The Abandoned Car
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11
All 110 pounds of Bee Miller sits across from me in the Serenity Cloud Buddhist tearoom in Venice Beach. Our brunch consists of chili-flaked avocado on rice cake and a pot of Himalayan salt tea. I am clearly being punished by the universe for yesterday’s In-N-Out burger.
Bee nibbles her smeared green rice disk. “I just don’t get it,” she protests, mid-flow. “They offered it to her. I know you’re not supposed to say it but she has two chins, Mia. She literally has two chins.”
She’s telling me about the screen-test part she lost to another actress on Monday. A new superhero-origin-story TV series.
She shrugs comically before continuing. “What am I supposed to do, get two chins? And I mean I know she’s not up to my standard physically, she can’t do action. How is she going to do the fight scenes? After two seasons of Final Conflict, it’s pretty clear my stunt work is going to be better than hers, right? She’s done, what, like a day of harness work in that crappy time-loop show. Was she even a series lead on that?”
It’s hard to know what to say so I just nod and sip my disgusting tea and try to think Serenity Cloud thoughts as the café around us buzzes with similarly fraught conversations.
“I mean, bless her,” she continues with terrifying earnestness, “I know she really struggles with her weight but how are they even going to film her? Like from what angle? They’ll have to shoot all her scenes from above.”
Something inside me flutters. I think I should probably say something now.
“I don’t know, Bee. She seems pretty in shape to me. And I’m not exactly a model myself, if you know what I mean.”
Bee’s eyes flare wide and innocent as if I’ve accused her of a hate crime. “Oh my God, Mia,” she blurts apologetically. “Please…I am not talking about you. You look fantastic. You’re naturally thin. And I would never even—God, you must think I’m such a bitch. But, I mean, this is an action series I’m talking about, you know. It’s based on a comic book. The costumes are basically latex. It’s not an issue for you, obviously, you do more Austen-y stuff anyway. I’m just saying, for her this series is going to be an uphill struggle. She’s really going to have to keep on top of it. I’m guessing production will have to hire a nutritionist for her. She is going to have to work really hard. Really hard. That’s all I’m saying.” She bites into her rice cake diplomatically.
I nod, pause for a moment, then try to wrangle back the conversation.
“So aside from that, how have you been finding it?”
She looks up from pouring more salty tea. “LA?”
“Yeah. It’s got a weird vibe, right?”
Her perfect little features pucker. “Weird how?”
“I don’t know. Empty,” I say. “Perhaps I’m just not going to the right kind of places?”
“Oh God, I don’t know, I’ve been too busy to notice. Literally it’s lines, tapes, meetings, and parties. It’s exhausting. I’m actually getting a bit puffy on it. You know, you try to drink enough water but it’s never enough, is it? Are you using ice in the morning?”
“Ice?”
“Yeah, on your face.” She looks at me expectantly.
I’m not sure how to reply as I don’t know what exactly I’d be doing with the ice on my face. “It’s good for my puffiness,” she adds, with her completely un-puffy face. “You dunk your face in a bowl of water with ice in. You do it first thing, like as soon as you wake up. It feels so good.”
I push my now browning avo rice cake around the plate. “Nice. Okay. I will give that a go.” God, I would kill for some bacon. “So talk to me about these parties. Work or…”