He turned to say something to the hostess, and I took a gulp of air. I’d forgotten to breathe. I put my hands to my shirt buttons to make sure they were fastened, because I felt as if he’d undressed me.
I had two ways to return to Jonathan: behind the piano, which was the crowded, shorter way, or in front, which was less populated but longer.
I walked in front of the piano. The less crowded way. The longer way. The way that took me right past the man in the pink tie.
I wanted him to look at me, and he spent the entire length of our proximity talking earnestly to the baby-faced, bow-lipped man next to him. I caught the burned, dewy pine scent that made no sense and kept walking.
I felt a tug on my wrist, a warm sensation that tingled. His hand was on me, gentle but resolved. I stopped, looking at him as his hand brought me to his face. He drew me down until he was whisper close. A sudden rush of potential went from the back of my neck to the space between my legs, waking me where I thought I’d died.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t speak.
If he kissed me, I would have opened my mouth for him. That, I knew for sure.
“Your shoe,” he said with an accent I couldn’t place.
“What?” I couldn’t stop looking at his eyes: brown, wide, with longer eyelashes than should be legal, hooded under arched brows proportioned for expression.
Was I wearing shoes? Was I standing? Did I need to take in air? Eat? Or could I just live off the energy between us?
He pointed at my heel. “You brought yourself a souvenir from the ladies’ room.”
He was beautiful, even as he smirked with those full lips. Did I have to turn away to see what he was talking about? It was that or put my tongue down his throat. I looked down.
I had a trail of toilet paper on my stiletto.
“Thank you,” I said.
“My pleasure.” He let go of my hand.
The space where he’d touched felt like a missed opportunity, and I went to the bathroom to return my souvenir.
two.
After I’d kicked Daniel out of my loft, Katrina moved in. Living alone had thrust me hip deep into depression, and her things around the house changed my feeling of complete emptiness into a feeling that something was right even when everything was wrong.
For her part, she was dealing with a career that had crashed and burned when she filed a lawsuit against the studio that had funded her Oscar-nominated movie. She said there were profits she was entitled to share; they insisted the production operated at a loss. Fancy, indefensible, and legal accounting proved them right, leaving her bank account empty and her career in tatters.
She and I were cars passing on opposite sides of the freeway. As a nearly-but-not-quite-famous director, she was on set at odd hours, and when she wasn’t, she was trying to hold her production together with spit and chewing gum. She couldn’t pay much, so her crew left for scale-paying gigs and had to be replaced, or they dropped out of a day’s shooting with grave apologies but no replacement. Set designers, assistant camera people, gaffers did it for love and opportunity. Production assistants, also called PAs, were the unskilled and barely paid necessities on set, and most likely to drop out.
Her script supervisor, the person responsible for the continuity of the shots, couldn’t work nights or weekends. After Katrina fired her line producer, who was in charge of keeping ducks in rows, she discovered he hadn’t hired a second script supervisor. She shrugged it off as the risk one takes in “the business,” then segued into a long pitch about my attention to detail, my love of consistency and order, and my eagle eye for continuity. She’d asked—no, begged—me to step in for evenings and weekends.
I met her on set under a viaduct downtown at six a.m. The food truck was set up, and the gaffers and grips were just arriving.
“Let’s face it, Tee Dray,” she said, pointing the straw of her Big Gulp at me, “it’s not like they gave me enough money to pay union for weekend calls.” She wore a baseball cap over a tight black pixie cut that only she could pull off. A Vietnamese Mexican with an athletic build, she carried herself as if she owned the joint. Every joint. When we were at Carlton Prep together, she was a bossy outcast and the most interesting person at school.
“You’re paying me on the back end,” I said.
“Sure,” she said with a strong smile. “Forty percent, but I keep the books.”
We hovered over the coffee and fruit. It was still dark, the ambient hiss of the freeway above as low as it would ever be.
“You know what to do?” she asked.
“I have the binder from last time. Track shots, cuts, who’s wearing what, where their hands are, off-book dialogue, et cetera.”
“I really appreciate this,” she said.
“You deserve a comeback. I’d finance the whole thing, you know.”
“Then I’d feel obligated to sleep with you.” She winked. A flirtatious bisexual, she’d offered herself to me more than once, joking, then not, then joking again.
“I think I’m getting to the point I’d take you up on it,” I joked back.
We’d lost touch during college then reconnected when she got representation at WDE, where I ran the client accounting department. She had directed an action movie with heart and suspense that filled theaters for months. It was in the lexicon of greats, nominated for awards, watched and rewatched years after release. When she’d lost her contract with Overland Studios because of her lawsuit, I knew all the intimate fiscal details because I worked for her agent. She could cry on my shoulder or vent her frustration without explaining the nuances of studio math, or as she called it, ass-rape on a ledger.
A studio like Overland loaned a production company money to make a film then billed themselves interest. The interest compounded for the months of production then into the years following release until a blockbuster like Katrina’s wound up with no profits. No amount of litigation could erase the foul and totally legal practice.
Her current self-made episodic piece, to be shot in diners and under viaducts, was financed through a tiny holding in Qatar. Written, directed, and produced by Katrina Ip, it could put her back on the map. I couldn’t have rooted harder for anyone’s success.
“You need a man,” she said. “A rebound cock to fuck the sad right out of you.”
“Nice way to talk.”
“The truth isn’t always nice. Let me set you up with my brother, and you can set me up with yours.”
“You don’t have a brother.”
“Can’t blame a girl for trying. What about Michael?” She raised an eyebrow, tilting her head. The lead actor in the production had made it clear he was interested in me and a couple of other attractive women on set. He was a man whore, but a nice one.
“I’m not ready,” I said.
“I know, sweetheart. It’ll come back. Some time.”
I pressed my lips together, and though the sun was just peeking over the skyline, it was light enough for her to see the prickly heat brush my cheeks.
“Theresa,” she said, “call is in four minutes. I’m going to have no time to talk. So tell me now. And fast.”
It was a miracle we’d even had time to talk already. Directing a movie was like having a wedding every day for four months. You threw the party but couldn’t enjoy it.
“I went out with Jonathan last night, and there was a guy. A man. I had toilet paper on my shoe and—”
“You? Miss Perfect?”
“Yes. I was so embarrassed.” I dropped my voice to a near whisper when Edgar, her assistant director, approached with a clipboard and a problem. “He was breathtaking.”
She leaned on one hip. “Los Angeles is wall-to-wall breathtaking.”
“He was different. When he touched me—”