All the World's a Soundstage

"My baby," wailed the woman. "My bayyyyy-beeeeeee!"

Give me a freaking break, I thought.

She dropped to her knees as she clutched at her rumpled -- but not too messy -- hair with both hands.

I was surprised that her gorgeous blondness didn't break off with all of the lacquer in it. (There was more than a little bit of jealousy going on, I admit. But still...)

She bent over the bundled form, supposedly her child, sick with pneumonia. Her tear-soaked cheeks had not a trace of mascara on them. Another miracle.

In an effort of Herculean proportions, I managed to suppress an eyeroll.

"And.... Cut!" barked the director. There was halfhearted applause all around from the rest of the crew.

Liz Schneider -- excuse me, Lola Suarez -- took a quick bow and hurried back to her dressing room. The crew was happy because it spared her from chewing up anymore scenery, which of course, they would have to clean. Already, the mannequin that played Liz's -- I mean Lola's -- son was being packed up and put in a box. The real Joey Romano was happily sequestered off set, practicing his multiplication tables with his tutor. We already shot his scenes earlier. This last take was supposed to be a close up of Liz/Lola. She'd insisted. She wanted all of her fans to know just how much she was suffering, and this shot was going to show them.

Honestly, I didn't know a single actress on the soap circuit who didn't think she was Meryl Streep. And all of the actors thought they were Al Pacino or Bobby DeNiro.

One of the production assistants (Al? Lee? We cycled through PAs so quickly that they all blurred) grabbed my sleeve and whispered in a panicky voice, "We can't find Eduardo!"

We'd be shooting his scenes after the sound check in the next set. It was supposed to be another big reveal -- Eduardo was supposed to tell Liz/Lola not only would the boy never walk again, but he was not even her biological son. Which was really stupid because Liz/Lola supposedly carried him for nine months. I couldn't wait to hear what garbage the writers used to explain that one away.

But our doctor was nowhere to be found, which wasn't an unusual occurrence.

"Did you try the lunch room?"

The PA nodded.

"How about makeup? He's been flirting with the new girl there lately."

The PA nodded again. "I tried all of the usual places. He's just nowhere to be found."

I went through each of the places that Eduardo had been found in the past. Wardrobe? The smoking area? The second floor mens room? The closet in the basement? How about his dressing room?

The PA looked shocked for a moment. "I didn't think to check his room. I'll be right back."

No one can scamper off quite like a twenty year old production assistant. It was kind of cute. All of the PAs are a little in awe of me. After eight years as an emergency room nurse, I've lost any tendency to run around like my hair's on fire. It's a skill they'd better nurture, especially if they want to stay in this business.

I got distracted by the sound engineer, then by the woman who had a bit part as a nurse. ("But what's my motivation," she whined at me. "You want to get paid for this, right?" I snapped back. 'Well, there's your motivation.") The next time I saw Mike the PA, he was unaccompanied by Eduardo. He looked like a contestant asked to explain Stephen Hawking at a Miss USA competition. I took it to mean that our resident doc was still MIA.

Every minute's delay cost money, and we were bleeding a lot of green as it is. For a moment, I thought that I could have the "What's my motivation?" nurse deliver the lines, but Eduardo was a star. He was singlehandedly responsible for a third of the female audience. Not only that, but we were paying him a fortune. "Five minute coffee break!" I yelled at the top of my lungs, then motioned for the PA to follow me.

Eduardo was a simple man. He liked food. He liked his liquor. And he liked the ladies. The question was, which one of those was calling to him at this moment?

We checked his usual haunts, and then the unusual ones. Finally, we found him passed out, pants down but with his lab coat on, on a pile of wardrobe rejects waiting for the Salvation Army. Next to him was the new chick from makeup and an empty bottle.

"Up and at 'em!" I barked, grabbing his arm and pulling him to an upright and locked position. The chickie grabbed the nearest item from the wardrobe pile, an apron reject from one of the cooking shows. It didn't do much to hide her nakedness. But I didn't care about her.

We heard an unhappy crunching sound as Eduardo stumbled to his feet. Mike, the PA, looked pained as he found the good "doctor's" glasses, now broken in two pieces under the makeup woman's naked butt. He held them up like they were a pair of his elderly aunt's soiled undergarments.

I understood right away. Eduardo was the closest thing we had to Pacino, but not even he could pull off playing the role of a doctor without the glasses. Without them, he just looked like Grandpa at the bingo hall. The glasses were key to his success.

"Get another pair from Props," I barked yet again, at the frightened PA.

As a testament to my devotion to the network's Stairmaster, I was able to haul Eduardo back to the soundstage. Once he was there, he grabbed the glasses from my face and set them on his nose. They looked a whole lot better on him than they did on me.

He performed like the champ he was.

On the way home, I kept replaying Liz/Lola's wailing in my head. Gads, she was like a human mosquito. But at least she was bothering someone else, and not me.

My son was in the living room watching TV when I got home. The drip that fed nutrients into a vein near his heart was almost empty. Without thinking about it, I got another from the hall closet and set it up. I held my hand to his forehead, glad to feel that it was cool and dry. "Mom!" he protested as he squirmed away from me. "I'm fine."

I looked over his missing eyebrows, the yellowish cast of his skin, the way his clothes hung like cheap rags off his now thin body. No, he was anything but fine.

My baby.