Chapter 11: Cat Fight

Monday came sooner than expected, and I was dreading it. Today was the day we were shooting the cat commercial, with me as the pseudo-stand-in director. I was going to get to spend the whole day with my favorite person in the world - not - and the star of the commercial, Echo Girl.

"Remember," Zen said, coaching me over breakfast. "She's going to keep on insisting to do it her way… I mean, she makes up her own lines and everything. Don't be surprised if you have to get at least five takes of everything."

He took a sip of his green smoothie and it left a sea foam green moustache on his upper lip. I giggled.

"What is it?" Zen said, looking flustered and shifting in his chair. "MC, stop being so cute right now."

Purposely, I giggled again.

"MC," he said, glancing at the clock on the wall. "I mean it. I have early rehearsal and you can't be late to work, not today."

"Fine," I said, making a pouty face.

"That's also cute," he warned.

"Sorry," I said, though I wasn't. I stood up and reached over the table to wipe the green juice from his upper lip. As I leaned over, Zen's red eyes went wide.

"Jesus, MC!" he said. "Stop already! You don't wear that shirt out in the world, do you?"

"Of course not," I said. "It's a nightshirt!"

"Well, god, you can see all the way down to your belly button, and everything in between," he said.

"I know," I said, smiling.

"Man," he said, shaking his head. "You're an evil goddess, aren't you?" He got up and turned to the sink to rinse out his empty glass, and then turned back to put a hand on my shoulder.

"Well, I'll forgive you if you promise to wear this 'nightshirt' again later," he said, bending over to kiss me. As he did, he hooked a finger inside the front of my shirt, pulling it down for one more peek. "Until later, my lovelies," he said to my breasts.

I touched his chin to bring his face back level with mine and kissed him on the lips.

"Have a good day, my lovely Zen," I said, giving him my most sincere I-love-you eyes. "Knock 'em dead."

"Yeah," he said. "You, too. Good luck with Echo Girl… Remember, you're the boss."

I nodded and turned back to my attention back to my yogurt. I'd only taken maybe two bites so far. To be honest, my stomach was churning, but not from hunger. I was too nervous. I was already anxious about working with Echo Girl today, but the encounter at the karaoke bar the other night had only amplified my worries by like 100 percent.

Zen left the room but then came back wearing his leather jacket and carrying his helmet. He turned my chin to face him and bent over so that our foreheads were touching.

"One more thing," he said very seriously. "I love you, not her. I know it goes without saying, but I'm going to keep reminding you anyway."

I smiled and pulled his lips to mine.

"Thank you," I said. Ever since our fight the other day, Zen had been going out of his way to overtly remind me how much he loved me, and how much Echo Girl wasn't for him. For some people this might have been considered over-the-top or too much, but me, I was grateful.

"OK," he said, kissing me one time. "For real this time. I'm going. See you later, gorgeous."

Jaehee sent Driver Kim for me at 8:30am. The shoot was at a mansion across town in Jumin's neighborhood, and we had to drive about a half hour to get there. As we drove up the winding driveway, I marveled at the meticulous garden. Just the driveway alone was lined with tulips. Jaehee told me that the owners were only here for part of the year. Who took care of this the rest of the time? I'm assuming they paid someone surely, but how much did that cost? What kind of income does someone have to have to be able to afford a garden they hardly ever see?

Turns out the garden was just the beginning. Everything about this place was off the charts. The entry hall alone was covered in marble and led to a grand winding mahogany staircase that wound all the way up the entire three stories of the house. At the top was a domed ceiling with more marble sculpting and intricate wood designs. I was still gaping at the interior when Jaehee came rushing in from another room.

"There you are!" She said, noting the dropped jaw and expression on my face. "Isn't this place gorgeous?"

"Impressive," I said, nodding. "Who lives here?" I'd seen Jumin's place, once, and it was nice, but nothing compared to this. I was getting more curious by the moment. Who lived here, and for only part of the year?

"That's classified, I'm afraid," Jaehee said. "I'm not even privy to that information." Jaehee made a wiping motion like well, that's that with her hands. "Good thing that's information we don't need to know for this project."

Jaehee motioned me to follow her and I did.

"We do, however, have strict orders not to enter non-designated rooms for any reason," she said, looking back at me from over the rim of her glasses. "So for our purposes, we must stay confined to the rooms located in the west wing, first floor only. That includes the entryway of course, which you've just been in, the front living room, the west wing kitchen and two bathrooms, one off the kitchen, and one off the west wing master bedroom."

