After the crowd had dispersed, she returned to the brand new Rico Fernandez star and snapped a picture of that too.
Then she headed back to her hotel, stopping to grab herself a bagel and a drink along the way, her thoughts still on Rico Fernandez. He was even more good-looking in person than he was in his movies.
Chapter Four
She spent the rest of the evening just chilling in her hotel room, sitting in the window and watching the world go by, and before long, it was starting to get dark and she was beginning to think about bed. It wasn’t particularly late, but she was tired from her flight and her long afternoon of walking around LA. Besides, she had a very early start in the morning and wanted to feel fresh.
Having had a bite to eat and finished the rest of her unpacking, she decided she’d better figure out what to wear for her first day as a runner.
She’d done a bit of research into the job online and found a couple of advice websites from people who’d done it before, and they apparently recommended comfortable trainers, jeans or shorts, and easily removable layers, so that she could adapt to all weather conditions. The last one didn’t really apply at the moment, however, since the first three weeks of filming would all be done inside the studio, then they’d be going out on-location for the outside shots. They would probably have air-conditioning though, which could sometimes get a little chilly, so she opted for a pair of jeans, a T-shirt and a little leather jacket on top, which could easily be taken on or off.
That done, she watched a bit of TV for a while, lying on her small, uncomfortable bed in her tiny, stuffy room, until she felt her eyes going weary.
Then she got changed into her nightclothes, turned off the lights and slipped in between the sheets.
Despite her tired eyes and exhausted body from all the walking earlier, she still found herself awake half an hour later and unable to get to sleep, her mind running through all the possible scenarios of her first day as a runner, wondering what the people she’d be working with would be like. Rico Fernandez… the producer, Francis Romero… Sally… and everyone else she was so excited to meet. She kept tossing and turning, unable to get comfortable and settle, her mind wired and hyped into overdrive.
Eventually, she got bored of her attempts at sleep and reached for her phone off the bedside table, yawning a little as she opened it up and decided to scroll through the pictures she’d taken earlier on that day on the Walk of Fame.
She smiled to herself at all the different stars, and finally settled on Rico’s, staring at it for a while longer than all the others.
Frowning slightly to herself as if deep in thought, she pulled up her browser and typed in ‘Rico Fernandez,’ curious and wanting to find out a little bit more about the man she would be working with.
She, of course, knew his name and had seen a few of his movies, but other than that she was rather clueless.
She pulled up a couple of articles and interviews about him and read through them, fascinated, for the next half an hour or so.
The most recent interview she found had taken place only two weeks ago. There was a picture of him smiling, with those sparkling eyes and teeth. He was talking about his latest movie, which had come out earlier in the year and done massively well. None of this was news to Ashleigh, especially now she’d read a handful of his interviews, but as the conversation went on, the reporter delved a little deeper into Rico’s personal life, asking him about his recent breakup with his girlfriend.
Ashleigh raised both her eyebrows at that, and re-read his answer a couple of times.
“Clarissa and I had been seeing each other for about a month. We met on the set of An Orange Barbados and there were definitely immediate sparks. I normally try to avoid mixing work and dating but in this case, we both couldn’t help each other. It was more of a whirlwind romance. It started quickly and ended quickly. We’re both still on good terms as friends and hope to work with each other again in the future. It’s just that neither of us is ready for a relationship right now.”
“It ended amicably then?” the interviewer asked for conformation.
“Yes, it did,” Rico replied.
For some reason, this entire section of the article made Ashleigh blush. Just thinking about Rico in a whirlwind romance with someone he met on the set of a film. And now he was apparently single.
Stop! she internally chastised herself. She wasn’t sure where her thought process was going with this, but she knew it probably wasn’t a good idea to go there.
Still, she couldn’t help herself looking up the girl he’d previously been dating – Clarissa Holton. She was a Hollywood actress, not as famous as Rico, but had been his co-star in An Orange Barbados.
Ashleigh immediately felt inadequate and stupid when she saw her picture. Clarissa was classically attractive and stunning. She had long, blonde hair; she was tanned, and had striking blue eyes. She looked tall and confident, not to mention the big breasts.
It was like she was the exact opposite to Ashleigh.
Ashleigh was pale, petite, and had smaller breasts, dark hair, green cat eyes, short hair; she was more unusual looking, although pretty. Everyone told her she was pretty, although she found that hard to believe a lot of the time.
She sighed and put her phone away, telling herself to stop overthinking and being stupid, and definitely not to get a crush on someone she was going to be working with. She wasn’t a teenager; she was going to be professional about this.
She determinedly closed her eyes and forced her breathing to slow down, trying to empty her mind of all thoughts and lull herself off into a dream world.
It still took some time, but eventually, she drifted into a restless sleep.
Chapter Five
She woke up feeling less refreshed than she would have hoped, and wishing she’d gone to bed earlier, but after a shower and a cup of coffee in her room, she was dressed, refreshed, and ready to start the day, staring into the mirror and giving herself a mental pep talk. She was nervous as hell now, of course, and didn’t have a clue what to expect. She’d woken herself up with plenty of time so that she could get ready, and now all she had to do was wait.
