Most of the crew seemed to think the show had no chance. Being cooped up in closets and tiny rooms sewing away from the action, I had no way to judge if that was true or not. But sometimes I got to help out with a fitting for one of the actors and most of them seemed kinda glum. One was muttering to himself and aggressively texting someone who, I guess, was his agent.
Behind the scenes, things weren’t so bad. Mary was the acting head of wardrobe. She was in her 40s and had a very “do not fuck with me” vibe. A few years ago she got married and now only did productions in Toronto “to keep the peace.” I could tell she missed working on some of the bigger shoots and travelling.
We got along pretty ok. During a break I went out to get some fresh air and Mary was out having a cigarette. I was curious so I asked her why, if the show was so bad and likely to be cancelled, everyone behind the scenes were so chill.
“Actors are high maintenance and fragile egos, honey,” she said. “There are some on this show that are as close as they’ll ever get to being famous. For the rest of us, this paid the rent and put food on the table. And in a few weeks we will get a call to go and work on something else.
“Most of us are never even going to watch this show, Kit. Just a fact of life.”
I found that kinda sad, but I was happy enough to be done with the show. I’d saved up enough money to afford a small studio apartment by myself for the fall and put a dent into my tuition. I didn’t need much as I would be spending three nights a week at Daddy’s place anyway. Gillian and Soo want some space to themselves, although they made it clear they expected me to come and visit all the time.
I’d gained experience and Mary told me I did a good job. Susan, who initially hired me, was coming up from New York to do a post mortem with the wardrobe crew. And, I suspected, to have a chat with me.
Maybe I hadn’t been 100% honest with Daddy when I told him no one was bothering me on set. In May, that had been correct. But by the end of July…
There’s only so long you can wear a hoodie and jeans in Toronto in July if you don’t want to die. I understood why downplaying my age and looks when I first got on set was a good idea. There was no shortage of gossip about who was sleeping with who. When I made it clear I was engaged and had no interest, people left me alone. It’s a TV show; it does not lack cute and sexy people.
By the time July came around, I felt more confident being on the set; I wanted to wear something, not sexy, but at least comfortable. But comfortable in July in the heat means you’re going to be showing off more skin. And showing off more skin means you’re going to get attention.
I wouldn’t have thought a pair of modest jean shorts, sneakers, a Batwoman t-shirt (a CW show, it was essential to wear IP-appropriate attire) and a scarf to keep my hair back made me a sex goddess.
It did make me look young and cute, but hardly jailbait. I was careful to make sure I looked 21 just so I would be taken seriously on set. However, word had gotten out that I was engaged to a much older man. The rest of the wardrobe girls badgered me for weeks about my fiance, wanting to see a picture of him. I finally showed them one. It was hardly scandalous, just a silly selfie from a Blue Jays game that Daddy dragged me to a few weeks earlier.
But it was clear he was much older than me. And that got around the set. So the next time the actor who played a father on the show came to wardrobe for a fitting, he was pretty blatant in letting me know that if I had a thing for older men, he was certainly there to help me out with that. And maybe he could put a word in for me on his next movie if they were looking for someone.
As seduction attempts go, I found it pretty laughable. Still, he could make things a pain in the ass for me as I was just a work term student. So I said I was very happy with my fiance and my career, so thanks, but I was good. He didn’t push things, but he certainly made himself a minor nuisance for several days trying to be charming. Maybe I should have been worried, but I was more annoyed. Someone must have had a word with him because he magically became less of a pest.
However, movie and tv productions are a lot more sensitive about these things. I suspected it was the reason Susan was flying in. She’d also ‘requested’ that Daddy be there as well. I pleaded with her not to tell him what happened because he would massively overreact, and I was fine.
“Well, I also want to talk to you about a few things, aside from that. Invite him to the set and we’ll arrange a tour. He should be there with you,” she texted.
That didn’t sound dramatic at all. I told Daddy about the set invite and he was profoundly uninterested.
“Kitten, I grew up in Vancouver. I stumbled over movie and tv shoots every other week. Seeing the set of a doomed teen drama is not that enticing to me,” he said, putting together some supper for me in Meg’s kitchen.
Meg vanished off to Europe weeks ago and without her around to bother, it got lonely in the condo. Daddy wasn’t fond of coming back to Toronto for extended periods, but my pleas and promises of doing ‘anything’ for some company lured him back. Plus he wanted to make sure I was eating ok.
So he was putting together a stir fry and I was wandering around trying to look adorable so he would cave. In this case, it was my red hair in pigtails, glasses, a Ghost-Spider t-shirt that I maybe accidentally-intentionally shrank so it was tight on me and barely came past my ass. And thanks to the bliss of Meg’s condo having air conditioning, I was wearing a pair of rainbow thigh-high socks. Underwear was a non-starter.
Our roleplaying had evolved over time. Daddy had never been comfortable with the idea of me playing an underage little girl, and I could understand that. But there was an almost 30 year age gap between us, so just pretending to be 18 instead of 21 was plenty scandalous. Also, I was on Instagram and saw how some girls my age were dressing. I had a lot of inspiration to draw on when I wanted to tease him.
Besides, being a brat was ageless.
“Please, Daddy. My co-workers all want to meet you because I talk about you so much. Plus, Susan is flying up from New York and wants to talk to me, so it’d be nice to have you nearby just in case,” I said.
He glanced over from the stove with a slightly worried look on his face.
“Is everything ok? Did she say why she wanted to talk to you?”
I shook my head, the pigtails flipping around in what I was hoping was an adorable way. I mean, the food was nice and all, but it had been three days and I was hungry for something else.
“I know she’s coming to talk to all of us. She likes doing post mortems on how things went so they can improve things on the next show. And if there were any problems so she can talk to the producers,” I said, not adding in that I might have been one of the problems. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come up during Susan’s visit.
“I don’t know, Kitten,” he started. I went over next to him and began rubbing up against him.
“Please, Daddy. We could spend some more time together on set,” I said. “And I’ll make it worth your while now.”