"That should be enough," I said, though I would've liked to explore the entire house, see what was up those mahogany stairs...

"Most certainly," Jaehee agreed. "I've taken the liberty to dress the three different sets we'll need for sette scene, the vanity and the bed…"

I followed Jaehee down another marble hall and into a bedroom, if you want to call it that. This room was the size of Zen's apartment, maybe even a bit bigger. The whole room was decked out in more of that gorgeous mahogany wood used for the stairs and huge french windows with panes of stained glass at the top.

One side of the room was set up for the vanity scene. There was the ornate vanity - almost identical from the look book drawings, I noticed - complete with a large oval brass-rimmed mirror and elegant blood red velvet stool. There was even a set of brass-handled brushes, combs and several crystal perfume bottles.

"Wow," I said.

The heart-shaped bed was on the other side of the room.

"Wow," I said, again, this more in amazement of Jumin's poor taste.

The bed was just as kitschy and gaudy as the look book depicted, with a high-backed intricate brass headboard and matching curved feet at the base. The bed was covered a brocade red velvet bedspread and covered with pillows. The pillows were covered with different types of fur and animal patterns, zebra, leopard, tiger and the like. I furrowed my brow. I didn't remember those from the look book.

"What's up with the pillows?" I asked.

"Oh," Jaehee said running a hand through her short brown hair. "That's um, well, Echo Girl requested those. She said she didn't want look like she'd be the type of girl who didn't know how to have any fun in the bedroom."

"You're kidding me," I said, smirking.

Jaehee scratched the back of her neck. "She was very adamant," she sighed.

"I see," I said. So the first battle had already been fought before I'd even arrived. It was going to be a long day.

Off in another corner of the room, a small area had been set up with a makeshift dressing room. I was relieved to see many of the items Echo Girl requested lined up on a table nearby, including several types of lotion and hand creme, a very specific and hard to find mineral water (we'd had to import it from the United States), as well as the requested snacks, including the fish-shaped buns from her favorite local vendor (not the one near Zen's house).

The rest of the room was already a buzz with a small crew of, I'm guessing cameramen and grips, the folks who rig with lights and position the soft boxes, reflectors and the like. Everything look set up and ready.

"Looks like we're ready to go," I said. "So where's the woman of the hour?" I paused, looking around. There was also definitely another very important thing missing. "And where are the cats?"

"Oh yes," Jaehee said. "That…"

We didn't get started shooting until almost 1pm. Echo Girl was fashionably late - her call time was 9:30am, and she didn't show up until well after 11:00am.

"I'm sorry, darling," she said to Jaehee, purposely, I think, making a pointed effort to snub me. "My esthetician was running behind schedule, and I just don't go anywhere in front of any camera without first having my rejuvenating seaweed scrub… I'm sure you understand."

The cats had shown up around 10:30am. Turns out the handler had gotten lost and gone to the wrong address. By the time the animals got to our venue, they were quite frazzled and distressed, having been confined to their carriers for more than two hours. Once they were freed, they spent the first hour tearing around the place arching their backs and hissing at each other, teeth bared, ears back flat against their heads.

"This is definitely not the look we're going for," Jaehee said, crossing her arms and shaking her head. The decision was made to open cans of tuna fish one of the production assistants had found in the kitchen and feed them to the cats. Soon they were licking and scooting cans across the floor every which way, purring to their heart's content.

"OK," Jaehee said. "That's more like it." She wrinkled her nose. "Although it smells god awful in here now."

Once Echo Girl had arrived, there had been the anticipated fight over the dresses. If you recall, Jumin had selected some pretty dated looking styles. There was the red velvet chiffon dressing gown with the feather boa fringe, circa de 1950, which, yeah, sometimes vintage can be cool, but this wasn't. The quality of the fabric was cheap, and the outer robe resembled more of a shower curtain than a dress.

"I am certainly not wearing this," Echo Girl cried with, in my opinion, a justified look of disdain. Things were already bad, but then her face twisted into an even larger expression of horror when she saw the other dress. This gown was more of a "frock" that would cover her whole body, head to toe, fashioned from a bright yellow gingham fabric. It's most awful feature, and yes, indeed it could get worse, was the high doily-like lace neck and cuffs. Who's the pirate from Peter Pan? Oh yes, Captain Hook comes to mind, but yeah, in a dress, and in yellow gingham.

I couldn't help now but to picture Echo Girl in that dress as Captain Hook, with one hand as a hook and all. Then I imagined her getting eaten by a cartoon crocodile, battling its snapping jaws with flailing arms and legs. Having all these thoughts made me start smirk, and so I quickly covered my mouth with one of my hands.

