Free The Real Real by Emma McLaughlin, Nicola Kraus Page A

and tell her we’re running late. Can I please have my cell back for just one sec before we do this? What time is it even?” I look back to Nico and Melanie, but they just shrug.
    “I told you the last three times you asked, no phones on set, Jesse. Unless we need a call or text to be part of a scene and then we’ll give you an assigned one. Network rule. I have to have this footage for Fletch to watch tomorrow.
    Just work with me. Please?” Kara snatches a megaphone from a canvas folding chair, even though we’re right beside her. “Okay! You three go stand by the door and wait for my cue. Remember, it’s just a fun Saturday girls’
    day out. You’re swinging by the spa to hang and catch 79

    up from the crazy week at school. We want it just really friendly and girly. Girl time, okay? Natural girl time.”
    She deposits us at the door and kick-runs through the snow to the shadows while somebody scurries behind her with a broom to smooth out her tracks. “Okay, everyone!
    And . . . action!”
    I scan the red-nosed faces staring expectantly at us.
    Screw it.
    “What time is it?” I ask into the lights.
    Melanie tsks me under her breath.
    “ Don’t look out here at us, Jesse! And . . . action!”
    “What time is it in real life?” I ask again, sweating into my borrowed cashmere.
    “Three minutes after ten!” Ben yells from behind his camera.
    “Thank you!”
    “Cut!”
    “Jesus Christ,” someone groans.
    “Jesse, I don’t want to be stern,” Kara calls sternly into her megaphone. “But the longer this takes, the longer you’re here. Got it?”
    “Sorry, just—”
    “Girl time. Go.”
    Nico springs to life. “Melanie, I can’t wait for a pedicure, can you?”
    “Totally!” Melanie says, pushing open the red door, beyond which the three of us are dumbfounded to find the brilliantly lit spa abuzz with attractive women we’ve 80

    never seen before getting services at every station. I hold my breath for them to break into a coordinated dance number, complete with rolling nail carts. We exchange glances before Melanie recovers. “Hey, Mom!”
    Mrs. Dubviek steps stiffly from around the desk, her blond hair wrapped in a twist as tight as her smile. She has on a variation of the same outfit she wears to science fairs and football games, her leopard-print bolero matching the leopard-print pockets on her Just Cavalli jeans.
    I always imagine her at the Cavalli store, in her clipped Eastern European accent saying, “No, no, no, just give me whole thing—underwear, bra, socks, I take it all.” It’s her own personal Elle-Woods-grows-up-and-marries-a-Latin-American-dictator aesthetic. “Melanie, Nico, and—”
    “Jesse,” I jump in as she has one arm around Nico and one around Melanie and has never talked to me a day in her life. “Hi, Mrs. Dubviek.” In her defense, I’ve never set foot in her spa. CVS self-pedis all the way—ugh, Caitlyn . . .
    “We’re so ready for our pedicures; what’s the hot color this week?” Nico drops her head onto Mrs. Dubviek’s padded shoulder, the sweet, almost private gesture eliciting a softening in Mrs. Dubviek’s taut face.
    “How about nice classic Chanel Redcoat?”
    “CUT!” Kara’s voice booms into the spa with a godlike echo. Everyone freezes. “Where’s the new Essie color?
    We’re supposed to place that! Someone place that!”
    The teamsters in dirty down jackets and baseball hats swoop in around us while two guys in skinny jeans and 81

    bowl cuts follow behind them on their hands and knees, mopping at the tracked-in snow with towels.
    Mrs. Dubviek squeezes Nico’s chin and then wipes the bangs out of her daughter’s eyes. “This is good job. Your cousin in Ukraine work herring factory. I proud of my girls.”
    “Thanks, Mom,” Melanie says.
    “Thanks, Mamma D,” Nico chimes in. “I’m going to run to the bathroom. Can I use the office?”
    “Of course, Nikita.”
    “Can I use your phone?” I add while we’re making