutes later, it growled again. She turned on her right side, and then her left. She tried to clear her mind, tried to meditate. It was no good. Her brain wouldn’t shut up.
Growwwl. There it was again.
With a sigh, she got out of bed and padded over to the dresser. She opened the top drawer and rooted around among the neatly folded garments until her fingertips felt the crackle of cellophane. She snatched the bag from its hiding place, avoiding looking at herself in the mirror.
Tucked back under the covers, she ripped open the cellophane bag and shoved a handful of fried pork rinds into her mouth. She closed her eyes and let the pure piggy pleasure, the sandy, salty crunch, work its magic.
There, she told her rumbling tummy. There now. Shut the heck up.
Chapter 6
The morning sun shone brightly off the burnished aluminum skin of the travel trailer set up at the farthest edge of the asphalt parking lot abutting the Morningstar Studios complex. A bright blue awning stretched from the back end of the trailer, bringing blessed shade for the woman who sat under it in a plastic lawn chair. Only nine o’clock in the morning and it was already ninety degrees.
Valerie Foster put down her third cigarette of the day, sipped her second cup of coffee, and sighed loudly. She thumbed her BlackBerry, ignoring the thirty-seven unread e-mails and checking, as she did every morning, the temperature in Maine. Sixty degrees. Val didn’t actually know anybody in Maine, had never actually even been to Maine, despite the fact that she’d spent two years as a floor director at the actual Fox news affiliate in Boston. Still, it gave her comfort to know that somebody, somewhere, wasn’t already stewing in their own juices as she was in this beastly Atlanta weather.