MAX

She hasn’t returned my calls or texts. No word about rehearsal. Shooting began this morning and Natalie’s not here. I’ve called my sisters to help. Only Samantha showed up. “What do you want me to do, Max?”

Frustrated I hand her the contracts. “Have the actors sign these by the end of the day. And these are the time sheets from SAG/AFTRA. We have to break for lunch by noon or I could get fined. Watch the clock.”

“Okay,” she frowns, looking at the paperwork like it’s a pile of maggots. Samantha is an artist, too. Contracts, small prints, and spreadsheets are her enemy. “I’ll do my best.”

“Thank you.” Raking angry fingers through my hair I head to where we’ve staged the opening party scene. I’ve got a slew of film school friends acting as background today. “Hey everyone, we’re almost set to go. You know the deal, no actual talking except for Jaden and Marnie. Move your lips, act normal. Gesture with your hands, but not too much. Don’t want to pull focus. You’ve all been at parties, I know that for sure! And Mike, don’t get so real that you fall down drunk, okay?”

Laughter spreads through the crowd. We’ve had some throw-downs when we went to school together. Mike was on his face at the end of many evenings. It cuts the ice to make the joke and I relax a little, feel my sense of purpose coming back to me.

I didn’t come all this way for nothing.

Can’t let Natalie ghosting me take this away. I got worried something happened to her, sent Caden to check out Southern Comfort and The Dollhouse. That’s where he saw her, walking out with her computer bag, looking unhappy but alive. He hid in a corner to make sure she didn’t see him, and reported back to me after talking to one of the dancers that she for sure didn’t strip. I told him I wasn’t checking on that, just needed to see if she was breathing. But he insisted he had to check, since she was acting fucking weird.

Couldn’t argue with that.

Walking to ‘Jaden’ I tell him, “We’re going to start with you walking up to Marnie. She doesn’t have to be here for when we film the part with you and your brother. We’ll have you switch clothes, film both characters tonight.”

“Got it, Max,” he nods, eyes hyper-focused.

Nodding to my Marnie I silently ask if she’s ready to go.

She gives me a thumbs-up.

Walking to the camera, Rain moves back so I can see through his lens how he framed the shot. “Looks good,” I nod, stepping away to watch.

We’ve got a small crew. Besides us there’s a sound engineer, Kiera, a boom operator, Alison, and my Assistant Director, Pete, who’s also doubling as script supervisor, continuity expert and props department. We all dressed the set, and everyone was pretty excited they were inside the Falcons’ quarterback’s pad. We’re using mine for my Dad’s place, of course.

I mean, Jaden’s.

Gets confusing.

With steady concentration I call out, “Sound!”

“All good, Max.”

“Camera!”

“Rolling.”

“Background!” The pseudo actors silently party and it looks pretty fucking good. “Great job, guys! Keep it up. Alright and… Action!”

All that work in rehearsal paid off. Marnie spots Jaden and we’re on her in closeup, pulling back over his shoulder as he walks to her. Rain is using a steady-cam so we can go hand-held. I don’t want the camera stationary.

I want the audience to feel like they’re walking with Jaden to this gorgeous new woman. They need to experience the excitement he feels, see her eyes beckoning to him even as she pretends she’s not interested.

My goal is to make whoever watches this on their phones, computers, tablets, holograms, TV screens, wherever, fall in love with her and understand why he almost loses everything to save her.

They need to want to save her, too.

And as Colleen smiles at Dan I hold my fingers together in the shape of a rectangular box to picture how this moment will look.

“Alright, cut!” I smile. “Back to one. Let’s do it again. That was great, everyone. If you can do that again you’ll make me a very happy man.”

“A happy Max,” Mike corrects me, inspires laughter.

Grinning I wave them to silence. “Come on, time is money.”

A few roll their eyes, “Don’t we know it!”

“That’s right, you’ve all been here. Let’s do this!”

The hours fly by. We grab all the best moments from every angle. His hand close up as he touches Marnie’s face. Her eyes as she reacts. A couple guests glancing over with curiosity. Even his legs walking to her, and her heels tilting as she strikes a pretty pose in anticipation.

Samantha taps my shoulder when it’s lunchtime and everyone files out to the elevator to go downstairs to the food trucks Natalie scheduled to arrive at the right time, before she fucking vanished on me. Crew eats first, usually, so they can set up the next shots while the actors eat.

Samantha waits with me as our cousin’s apartment clears out. “Wow, Max, you really set this up right.”

My mind is on Natalie as I repeat something I told her when we first started pre-production planning. “Everything is organized. Efficiency is key.”

“Yeah, but you really did it.” Smiling from the corner of her warm brown eyes she adds, “Like a pro.”

“I had help. You go on and eat. I’m not hungry.”

“No, you need fuel.”

Walking to clean up after people I lie, “Okay, I’ll be right down. Just going to get this area ready.”

Samantha, sweetheart that she is, believes me and goes to join the others.

I’m alone now.

The quiet is almost too much.

My anger is back.

Nothing to distract me.

Turning on my phone I wait for it to fire up, swearing under my breath, “Fuck, don’t call her. Don’t do it.” But my fingers won’t listen to me. “Dammit,” I mutter as her voicemail comes on. “Hey, it’s me. Again. Just wanted to tell you the food trucks arrived on time. Good job. Things are going well. First day shooting, don’t know if you remember or not.” Rubbing my eyes I sigh, “Okay, call me and let me know you’re alright. Bye.”

Biting my lip I stare at the phone and fling it with all of my strength against a wall. It smashes, falls, skitters across the tile in a million pieces. But I don’t even care. I’m already at the floor to ceiling windows, staring out at Atlanta and wondering where in the fuck is the one person who really believed I could do this?

My Producer.

My business partner.

My friend.