"Excuse me," Echo Girl started, turning her ire on me. Her usually doll-like big blue eyes were a focused, narrow blue flame. "Are you laughing right now?"

"Uh, no," I said, but for some reason the look on her face just made me smirk harder. "I just…" I couldn't finish my sentence. Ever since I was a little girl, I've had a tendency to erupt into giggles when put in a high pressure situation. This was happening now.

Jaehee pulled off her glasses completely and shot me a look.

"MC," she said under her breath. "For god's sake, get a hold of yourself."

Echo Girl now had her hands on her hips and her face was beet red.

"I should have known that you were too green to handle this," she hissed. "I will not be made a fool of."

Echo Girl turned on her heel and actually smacked the rack of dresses with her hand like a claw.

"Eun-yi! Kim Dong-woo!" she bellowed. Echo Girl's assistant and manager stepped forward.

"Yes, Ms. Madame?" Kim Dong-woo, the manager, said.

Ms. Madame? I couldn't help myself. I could feel my giggle on the verge of erupting into a full-on belly laugh.

"Well, you've been standing here this whole time, what is that you think I want?" Echo said, flashing a wicked look at her manager Kim Dong-woo, and then another one at me. God, she could be scary.

While Echo Girl was talking to her manager, Jaehee pulled me aside.

"MC, just what is going on with you?" she said. "You are being rude."

"I'm sorry," I said to Jaehee. "I don't know…" I felt a fresh crop of giggles erupt and I brought both hands up to cover my mouth.

"Go splash some water on your face," she said. "And then come back and fix this."

In the end there was a lot of haggling about what was written in the contract, what was considered binding and what might be considered negotiable. It wasn't surprising that Jaehee had done her job by including a plan for any breach of contract - this was Echo Girl we were dealing with after all.

"Lucky for you," Jaehee advised me. "I included a 50% penalty clause for any breach of contract. That means Echo Girl - and more importantly - Echo Girl's manager will be responsible for paying, or forgoing, 50% of the agreed upon appearance fee, should she fail to comply in any way."

"50%!?" I exclaimed. "That's a lot."

"Yes," Jaehee said. "She should have probably read the fine print and refused to sign it." Her smile widened into an even more satisfactory grin. "This could mean that Kim Dong-woo may soon be looking for work."

"This also means Echo Girl's wearing the yellow dress," I said, putting things together and smiling just a little.

"Yes," Jaehee said. "It's not normally a stipulation I would include, but Echo Girl is building quite a reputation for herself in the business for being a pain in the ass to work with."

My mouth dropped. Did Jaehee just say "pain in the ass"? This might be one of the worst days in my life so far, but I was going to remember this moment forever.

"I'll say it again, because you seemed to like it so much," Jaehee said, smiling, and then she put a hand on my arm. "Echo Girl is a pain in the ass to work with, yes, but there's another reason. I also don't like how she's manipulating Zen… and you," Jaehee paused, staring over the rims of her glasses out into space, her eyes narrowing. "I smell trouble… and someone needs to put that rich bitch in her place."

"Pain in the ass" and "ritch bitch" in one day. I needed to buy a lottery ticket.

Zen texted me around lunchtime.

Zen: You know natural D-sized cup breasts are overrated...

MC: Is that right?

Zen: How's it going with the wicked witch?

MC: I don't know if I can even put it into words… I kind of messed up.

Zen: Not even knowing what you "did"... I'm guessing that she probably deserved it.

MC: IDK… I'm not sure anyone deserves to wear that yellow dress Jumin picked out.

Zen: LOL. Fair point, but I'm on your side.

MC: Thanks. I love you.

Zen: I love you more. Hang in there.

The hard part was relaying the bad news to Echo Girl. No matter how you sliced it, whatever happened, in her mind, was my fault, and my fault alone.

"I can't believe this is happening," she said, her blue eyes narrowing in a I-need-you-to-pay sort of way. "You know I won't ever forget this."

The harder part was getting through the rest of the day. Zen wasn't kidding when he said we'd have to do each take four or five times… Try more like five or six. Jaehee's contract was specific: all filming for the production must be completed in a 24-hour period. I didn't find my way back to Zen's apartment until well after midnight.

I have to admit, I really did enjoy seeing Echo Girl wearing the yellow gingham dress, more than I would've imagined. I needed to remember to thank Jumin, when I saw him next.