Eventually, she wandered down to the lobby for her ride, which arrived promptly at 7:30am, which was her call time according to the schedule she’d been given. She hadn’t had time to eat, so she hoped she’d be able to get breakfast on set.
“I’m Tim,” the driver smiled as he leaned over and opened the passenger door for her to jump inside.
“I’m Ashleigh,” she smiled back as she got in, the two of them shaking hands.
“Yes, you are our new runner.” He grinned as they set off, immediately hitting some LA traffic, which wasn’t exactly a surprise. “Welcome to the team.”
“Thank you very much. I’m really excited.”
“It should be a good shoot,” he nodded. “We did have a runner initially but he found out his girlfriend was pregnant and quit, that’s why we advertised for a new one last-minute.”
“Ah, I see. Well, it’s a great opportunity for me, I’m thankful for it,” gushed Ashleigh.
Tim seemed like a nice enough guy, and the two of them chatted for most of the journey to the studio. He asked her where she was from, whether she’d done this kind of thing before, and in turn answered a lot of her questions about his work.
It turned out he was a permanent employer of Romero Films and one of their unit drivers for all the shoots. As such, he spent a lot of his time behind a wheel, ferrying people back and forth.
“Ah, I did wonder if I’d be doing that kind of thing,” smiled Ashleigh.
“Well, you might be once we start on the location shoots. We’ll need all hands on deck then, getting the actors to and from the locations. Guys like me normally move to transporting gear and equipment at that stage, and leave the actor liaisons to the runners.”
Ashleigh nodded along with interest, taking it all on board and feeling like she was learning so much already.
&nbs
p; It took them about thirty minutes to reach the studio what with all the traffic. Tim rolled down the window, leaned out, and flashed his pass, then the large electronic doors were opened by the security guy who gave them both a little wave as they rode on past, finding a space to park over by the main entrance.
“Follow me,” Tim said as he got out. “I’ll walk you inside and introduce you to Sally, then she’ll take over. I gotta go pick up someone else.”
Ashleigh followed him, clutching at her shooting schedule nervously and looking around her as they stepped inside the studio.
It just looked look like a long, endless corridor with rooms on either side.
As they walked past each room, she heard the hum of activity from inside behind the closed doors, and noticed all the doors had labels – Studio A, Studio B, makeup, costume, special FX, dressing room A, dressing room B, C, and D, kitchen, green room, office A, office B, then finally, Production Office.
It was this door they stopped at, and Tim raised his hand to knock.
“Come in,” someone called from inside.
It was a brightly lit, large room with a big window overlooking the parking lot, and included five large desks, three of which were currently empty.
The two occupants of the room, one male, one female, both looked up as she and Tim walked in, the woman standing with a smile on her face and stepping forward, offering out her hand in greeting.
“You must be Ashleigh.”
Ashleigh smiled and clasped her hand. “Yeah, I am.”
“I’m Sally, 3rd assistant director. The one who you’ve been e-mailing.”
“That’s right. So nice to meet you in person, finally.” Ashleigh felt her heart race with nerves, but everyone seemed really nice so far, and it was helping her relax a little.
“You too. And this is Julio, 2nd AD,” she indicated the man sat down, who raised his hand and waved.
“Hi there,” he grinned.
“Hey,” replied Ashleigh.
“Right, I’m off,” interjected Tim, giving a quick nod to everyone in the room. “See you all in a bit.” And with that, he disappeared down the corridor again, leaving Ashleigh alone with Sally and Julio.
“This is the Production Office,” Sally explained, pointing out the different desks for the 1st AD, director, and producer. Then she led her out into the corridor and gave her a full tour of the whole interior, then taking her outside into the little courtyard area where there were several trailers set up, a catering van, and a large double decker ‘dining bus.’
“Those are the lead actors’ trailers. The supporting artists and background artists share dressing rooms inside the main building…the ones we walked past. And we get our meals over there by the bus.”
Ashleigh nodded. She was fairly sure she was going to get lost at some point but she’d soon get used to it.
“And what are my main jobs and responsibilities?” she asked.
“Well, that just depends what we need you to do on the day,” answered Sally. “The cool thing about your job is…you’ll get to do loads of different things. I promise you, you’ll never be bored, and you’ll never be short of something to do. They’re long days, and they’re tiring, but it’ll be worth it.” She gave her a reassuring smile.
“I’m excited to start.”
“Good. Well, the first thing you can start with is getting yourself some breakfast, then come see me back at the office; there’re some phone calls you can make for me, and some scripts I need you to print out and stamp together.”
“Great. Thank you so much.”
And so began Ashleigh’s first day as a runner.
As it happened, she spent most of that first day inside, in one of the offices –not the main production office but a separate one away from everyone else– printing off scripts, stapling them together, making phone calls, cello-taping and preparing envelopes, and doing a load of other admin work. Sally would call in to check on her every hour or so and collect the work that she had done, but other than that she was mostly left to her own devices. When there was something specific or new to be done, Sally would come and tell her. A few times she was asked to go and collect various supporting actors and escort them to their makeup and costume calls, which was fun, as she got to meet them and chat with them about their work and how they’d got into acting, albeit briefly.
