Between Boyfriends by Michael Salvatore

her dialogue for the camera, she added her disclaimer.
    “As long as there’s no press, I can use my own band and it’s before the GMHC show,” she demanded. “It’ll be like a rehearsal.”
    If all women were so accommodating and logical, I might consider heterosexuality as an alternative lifestyle.
    “Lorna!” I squealed. “Forgive my zeal, but you are the first woman since Lynda Bertadotto to make me truly happy.”
    “Who’s Lynda Bertadotto?” she asked.
    “Sixth-grade teacher,” I explained. “She made me sit next to Richie Troisi so I could help him with his sentence deconstruction. He looked just like Scott Baio and I still have the puka beads he gave me as a thank-you for helping him master the intricacy of the adverbial clause.”
    “God, that’s romantic,” Lorna said. “Pathetic, but romantic. You should have the writers include that memory in my back-story.”
    “I’m sorry, but I prefer to keep the puka beads private,” I replied. “Richie’s married now with three kids and, well, I’d hate to stir up trouble.”
    “Gay and moral,” Lorna said with a sad smile. “Another illusion shattered.”
    I ignored her stereotyping and circled back to the reason for our conversation—I needed to lock her in before the makeup team was finished cosmetically mutilating Lucas’s otherwise flawless face and she would be called to the set.
    “So I’ll get the details from my mother, and her girl—which is me—will be in touch with your girl, who actually is a girl,” I stammered, “and a mighty pretty one I might add.”
    Lorna tilted her chin to the left and clenched the skin around her eyes the same way she did when her character, Ramona, put a hit on her sister Renata’s psycho doctor, Rodney, when she found out he caused Roger’s accident as an act of revenge against Renata’s family. I knew that look could not be good.
    “You think she’s mighty pretty?” Lorna queried.
    How stupid could I have been? Lorna may be even tempered and cooperative most of the time, but she is still an actress midway through her second contract cycle on a daytime drama and perilously close to her thirtieth birthday. Every producer knows you don’t tell an insecure, aging actress that her younger assistant is mighty pretty.
    “Well, yes,” I stumbled, “in that I-was-nice-looking-in-collegewhy-the-hell-am-I-so-ugly-in-the-real-world sort of way. And by real world I mean your world and not MTV’s.”
    “She does wear a lot of makeup,” Lorna rationalized.
    “Applied with the restraint of a kabuki,” I offered.
    This comment seemed to pacify Lorna, and her artificial warmth started to thaw the ice in her veins. Soon the actress was all businesswoman.
    “My GMHC gig is December fifteenth, and we have a one-hour rehearsal on the fourteenth. As long as your mother’s thing is before then we have a deal,” Lorna said. “If not, there’s no way I’m hauling my ass to Jersey to entertain a demographic that’s not going to be around long enough to do me any good.”
    Before I could mumble “That’s the Christmas spirit,” a high-pitched shriek pierced through the studio, sounding like an Indian princess after she’s been ripped from her would-be lover’s arms by a Hindi villain. In this instance, the Indian princess was being played by Lucas.
    “My eye!” he screamed. “Oh dear God! My eye is on fire!”
    Lucas’s eye wasn’t actually on fire, it only felt that way. Some of the glue holding the fake scar in place had dripped into his eye, causing it to turn a bright shade of red and burn like a Vietnam-era soldier’s pee the day after he grabbed himself a fine piece of poontang. Not that I have any idea what that feels like, but I’ve heard stories. Lucas cried and flailed about so animatedly it took a while for the makeup team to flush out his eye with water. He didn’t stop moving entirely until Lorna slapped him across the face.
    “You’re an actor!” she declared. “Use your