“I have to start drafting a long and very boring contract myself. I’m tempted to order up a margarita just to make it a little bit more exciting.”
“I could do with a margarita.” I put my indicator on for the parking lot.
“Shall we round up the gang and do dinner on Friday night?” she asked.
“Please. But you do the rounding—I’m going to have so much work to catch up on.”
“Perfect.”
“Okay, bye,” I said, finally pulling into the office parking lot.
“Byyyeeee,” Sarah replied, hanging up as I pulled up to the security boom and scanned my finger.
“Hi, Ed,” I said, waving over at the building security guard. The poor guy looked boiling in this heat and I made a note to bring him down a cold Coke at lunchtime.
“Hi, Leigh,” he replied, fanning himself. Leigh was my work name. When I’d had to register with the Cinematographers Association of South Africa, there was already an Ashley Smith, so I’d gone with Leigh. It was rather strange at first having different people call me by different names, but I was used to it now.
CHAPTER 3
Max
I climbed off my bed and pulled on my pants. It was midnight and Jenny, Jolie . . . Jane? Christ, I don’t know, was still sprawled out naked on the bed, snoring. I’d tried to wake her up several times and suggested as politely as possible that it was time to go home—I never let women sleep over—but she was too spent to go anywhere. I’d even offered to call her an Uber so she didn’t have to drive home, a hint I was sure she was going to get, but she’d just rolled over and started snoring in a different position this time.
I walked over to the other end of the room where my T-shirt was lying on the floor and pulled it on. I was struggling to fall asleep next to Julie—Jessica, Jemma?It wasn’t about her—I struggled to fall asleep next to women full stop. I found the act of sleeping with someone way too intimate. And I didn’t mean “intimacy” as in the naked gymnastics we’d just been doing for the last two hours. Sex, fucking, wasn’t intimate. But being unconscious next to someone in a bed, totally exposed and vulnerable, that to me was the ultimate act of intimacy. And I hadn’t done that with a woman for so many years now that it might as well be never.
I padded quietly to my study at the end of the passage on my side of the house. The other side of the house was reserved for my mother and the nursing staff who took care of her. She’d been diagnosed with dementia almost a year ago, which had caused me to move back home to South Africa from Greece, where I’d been living and running my own successful location agency for twelve years. It was late, I needed sleep, and I contemplated crashing on the couch in my office, but there was something on my mind—well,someoneto be more specific.
I sat at my desk, opened my laptop, and started trying to type a professional, yet slightly witty and flirty email to the cinematographer, Leigh, that I’d been chatting to for the last three weeks. Her production company was searching for various locations to shoot a very large, high-profile international commercial and they’d employed my agency to provide locations, as well as scout for locations and then organize bookings and management. Our regular correspondence had become something I looked forward to, the highlight of my day actually—God, what did that say about my days, that emails to someone I didn’t even know had become the best part of them? But she made me laugh and emailing her was fun.
And I hated to admit it, but I spent far too long writing and rewriting my emails to her because I was conscious of how I sounded and how I wanted to sound. And I wanted to sound cool, yet casual. Not too casual that I was unprofessional. Smart-casual. Wait, that’s a dress code. Point was that, for some reason, I seemed to care a lot about how this stranger perceived me. And I didn’t even know what she looked like. I’d gone onto the company’s website and clicked on the staff profiles, hoping for a photo of her. But all the staff pics were cartoony avatars. I’d googled her name too, obviously, and found two photos featuring her from industry-award ceremonies. In one of the photos, she was standing behind her director Sebastian and all you could see of her was her arm holding the trophy. She had the most beautiful floral tattoo on her arm, bright, yellow sunflowers. And in the other photo she had her back to the camera. I’d then tried to find her social-media pages, but after an exhaustive search, came up empty handed. It was strange for someone not to have any social media in this day and age, but the truth was I didn’t have any either. Some of us have a good reason to stay offline, like I do. Maybe she had one too? This just piqued my curiosity about her even more.
But despite not knowing what she looked like, despite never hearing her voice or knowing anything personal about her, I liked her. She was so easy to communicate with, and not just professionally. Over the last week or so, our emails had become more and more personal, friendly even. There was just something about her—it was hard to describe or pinpoint. I smiled to myself. Perhaps it also had something to do with the fact that she seemed to like cheese as much as I did. Massive bonus. I think liking cheese says a lot about the caliber of a person.
My love affair with cheese had started after school when I’d gone off to backpack around Europe. I’d soon learned that it was almost compulsory to eat cheese there, especially in France and Italy. And my love of cheese was only further cemented when I decided to settle in Greece and call it home. I looked at the photo on my desk of my old home at sunset right on the Ionian Sea. I’d fallen in love with that spot from the second I’d laid eyes on it.
Staying overseas for so long and only returning home twelve years later had never been the intention. Going traveling had been a knee-jerk reaction to a situation that I’d desperately needed to distance myself from. I’d needed to think, clear my head, figure some stuff out. But I’d landed up putting so much distance between myself and home that returning to South Africa at the beginning of the year had felt like returning to a foreign country. Truthfully, it had not been easy coming back. I’d left friends and familiarity behind to find a mother who barely knew who I was, and a place that no longer felt anything like home.
Maybe that’s why I was enjoying emailing Leigh so much. She was a reprieve from all that, a momentary escape. The feeling I got when talking to her reminded me somewhat of another feeling I’d once had, many, many years ago, for someone else.
I quickly shook my head. I was not going to think about that now.
So I started typing up a first-draft email to send to her in the morning. I was sure that by the time I did actually send it to her, it would probably be on draft ten.
CHAPTER 4
Ash
Dear Leigh,
Hope you’re having a good day so far. Personally, I’m really looking forward to the weekend, weather report also says that the temperature should drop by a few degrees, so that’s a bonus. I took your advice and have actually invested in a handheld fan, which I’m carrying around with me everywhere.
I have enclosed the links to two more possible shoot locations. They are not on my books personally, but I have already contacted both of them and started a discussion. Both are open to the idea of film-shoot rental. One is a camp in Botswana, surrounded by the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park. I think you’ll like it and I think it works perfectly for the brief. It’s a luxury tented camp reminiscent of a traditional East African safari camp. The second one is on the beaches of Lake Malawi. Again, I think it’s just what you’re looking for. It has that rustic feel yourdirector was talking about, without lookinglike—how did he put it so eloquently?—“a fucking dump.”
I chuckled to myself. Our director, Sebastian, was not known for mincing his words. In fact, he’d offended most of the people we’d ever worked with, and our producer did less producing work than she should, and more smoothing over and relationship repair. Sebastian was one of those eccentric and very often misunderstood geniuses, but I’d always worked really well with him. It was my job to take his vision and translate that using camera angles, lenses, and lighting to create the mood and feel of the film. In fact, our working relationship was so good that we, and everyone else, referred to us as work husband and wife.
Let me know if you and your director like any of these locations. If they’re not suitable, please let me know so I can get on to others. I have already booked Wellington’s Bar, the Chobe houseboat and the second villa we looked at in Matobo Hills. We do need to hurry with the others, though.
So, I took more of your great advice the other night and tried the Manchego cheese. I paired it with the Spanish green olives and caramelized onions like you suggested. My guests went wild for it. In fact, I think it was the highlight of the dinner party. I would like to think my sparkling personality and generous hosting ability might also have contributed to the praise lavished upon me, but I think it was the cheese that stole the show. I’ve been outdone by a chunk of Manchego!
