by Julie Wright
“No!” Adam insisted. “I stay up at night wondering how to get ahead and how to achieve my goals.”
I would’ve bet money Adam stayed up late wondering how he could bribe or poison his way into an acting gig. It was the reason he took the position as Dean’s assistant. We all took our points of entry into the business wherever we could find them. Adam’s question reminded me of a movie quote, however, so I ignored his alarm over my having only one eye and smirked in the mirror at Ben. “So, Ben. How’s it going to end?”
Ben smirked back, recognizing the tone in my voice as the invitation to the movie quote game we’d played during the years we worked together. “Too easy. The Truman Show.”
We spent the rest of the ride slinging quotes and guesses to each other. Adam didn’t join the game because he was too busy telling me to keep my eye on the road. Dean tried to play but guessed that everything came from a John Wayne movie.
We arrived at the studio gate, where I flashed my ID at the guard and Dean screeched “Eeee-iiiight!” out the window. Dean’s appearance was the only reason the guard didn’t check Ben’s ID. Once we were, finally, parked in my assigned spot, the light at the end of the tunnel seemed to shine brighter. I even started to believe it might not be a train.
“A little coffee, and we’ll be right as rain,” Ben repeated to Dean several times as he helped him out of the car and up the steps. Adam didn’t offer to help or to hold the door until I rolled my eyes at him and commanded him to keep the door propped open so we could get Dean through.
Adam gasped. “You really do have only one eye. Only one rolled! That’s awful!” He made a retching sound when I rolled my eye again. What a lightweight.
We settled Dean onto the studio’s bright orange, incredibly modern, and even more incredibly uncomfortable couch, and I went to make coffee. Ben left Adam in charge of keeping Dean busy and followed me to the studio kitchen. From behind us, I heard Dean shout, “We’re supposed to be dancing!”
Ben leaned against the counter as I pulled out the pods of coffee and chose the one I felt would produce the strongest results.
“Never thought I’d live to see the day when you were on a dance floor in a crowd thick enough to be a moving game of sardines. You hate dancing.”
I pushed the pod into the coffee maker. “I hate it even more now.” I was lying. I actually loved dancing, loved moving with music, but going dancing? That, I hated. Going dancing required you to endure mob-like conditions where surprises from the right were likely and body odor a definite.
“And all those people?” Ben continued. “When I first saw you out there, I thought you were going to have a full-blown attack and pass out or something. You told me crowds made you feel like you were literally being blindsided. I was actually worried, Sil.”
I put a mug under the spigot and looked up to meet Ben’s serious gaze. “Desperate times called for desperate measures.” I rubbed at the skin around my glass eye. It had been a long day.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I smiled, showing all my teeth. “Of course I am.”
He straightened and crossed his arms over his chest. “You know what I mean. I didn’t help you get this job so you could be miserable. I got it so you could—” He blinked and gave himself a slight shake. “Are you happy here?”
“It’s a stepping-stone,” I said, adding a splash of an energy drink to Dean’s mug—a little liquid pep that would hopefully bring him to full capacity sooner. “But happy? What’s happy, Ben? Dean—who is currently incapacitated—is supposed to go through an entire film and provide feedback on choices that I had to make because he didn’t. And in less than ten hours, he has to meet with Christopher and Danny with a product that is as close to perfect as possible. Christopher and Danny! Can you imagine?” I lifted my eye to the ceiling as if looking for divine intervention.
Ben, of course, could imagine. Christopher and Danny were the producer-and-editor dream team. Working on one of their films was an unbelievable opportunity. If Dean hadn’t fallen under the control of his addiction, he would’ve realized how important this chance really was. The chance was certainly important to me.
I picked up the oversized coffee mug and blew across the top of it so the coffee wouldn’t be too hot for Dean. He’d probably chug it, and I didn’t want to ice down his scalded esophagus later.
