Maid in Seattle [Elvis]

Chapter 16 - On the Set pt 1: Conflicted

Up until this time, I had basically been a nobody. Things were different. I had been involved with a world-famous star, and I was on my way to step in as a handler for the child star acting in said star's current movie. If my past self, only three weeks ago, could see me, she would laugh in my face, telling me that I was crazy.

Maybe I was. In fact, I knew I was. But we had to do crazy things in our lives to make life more exciting right? Live a little? As far as I was concerned, I had been living a little a lot in the past couple of weeks.

The drive to the set wasn't far from the hotel since the Space Needle was in view of the hotel very well and was rather close to it. It wasn't even a mile. When Mr. Taurog stopped the car, he had only been driving for a few minutes.

"Well, here we are," he said as we stood out of the car into warm air. "This is where the scene will take place. It is meant to be shot at night, but we want to get some run-throughs of the scene before the night shot."

"I understand," I said, looking around, seeing cameras on stands and people walking about and talking with one another. They were probably the film crew. This was truly fascinating. "It's like one needs to practice an instrument before a concert, or a sports team has to practice before the big game."

"Exactly."

We got out of the car, and I looked around the area. It was outdoors and looked to be the grounds to the fair, with buildings around. The Space Needle was looming over the whole area, a few hundred feet in the air.

"This is going to be one of the ending scenes to the movie," said Mr. Taurog as we stood near a gate that led into the area. I could see cameras set up inside and outside of it. "Little Sue Lin, who Vicky is playing, goes missing, and Mike Edwards, who Elvis is playing, comes here to find her. The story is, these two guys are pilots, and unless they get some money, their plane will be auctioned off, so they hitch hike their way to Seattle in a truck belonging to a Mr. Ling, who is taking his niece Sue Lin to The World's Fair. Something comes up and he can't take her to the fair, so Mike's partner tells Mike to go. So, he takes her, they have a grand time, but something happens to the uncle, and Sue Lin stays with Mike and his work partner for a time. The Child Welfare Board finds out about this, and the girl is taken away by them. She escapes and Mike goes to find her. When he does, they have to escape off of the fairgrounds since they're trespassing on it at night. That is the scene we're working on today."

Well, taking this little one-day job would spoil the whole movie for me. He basically gave me a whole summation of the movie, minus the romance between Mike and the main lady. "I see. So... is Elvis going to be here?"

"He will eventually, as well as Vicky.  Ah, there she is right now."

I turned and saw a white car pull up behind Mr. Taurog's. A little girl wearing a light-blue dress and had long, dark braids sticking out on either side of her head hopped out of the car, and then a woman after her, who looked of the same Asian ethnicity, and looked maybe in her lower-to-mid thirties. Their ethnicity wasn't Chinese, Korean or Japanese from first glance. What was it? Elvis never said when he mentioned her.

"Mamma, there's Mr. Taurog!" said Vicky, and she came up to him. "Hello, Mr. Taurog."

"Hello, there, Vicky. Are you ready for today?"

"Yes, I am!" She looked up at me and smiled. "Hello."

What a cute little girl! "Hello, Vicky."

"This is Miss Amy Kim, Vicky," said Mr. Taurog. "She's going to take the place of your mother today."

"Really?" she exclaimed gleefully. "I didn't know that my handler for today would be so pretty!"

Aw, she's so charming! "Why thank you, Vicky. You're pretty, too."