AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I’m suddenly very glad that Josh is up that ladder right now, and can’t see the blush spreading across my cheeks. “So!” I blurt, quickly changing the subject. “Your uncle seems like he’s having fun. It’s a big group, lots of famous faces here.”
“That’s all Avery. I’m sure Robert would have been happy with something small and understated.”
“Really?” I frown. “Doesn’t he host a famous Oscars afterparty every year with a champagne fountain and the Rockettes?”
Josh chuckles. “OK, maybe not so understated. But I don’t know about all of this.” He gestures at the spectacle we’re setting up.
I smirk. “This is just Night One, buddy. Wait until you see the rehearsal dinner. They’re shipping in the caviar from St Petersbourg via boat, since the altitude affects the taste.”
“See, I can’t even tell if you’re kidding!”
Josh climbs back down, and I’m so distracted by the way his shirt is fitting around his tall, lean torso, that I almost don’t notice how he’s draped the garland all wrong.
But clearly, my perfectionism shows. “It’s not right, is it?” he asks, glancing back up at the tree.
Damn that non-poker face of mine.
“It’s fine!” I lie.
Josh smirks. “I can tell from the twitch in your jaw, it’s not.”
“I can have someone change it later,” I say brightly. “You don’t need to help.”
“Except, now I do.” Josh climbs the ladder again. “Otherwise, it totally wipes out my chivalry points, if you need to clean up the mess I made.”
“There are points?” I ask, trying not to watch his ass as he climbs. Since he’s being so gentlemanly, and all.
“Absolutely,” he replies. “Not that we expect the points to count for anything. That would totally negate the point of the chivalry. So, let’s get this bouquet hung right.”
“It’s a garland,” I can’t stop myself correcting him. “And if you could just fluff it out, and move it five inches to the right, like that… perfect!”
This time, when he climbs down again, I give him a sheepish smile. “I’m sorry, I can’t help it. I’m annoyingly perfectionist when it comes to this stuff.”
“Hey, I get it,” Josh replies, as we stroll back to the main staging area. “I have to have my law memos formatted just so. It drives the paralegals crazy, but I swear, I can process information better when it’s in Times New Roman font, size twelve, with a one point eight line spacing.”
“And if it’s one-point-nine…?” I ask, amused.
“Zero memory I ever even read it!” Josh gives a shrug. “The human brain is a mysterious thing.”
“Right?” I agree. “People don’t think they notice the small things, but the brain takes it all in. I bet if you asked anyone about a movie they watched, they couldn’t tell you what color the wallpaper was in a scene, or if the couch was English arm-roll or Chesterfield, but they know if the design felt real,” I add. “I swear, ninety percent of my work is the stuff they’ll never remember, but it’s not about them noticing, it’s creating thefeelof a scene, or character?—”
I stop. I can ramble about my work forever, and God knows I do, but Josh actually looks interested.
“So that’s what a production designer does, take care of the little details?” he asks. “Your brother mentioned that was what you do,” he adds quickly.
I hide a smile.Was he asking about me?
“Little details… and the big ones, too,” I reply. “Basically, everything you seen onscreen. Building that world from scratch, so it feels real. Sometimes, it’s about executing a director’s vision,” I explain. “Like Reeve will come to me and have a very specific scene in mind, like, they’re by the river, and he wantsthiskind of rowboat in the background, andthesekinds of trees, and I have to pick the location and pull it together and make it real. But sometimes, the script will just be, ‘interior: bedroom’, and I get to create it myself: think about who the characters are, and what they’d choose. If the furniture is from Ikea, or they hunted down vintage pieces, or if they’re someone who doesn’t ever decorate at all, and sleeps on a depressing mattress in the corner with lime green flannel sheets from Bed Bath & Beyond.”
I stop. There goes my rambling again.
“I’ve never thought about it like that,” Josh says, looking impressed. “I mean, I watch a movie, and just get lost in it. I never think about what goes on behind the scenes. But everything we see, someone like you thought about, and chose to be there. That’s… amazing.”
I feel a glow of pride. “Not just me,” I add quickly. “There’s lighting, costume, prop departments... like this,” I add, nodding at the banquet set-up; a dozen people working with painstaking detail to arrange the flowers and fold the napkins in the perfect shape. “Most of the guests will just enjoy their dinner and think it looks pretty. They have no idea someone spent a week designing the way the chandeliers will reflect off the crystal water goblets.”
“Or how we bravely risked falling to our deaths to hang those flower bouquets—I mean, garlands,” Josh adds with a wink.
“Thank you for your service,” I smile back at him. “It’s the unsung heroes that make a production work.”
