Unsympathetic Magic Read Free Page A

tormentor just stood there, gripping my shoulders, looking dazed and sweaty. In contrast to his deep flush only moments ago, he was now sickly pale, as if suddenly drained of all his blood.
    “Are you okay?” I prodded at last.
    Nolan gave a little start, as if suddenly realizing I was there. He let go of my shoulders, staggered back a step, and mumbled, “I think I’m gonna . . .”
    A moment later, he vomited all over the sidewalk, splattering my boots.

2
     
    J illy’s boots were a nuisance to put on and take off, so the wardrobe intern who got assigned to clean Michael Nolan’s vomit off them told me not to bother removing them. I took off Jilly’s curly lamb vest, then went and sat in the wardrobe van, where the intern sponged at my leather-clad feet.
    After getting sick on camera, Nolan had been escorted into an air-conditioned location trailer, where he awaited the attentions of a medic. It was hoped that, now that he’d evidently gotten something nasty out of his system, he would be able to finish the night’s work after a brief rest. Meanwhile, though, we were all stuck waiting around, and it didn’t take long for people to start getting bored. Also hungry. And since Nolan, who’d just tossed his cookies all over the sidewalk, had eaten food from the catering van earlier, no one wanted to eat D30 ’s catered fare now.
    When I emerged from the wardrobe van, one of the other cast members told me that the production intern who’d purchased Nolan’s stomach remedy on 125th Street had seen an eatery there which boasted the best fried chicken in Harlem. The cast and some of the crew had gotten permission to go there for a meal while waiting for the verdict on Nolan. They had strict instructions to be back within one hour.
    As they walked down the dark street, headed toward 125th, I debated the wisdom of eating anything, let alone fried chicken, if I was going to be on camera later tonight in this tight, revealing outfit. However, simply hanging around the set waiting for Nolan to get better wasn’t an enticing prospect. Especially not with the other actors fleeing to a restaurant for the next hour.
    “I suppose one piece of chicken won’t show up on camera,” I murmured, trying to suck in my Lycra-clad stomach where it spilled over the waistband of Jilly’s extremely tight skirt. “One small piece.”
    I don’t have the svelte or surgically enhanced body of a Hollywood leading lady, but I do watch my weight and try to stay in shape, given my profession. And the camera adds weight and enhances puffiness, so I’d been eating carefully in preparation for this role.
    On the other hand, excessive self-denial is just morbid.
    And now that I was recovered from the mild revulsion of witnessing Nolan’s gastric episode up close and personal, I was feeling a bit peckish. Especially when I contemplated the prospect of working until dawn, thanks to these delays.
    So I called after the departing actors, “I’ll get my purse and catch up to you!”
    I went back into the wardrobe trailer, collected my purse, and promised faithfully that I wouldn’t get any stains or splotches on Jilly’s outfit. Then I went back out into the hot, humid night in pursuit of my coworkers and a satisfying piece of fried poultry. I was already more than a block behind the others and didn’t really know where they were going, so I walked at a brisk pace, despite the height of my heels.
    Trailing that far behind my colleagues in Harlem around midnight wasn’t as foolhardy as it might sound. We were filming directly east of Mount Morris Park, which is a nice neighborhood, one that reflects the almost-frenzied renovation and rehabilitation projects that have characterized real estate development in Harlem for the past decade or so. In fact, much of Harlem is increasingly inhabited by white yuppies, a somewhat controversial state of affairs in the nation’s most famous black neighborhood.
    The main drag that I was headed toward, 125th