At lunchtime, she could go and help herself to food from the catering van whenever she liked, then sit and eat it on the bus. Due to the hectic schedule of filming, Sally hadn’t had a chance to introduce Ashleigh to every single member of the cast and crew, but she had at least met the 2nd AD and 1st AD, the makeup and costume team, the caterers, a couple of the drivers, and some minor cast members.
She initially sat on her own for lunch, but then Marlow and Liz from makeup invited her to join their table and she was grateful of the company, answering much the same questions that Tim had asked her in the car that morning, about her background and how she got into doing this. They both had lots of advice for her, and told her they were sure she’d have a great time working on the movie.
In the evening, there wasn’t an official meal from the van, but cakes and sandwiches were served and passed around all the various offices and departments, then the day’s filming finished at around 7pm.
By the time she was dropped back off at her hotel, it was closer to 8, and Ashleigh was far too exhausted to do anything other than get changed into her PJs and lie on her bed, chilling. She looked at the schedule for the following day and made it an early night. This time, she didn’t have any trouble sleeping.
Her second day on set started much the same as the first. She woke herself up with her alarm, had a shower, made coffee, got dressed, and was picked up by Tim and driven to the set. She spent the morning knocking on dressing rooms to collect actors for their costume and makeup calls. It all got pretty hectic and at one point she was literally running, living up to her job title, dashing from one place to the next, her heart pounding. She was a little stressed, but she was loving every second.
Unfortunately though, she also wasn’t really looking where she was going and neither was the person who was striding down the corridor just as she was dashing out of the costume department.
The two of them collided blindly, and Ashleigh gasped as she felt a sudden scalding warmth.
She glanced down at herself to find her white shirt was covered in a hot, brown liquid.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry. Are you alright?” someone was saying. She felt a hand on her shoulder.
She was still in a bit of shock by the whole experience and more embarrassed by anything, looking up to see who it was she’d bumped into.
Her eyes widened and she let out a gasp, realizing she was face to face with none other than Rico Fernandez himself.
He looked incredibly apologetic and worried, a concerned frown on his beautiful tanned features and holding a now half-empty cup of coffee in one hand, his other still on Ashleigh’s shoulder.
“Are you alright?” he asked again. “I was in a world of my own there, I’m so sorry.”
“I’m so sorry,” she blurted out, even more embarrassed now she realized who it was, and the fact that her white, wet blouse was fast becoming pretty see-through. “I wasn’t looking where I was going either, I was in a rush and–”
“It’s fine, don’t worry,” he interrupted her flustered rambling with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I was the one who threw my coffee all over you.” He chuckled and shook his head. “I’m a clumsy idiot. This may be the first time it’s happened but it probably won’t be the last.” He flashed her a glimpse of his winning smile, his eyes sparkling in the dim lighting of the corridor as the two of them stood there staring at each other.
“O-oh…” Ashleigh didn’t quite know what to say, nor how to react to any of this. She had the urge to say sorry again as she still felt like this was her fault, but she didn’t have chance, as Rico carried on talking.
“Look, if you
want, you can take a shower in my trailer and I’ll sort you out with a clean shirt…”
Ashleigh’s eyes widened. Was he really…inviting her back to his trailer? “Are you sure? I…I wouldn’t want to be stealing your clothes…”
He waved his hand. “I always bring a bunch of spare T-shirts and stuff on set with me, it’s not a big deal. You can wash it and give it me back whenever you like.”
“Well uh…if that’s really okay…” She felt like she was blushing so hard her entire face was red. It probably was.
“Of course it is. You can’t walk around all day in wet, coffee-stained clothes, can you now?” He gave her a relaxed, easy smile and turned around, beginning to walk in the other direction, down the corridor and out towards his trailer.
Ashleigh walked at his side, her heart pounding in her ears.
It was the first time she’d even seen Rico wandering around on the set. Yesterday he hadn’t been eating at the same time as her or any of the others. Perhaps he’d still been finishing a scene, or perhaps he gets his meals delivered to his trailer for privacy.
A couple of people nodded and smiled, or exchanged brief words with him as they made their way across the courtyard to the little area where the leading actors’ trailers were.
Ashleigh hadn’t even been to this section yet. It wasn’t her job to go and collect the lead actors. Sally did that. She supposed she wasn’t well trusted enough to do it yet, which was fair enough. It was only her first week on the job. Perhaps she could build up to it eventually.
“Here we are,” smiled Rico and held open the door for her to step inside.
Swallowing her nerves, Ashleigh did so, and soon they were alone in the quiet of his private trailer.
Chapter Six
“Let me just find you that shirt…” said Rico, heading over to the small wardrobe that was built into the wall of the trailer and opening it up. Inside were four or five different T-shirts, and short-sleeved shirts all hung up on hangers. “Here…” He picked out a T-shirt for her and tossed it over.
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