“Dean’s barely done anything on the film. I’ve been covering for him for over three months. I’ve done all the work while he leaves early and comes in late, but if anything goes wrong, I’ll be the first one under the bus.”
“You could explain . . .” He trailed off, recognizing the truth of the situation. Hollywood talked a lot about being progressive, but it was still a world where only one or two out of a hundred scriptwriters were female. Things were shifting, but waiting on a glacial-slow shift tested the mettle of the most determined women in the field.
“So am I happy?” I closed my eyes to get some moisture into them. When I opened them again, I gave Ben another smile—a real one this time. “I will be. And even with all the crazy of this, I still appreciate your help in getting me this job. I know, ultimately, it’s exactly what my career needs. And you know my career means everything to me. So thanks, sincerely.”
We stood for another microsecond or two before Ben said, “I should probably get back to Alison.”
“Right . . . your date. You can take my car.” I nodded and turned to lead the way out. After all, I had to get back to Dean. It was time to get to work.
But upon approaching the orange couch, Adam shook his head. “Our patient has flatlined.”
“What?” My eyes flew to Dean, whose eyes were closed. I would’ve believed he’d actually died except for the snore that rose up from him. “He’s just sleeping,” I stammered. “We can wake him up. We can get him to drink the coffee and get him to finish the edits and sign off on everything. This will still be okay.”
Adam never stopped shaking his head. “Sorry, Silvia. It’s just not going to happen.”
“Nice attitude, Adam,” I snapped. Not that he was wrong. Dean Thomas was pretty much unconscious, and I had nine hours and thirty-six minutes before the film presentation. I guess we were all done dancing for the night.
“When you sell a fake masterpiece, that is a crime.”
—Nicole Bonnet, played by Audrey Hepburn
in How to Steal a Million
Of course, I tried to wake Dean up.
I called his name, shook him, splashed ice water on him, clapped loudly next to his ear. I stopped short of dumping his hot coffee on him—though I did think about it for a fraction of a second. I immediately felt guilty and was glad I hadn’t vocalized it. No need for Ben and Adam to know what kind of monster they were dealing with.
Besides, I’d already taken the satisfaction of slapping Dean across the face. The red handprint on his cheek proved I hadn’t held back. Though I couldn’t be sure the slap was meant to wake Dean or satisfy my own frustration. At least it achieved one of those purposes.
Dean snored on. No matter what I did, his mouth hung open in his own blissful cocoon of slumber while I went into full panic mode.
Ben must have recognized the signs, because he didn’t leave to meet up with his date. He took off his jacket, hung it over a chair, and pulled me back to the kitchenette.
He opened the fridge and rummaged through it until he found what he was looking for. He held up a can of Dr Pepper and grinned at me. “I knew if you had access to this fridge, you would keep it stocked for personal emergencies.” He pulled out a plastic cup from the cupboard and filled it with ice. He cracked open the can and poured it over the ice with a familiar fizz and crackle that made me actually feel better.
“Drink this,” he ordered.
I did as directed, then I set the cup on the counter and hung my head in my hands. “I’ll just have to turn it in as is
and hope for the best.”
Ben moved closer and rubbed his hand over my back. “You’re selling yourself short, Sil. I know you. I know what your work looks like. You’ve got mad skills and great vision. It’s why you got this job. Any director would be grateful to have you on his team.”
“Or her,” I countered, meeting Ben’s gaze. “Just because only seven out of every hundred directors are female doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.”
“Or her,” he agreed. “The point is that you’re good at what you do.”
“Art can’t be made in a vacuum. It needs collaboration. It needs checks and balances. You were a huge part of what helped make me great. I don’t have that here. At least, not enough of it.”
“That’s patently false. You’re amazing without anyone’s help. But in spite of that, you still have me. I’m here. I’ll stay. Let’s look over the film, and I’ll give you an honest critique. Just like old times.”
Relief, gratitude, and guilt all hit at the same time, which made my eyes leaky. “That’s way too much for me to ask.”
