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There was a pause. He imagined Lauren crossing the control booth and going to reception.
“Lauren is very beautiful. She has a heart-shaped face, flawless skin, great figure. All the men here are in love with her, half the clients.”
He gave the lectern a shake. “But she thinks that’s all she’s worth. That’s just wrong. Goddamn, maybe more people should be blind.”
There was nothing from the control room and he felt around for his earpiece in frustration.
“Can you still see the colour blue?”
He looked up and out towards Georgia. Her first question that wasn’t about work or forced out by his plucking at her. “Not anymore. But I’m lucky I know what blue is, what it feels like.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Like the freedom of a summer sky, wide open and full of endless possibilities. Like the drama of midnight; that blue when the stars come out, before night completely falls. It’s the understated glamour of a magnificent car or an extraordinary woman’s dress. Blue is depth and strength. It’s sturdy and reliable without being boring.”
“You don’t associate it with being down, depressed?”
“The blues.” Were they actually having a conversation? What could he say to prolong it? “Not at all.”
“We should get started.”
At the end of that block, she asked him to re-read a few passages and then he let himself out of the booth to have lunch. She didn’t come to the lounge to eat with him. Trent and a couple of the other engineers did. He ended up doing their favourite lines from movies, though he absolutely refused to do Vox, and for his pain he was treated to the worst impressions.
“Spew spawn and raging blue thunder,” said Trent. “You can shred me, but I plan to be alive when the darkness comes.”
“Annoyingly alive,” Naveen corrected Trent, laughing, and Trent did the line again. He sounded about as much like Vox as a packet of corn flakes.
“Watch me go intergalactic on your ass.”
“More testosterone, Franca,” he coached.
Franca tried again, lowering her voice and got back slapped, for her efforts.
Then it was Trent. “Pull up or prepare for pain to sizzle your gizzards.”
He laughed. He’d had trouble with that line, the sibilance of the esses and zeds. He’d had to run it over and over to get it right. At least these guys weren’t doing the love scene lines. There was only so much public humiliation a bloke could take.
Lauren looking for Naveen, who couldn’t do a passable Indian accent to save himself, another cause for hysterics, broke the group up. Damon sat on waiting for Georgia, thinking about the set list for Saturday night’s show.
“Is it true you gave them the spew spawn line for Dystopian Conflict?”
He could hear Georgia, but not see her. It was true the movie’s most quoted line came from his mouth and not the scriptwriter’s page. Wasn’t so unusual, it was collaborative process. “If I say yes, will you think better or worse of me?”
There was a general hubbub of agreement and disagreement, people moving about, leaving, and Georgia came into sight, a blurred shape with a dark halo of hair sitting opposite him. “Can I talk to you for a minute before we start again?”
He sat forward. “I’d like that.” He knew this wasn’t going to be about spew spawn or the work.
“You’re, um.” A deep drawn breath.
“Go on.”
“You’re um. I think, um. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I need to focus on the work. I’m new here and jobs like this are hard to find.”
“I understand, but are we not working well together?” He could’ve had any engineer, Avocado employee, freelance, or flown in specially that he liked on this job, but he’d wanted to work with Georgia.
“I just.”
He scooted forward on the lounge. “I wish I could see your face, because what I hear in your voice concerns me.”
