eccentricities if you did your part,” whispered Mike. I elbowed him lightly in response. He and I were sandwiched together next to our respective partners—Peter and what’s her name. Flirting was not an option.
The best part of my new life was the crazy amounts of money I earned for letting Betty Jane speak. In addition to the regular pay for The Neighborhood , every time a commercial we did aired, we got paid. Flush with cash for the first time ever, Betty Jane helped me spend large sums of money on a lot of stupid things, like seventy-five-dollar lipstick, a five-hundred-dollar robot vacuum, and an eight-hundred-and-fifty-dollar Gucci yoga mat with a matching three-hundred-and-fifty-dollar leather carrying case. FYI, I’ve never set foot in a yoga class.
At one point in the spending frenzy I bought a car and rented a garage space so Sarge could have his Chevy back. Right after that purchase, I walked into a Buddhist specialty store. When I saw the four-hundred-dollar fleece meditation cushion I said, “Shall I buy this?”
The Silent One indicated no with a shake of his head.
I was surprised. If the pope had closets full of fancy robes and miters, the Silent One didn’t have to sit on his threadbare old thing. But a few weeks later, when Betty Jane was working and I was waiting in the Committee’s living room, I noticed that the Silent One had upgraded his prayer altar. Even ascetics secretly desired something comfy for their bony knees.
By the time we started taping the second season of The Neighborhood in March, the servant-master dynamic between Betty Jane and the rest of us had become that of benevolent chairwoman and complacent helpers. By June, I found myself believing people really could change. I’d started to trust and appreciate Betty Jane.
On the first Thursday in July, all the actors from The Neighborhood were gathered in a large room with chairs and couches around three walls and a large movie screen on the fourth. We were adding lines to the animation, which really meant recording dialogue for places called lip flaps. These were spots marked by the animators where there was no actual dialogue taking place or where a line was garbled or unclear sound-wise and needed to be rerecorded for clarity. We took turns standing in front of a copy stand and recording new lines to drop over the animation. Mike sat at a console with a small microphone and a TV monitor in the back of the room and the engineers sat in a studio above and behind us.
We’d been at it for three hours when Mike’s PA came in and tapped him on the shoulder. “Okay, let’s take fifteen,” said Mike.
At that moment Sarge and the Boy entered the Committee’s house.The Boy removed his baseball glove as Sarge shut the front door.They usually played catch while Betty Jane recorded Violet. She had referred to child labor laws and suggested the Boy not have to work at such a young age. At first I worried, because
playtime for the Boy absented Sarge as well. But Betty Jane had behaved like a well-trained pet, and after a few months, I had replaced my concern with the belief that she had the Boy’s best interests in mind. Ruffles and the Silent One were still not convinced, and always stayed in the room during taping. I wondered if they’d go if I excused them, but I never thought to actually do it.
“Holly?”
“Oh,” I said, shaking my head. I hated being caught “somewhere” else. Drifting between the present and what was going on in the Committee’s living room was something I did without noticing. I’d heard snatches of enough whispers to know that everyone else had noticed, though.
“What?” I felt a hand on my left shoulder. I opened my eyes. Walter’s. I jerked my head straight. Ruffles tumbled off her pillow. The muscle on the right side of my head cramped from the strain.
The benefit of recording in New York City was that Walter lived in Los Angeles and dropped in only about once a month. I still
The best part of my new life was the crazy amounts of money I earned for letting Betty Jane speak. In addition to the regular pay for The Neighborhood , every time a commercial we did aired, we got paid. Flush with cash for the first time ever, Betty Jane helped me spend large sums of money on a lot of stupid things, like seventy-five-dollar lipstick, a five-hundred-dollar robot vacuum, and an eight-hundred-and-fifty-dollar Gucci yoga mat with a matching three-hundred-and-fifty-dollar leather carrying case. FYI, I’ve never set foot in a yoga class.
At one point in the spending frenzy I bought a car and rented a garage space so Sarge could have his Chevy back. Right after that purchase, I walked into a Buddhist specialty store. When I saw the four-hundred-dollar fleece meditation cushion I said, “Shall I buy this?”
The Silent One indicated no with a shake of his head.
I was surprised. If the pope had closets full of fancy robes and miters, the Silent One didn’t have to sit on his threadbare old thing. But a few weeks later, when Betty Jane was working and I was waiting in the Committee’s living room, I noticed that the Silent One had upgraded his prayer altar. Even ascetics secretly desired something comfy for their bony knees.
By the time we started taping the second season of The Neighborhood in March, the servant-master dynamic between Betty Jane and the rest of us had become that of benevolent chairwoman and complacent helpers. By June, I found myself believing people really could change. I’d started to trust and appreciate Betty Jane.
On the first Thursday in July, all the actors from The Neighborhood were gathered in a large room with chairs and couches around three walls and a large movie screen on the fourth. We were adding lines to the animation, which really meant recording dialogue for places called lip flaps. These were spots marked by the animators where there was no actual dialogue taking place or where a line was garbled or unclear sound-wise and needed to be rerecorded for clarity. We took turns standing in front of a copy stand and recording new lines to drop over the animation. Mike sat at a console with a small microphone and a TV monitor in the back of the room and the engineers sat in a studio above and behind us.
We’d been at it for three hours when Mike’s PA came in and tapped him on the shoulder. “Okay, let’s take fifteen,” said Mike.
At that moment Sarge and the Boy entered the Committee’s house.The Boy removed his baseball glove as Sarge shut the front door.They usually played catch while Betty Jane recorded Violet. She had referred to child labor laws and suggested the Boy not have to work at such a young age. At first I worried, because
playtime for the Boy absented Sarge as well. But Betty Jane had behaved like a well-trained pet, and after a few months, I had replaced my concern with the belief that she had the Boy’s best interests in mind. Ruffles and the Silent One were still not convinced, and always stayed in the room during taping. I wondered if they’d go if I excused them, but I never thought to actually do it.
“Holly?”
“Oh,” I said, shaking my head. I hated being caught “somewhere” else. Drifting between the present and what was going on in the Committee’s living room was something I did without noticing. I’d heard snatches of enough whispers to know that everyone else had noticed, though.
“What?” I felt a hand on my left shoulder. I opened my eyes. Walter’s. I jerked my head straight. Ruffles tumbled off her pillow. The muscle on the right side of my head cramped from the strain.
The benefit of recording in New York City was that Walter lived in Los Angeles and dropped in only about once a month. I still
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