“It’s a good thing you didn’t ask then, isn’t it?”
“What about Mid-Scene’s noncompetition clause? You could get fired.”
“Right. Because you would totally tell on me. C’mon, Silvia. If I can’t trust you, then I can’t trust puppies.”
His analogy made me frown. “But you can’t trust puppies. They’ll eat your shoes the first time you turn your back.”
Instead of responding to my observation, he fixed me with a stern “You’re in trouble, young lady” look. “When was the last time you slept?” He grabbed my chin, tilting my face so he could see the left side.
I couldn’t answer because I honestly didn’t know.
“Did you even know your right eyelid is practically glued shut? It only does that when you’ve reached your exhaustion limit.”
I both hated and loved that Ben was a good enough friend that he knew such lame yet important details about me. I hadn’t known it was shut. Since I couldn’t see out of my right eye, the lid had a mind of its own and took advantage of the situation.
“I’ll sleep when this is all over,” I promised. “I’ll sleep a lot.”
“Good. Because lack of sleep doubles your chances of dying from heart failure or stroke. So let’s get you some rest sooner and not later, okay?” He shoved away from the counter and waited for me to lead the way to the editing suite. We stopped to check on Dean and Adam, and I left Adam with strict instructions to keep a fresh cup of coffee ready every fifteen minutes.
“Every fifteen minutes?” Adam whined.
I shot him a look that shut him up. We both knew Dean would never drink from a mug prepared too far in advance. Dean was a snob when it came to his hot beverages.
“Those pods are expensive,” Adam groused.
I bent low so I could look Adam in the eye. I worked to make my eye muscles pull up my right eyelid so I wasn’t pirate-squinting at him. “I don’t care if we go a million dollars over budget in coffee expenses. If he wakes up, you are to force him to drink a fresh cup. If he and I get fired because we screw this up, you get fired, too. And we both know reentry to any studio is nearly impossible. So help me hit a home run, okay?”
Adam nodded. He actually looked humbled, which made me feel guilty for threatening his job, but not guilty enough to apologize. It was a tough day for everyone, and we all had our lumps to take. Well, all of us except the snoozing princess passed out on the couch.
With that out of the way, I led Ben to the place that was both my battlefield and playground.
When I unlocked the door to the editing suite and let him inside, Ben whistled. “I have never felt deprived at Mid-Scene Films until this moment. Look at those monitors! Look at your panel. Oh! Your headphones!” He touched everything, oohing and aahing over every component visible.
I smiled. “I haven’t even turned anything on, yet. The hardware is nice and all, but wait until you see the software.”
Ben sighed with the envy and awe I had felt when Portal Pictures first interviewed me. Entering the modern steel-and-glass fortress hadn’t intimidated or impressed me, no matter how vogue it looked. I didn’t fall in love until I met the editing suite.
“Fire it up. Show me what I’m missing,” Ben said.
The laugh that had been about to bubble out of my throat froze. “I can’t let you help me with this,” I said, pulling my fingers away from the power button.
“Proprietary?”
“No . . . well, yes, but this is a lot to ask you to do. It’s not fair to you. And I need Dean’s signature to show he’s approved everything. Even if you look at the film, you can’t sign off on anything.”
“But I can review it, make sure you dotted all your i’s. Then, we get Dean to wake up in a few hours, have him sign off on the final cut, and maybe even have him sober by ten to do the presentation.”
“That’s just it. We can’t. You can’t be here at ten. You can’t be here after eight when the weekend staffers show up. If anyone sees a film editor from a competing studio here, they’ll go crazy.”
Ben blew a raspberry at me and flipped my ponytail so my hair hit me in the face. The smell was not awesome. I really needed a shower. “Right, like Mid-Scene Films could compete with Portal Pictures. You guys compete with Sony and Fox.”
I bumped him with my shoulder. “We do not.”
He bumped me back. “You’re closer to them than we are to you. But your argument has been made and accepted. I’ll be gone before eight. So we’d better get started.”
I’d given him every out possible. If he chose to stay, well . . . I was glad he’d chosen to stay. We got started.
Ben almost wept when he put on his pair of headphones and claimed he’d never be able to go back. I poked him in the shoulder, but he’d already quieted and become the serious Ben I knew so well from the few years I’d worked under him at Mid-Scene Films.
This was how a critique always went. He’d review the entire work in silence, saving all comments for when the screen went dark again.
I checked the time on my phone, but Ben put his hand on mine and lightly pulled my phone away. He couldn’t do his job properly if we were clock-watching and not screen-watching. He was right, of course, so I refrained from looking at the digital wall clock, too.
We watched the movie together from the title screen of Sliver of Midnight to the credits. His face stayed passive the entire time.
I hated that he could do that. I was a laugh-out-loud and cry-out-louder person. Some of my friends refused to go to movies with me because they said my on-display-emotions diminished their viewing experience. Emma actually admitted to being embarrassed by my raucous laughter.
The credits rolled. He waited until the very last before finally turning his attention to me. His eyes were glassy, the teary kind of glassy, the kind of glassy I’d never seen before in Ben.
Was it possible he’d felt touched enough to cry? I mean, yeah, sure I cried after viewing my final product the first time, and I likely would have gotten emotional this time, too, if I wasn’t already so keyed up with nervous terror. Sliver of Midnight was a beautiful story. The director had handled it perfectly. But Ben never got emotional.
I strained to not look at the time, but I didn’t really have to. I knew the film was exactly an hour and thirty-eight minutes long. We had just under six hours to polish and perfect it.
We might as well have had six minutes for all the good it would accomplish.
But I didn’t say that out loud. Instead, I waited for Ben to process and file, rearrange and rethink. I didn’t even harass him for getting emotional since the compliment of that emotion was all mine.
He cleared his throat and said, “Silvia, I know that, in your heart, you already know this, but . . . this is some of your best work.”
I released a shaky bark of laughter. “What?”
“No, really. This is good. Better than anything you ever did while working for me, and you know I loved what you did for me. So you’ve either been honing your skills or the equipment really made up the difference.” He laughed at his joke and shook his head. “The cuts you made that were interruptions of one conversation but segued into other, entirely different, conversations are nothing short of genius. You must have spent days on that alone to make it so seamless. The fact that you kept the emotions high and tense during those shifts is astounding. You’re staying invisible, which is an art form within an art form. I bow to your skill. The student has become the master.”
Ben pushed back his chair and actually did bow, which made my cheeks burn and my eyes get leaky.
Ben’s smile faded into concern. “You’re crying blood, Sil.”
I reached for the tissue box I kept handy in every workstation where I spent more than a few minutes a day. The thing about fake eyes was they got messy sometimes. “Awesome.” I dabbed at the corner of my eye and sighed. “The socket’s probably irritated from the lack of sleep. Water builds up behind the eye and makes me cry demon tears.”
“Cyclops tears,” he corrected.
“I never should have told you that’s what my friend calls me.” I flipped some of the buttons on the panel to bring up the lights.
“Don’t I qualify as your friend?”
“It’s almost two in the morning, and you’re still here. Yes, you qualify.”
“Good, then that means I get cyclops rights. It’s only fair.”
I shook my head and wiped my eye until I was sure it had finished embarrassing me. “So, aside from telling me I’m amazing—critique?”
“There were a few jokes where you came into the scene too early and left too late. It affected the timing—especially when those jokes were meant to lighten some serious tension. Remember what I said about timing?”
“It ebbs and flows. You can feel it in your chest likes waves coming in and out.” I repeated his favorite lesson. It was how he explained the magic of intuition—a thing he insisted could not be taught. A film editor either had it, or they didn’t.
