I climbed out of the cool shower that I'd just had back in my room and read a text on my phone.
Ben: I'm sorry about what I said to you earlier. It was wrong and totally inappropriate and unprofessional and I shouldn't have been reading your messages and I'm a dick and feel free to hate me- but not for too long.
I sighed and tossed my phone back onto my bed deciding I wouldn't answer him. I was exhausted from the shoot and despite the fact that everyone was meeting up for drinks at the bar, I was not. I needed sleep, and a night away from Ben and that other pervy photographer. We were leaving early that morning for another location which was half way across the country and the soft bed was calling to me. I climbed in and was just about to close my eyes when a knock on the door interrupted me.
"Room service."
I climbed out the bed feeling irritated by the disturbance. "I didn't order room service." I called out as I walked over to the door and swung it open.
"Are you not Sera Holms from room six?" he asked
"Yes, but I didn't order anything."
"Well, someone did." The guy pushed past me wheeling a massive trolley covered in silver cloches.
I walked over to one and opened it. Immediate salivation. A perfect fluffy looking chocolate mousse stared up at me just waiting to be devoured. I opened the next one, chocolate cake. The next one, some chocolate tart looking thing, and so it went on until I had opened all six and was met with a chocolate feast.
I looked up at the guy, "How much is all this, I mean, I can't pay for it."
He smiled and shook his head, "Compliments of Mr. White."
"Oh. I see." The guy left the room and I tried to bite back a smile, even though no one was there to see it. I couldn't believe all it took to make me (almost) forget what he'd said were a few sugar loaded treats. I was such a child, forgetting the pain of having blood drawn for a lollipop at the end. Oh well, fuck it. Who was I to turn down such an array of chocolaty things?
I grabbed a spoon, plunged it into the mousse and scooped up as much as I could before shoveling it into my face. So not lady like! The dopamine in my brain screamed at me in delight and demanded more immediately. I scooped up a piece of cake next, dunking it into the mousse for the hell of it and because no one was there to see me. The sweetness made my mouth tingle. A beep on my phone stopped me from pouring the mousse onto the tart and adding the cake to it. I looked down at my bed.
Ben: Do you still hate me?
Sera: Moderately
Ben: Come have a drink with me.
Sera: No thanks. I'd rather get an early night.
Ben: : (
Ben: That was a sad face, in case you didn't get that
Sera: I got it. I have a teenage sister. I'm well versed in the way of emoji
Ben: Really? I didn't know that.
Sera: There are lots of things you don't know about me.
Ben: All the more reason we need to go on a date. ;)
Sera: I don't go on dates with people I moderately hate
Ben: I'll just have to make you not hate me tomorrow then.
Sera: Good night Ben
I put my phone back down and climbed into bed again. This time there was no knocking on the door and I fell asleep easily.
***
"You missed some serious crazy last night." Ness said to me as we all boarded a very tinny looking propeller plane that seemed way to small for all of us to fit into and more importantly, way to outdated and archaic to be trusted in the sky.
"Oh, what happened?" I climbed in and realized I was right about not being able to fit. Crew were sitting with boxes of gear on their laps and the rest of the gear was lining the tiny aisle. I hoped this thing would be able to take off- especially since I was carrying a few extra pounds from last nights chocolate binge! Ben was sitting in the back with his sunglasses on. Ness and I grabbed the nearest free seats and pulled our suitcases onto our laps.
Ness leaned in, "Well, everyone had way too much to drink. Samantha was hitting on Giovanni hectically. And all he cared about was talking about how creatively stifled he felt and how Cindy was just basically ruining all his pictures. Then Cindy got upset and started saying well maybe the problem lay with his photographs and not her and then he got mad and started freaking out and Ben had to separate them."
"Really?" I tried to get comfortable in the little space I had as well as buckle my belt.
"Yes!" And then Ben rushed Cindy off to "comfort" her, and Samantha stepped in to "comfort" Giovanni... if you get what I mean." She winked at me. Of course I got what she meant, that amount of air quotes in one sentence wasn't exactly subtle. I glance back at Ben and wondered just how much comforting had happened last night.
The plane took off and it was just about the worst, shakiest ride of my life and by the time we landed, everyone was clapping and hugging each other. I'd thought I was about to die at least twice during the flight. Because we were now rushing, we went straight to the next location without checking in to our hotel.
We all piled into SUV's and started making our way through the hot desert. It looked even more remote and barren than yesterday, that is until something came into view. Everyone seemed to gasp at the same time as the old, abandoned mansions that rose up out of the sand dunes came into view. We parked and all climbed out. I realized I was standing in a ghost town, it looked like it had been abounded a hundred years ago and the desert sands had started swallowing the buildings. The houses were all old, windowless shells. What was left of a railway line ran through the town and an old upturned zinc bathtub lay half buried in the sand.
"It's an old diamond town that was abandoned in the 50s." Ness said to me, clearly she'd done her research.
"It's beautiful." I said, scanning the place, taking it all in.
"Just creepy is you ask me." Ness said and walked off.
"It's going to be perfect for the shoot, though." I said imaging the cars pulling up to the ghostly remains of the houses. Everything got going pretty quickly after that, and soon the huge trucks were bringing the cars in and Cindy was busy trying on clothing options. The awkwardness in the air was thick, and you could cut it with a knife.
Giovanni hated absolutely everything she was trying on, and Ben was desperately trying to appease him. The producer looked like she had aged ten years overnight was chewing on a fingernail while trying to assure the client that everything was under control. It was not. God, if this was what shoots were always like, I never wanted to go on one again. But the day was about to get even more horrendous, for me anyway.
"No, no, no!"
Only an hour into the shoot and the mad Italian was already yelling again.
The crew stopped and looked once more. This time the morbid fascination was gone and it had been replaced by a kind of irritated weariness.
"I can't work with this anymore." He was pacing up and down like a mad man. "It's too much. I cannot do my job under these conditions."
Talk about a prima donna. Cindy had been left standing there by the car, which was pulling into the driveway of one of the old abandoned houses. Personally I thought the shot looked great, but then again, who was I?
"You see this stick!" Giovanni ripped a dead stick out the sand and held it up, he was clearly aware that he had a captive audience now. "See it is gnarled and burnt and twisted and broken and beautiful. It is not perfect. It has character, it has life, it has..."
And then he turned to me and something absolutely awful happened.
"You!" he pointed at me with the stick and the entire crew looked over, including Ben. "You must be in the shoot."
"Huh?" I felt my eyes widen and my mouth fell open. A series of 'what's?" rang out from the confused crowd.
"You are like this stick. Don't you see?" He was waving it around now with big arms and I'd lost him. This guy was a total fucking nut job- a hot one- but a fruit loop no less. I looked over at Ben who was clearly just as confused as I was. I shook my head.
"See." He ran over to me with the camera and pointed the screen in my face, and there I was. It was the photo he'd taken of me yesterday while I'd been looking in the mirror. Ben rushed over and peered into the camera too, and then more people came until everyone was crowded around me looking at the screen.
"See. Imperfect, but beautiful. She is not posing like a model, she just... is."
"I is nothing guys." I said backing away from the screen in total shock.
"You must be in the shoot. It is the only way I will work. I cannot work with this women, she is too model. She is not stick."
Jesus Christ. What was with this guy and his stupid stick analogy? "I'm not going to be in a shoot." I quickly said.
"Well, then I don't shoot." He tossed his very expensive camera down on the sand and an assistant shot out of nowhere and grabbed the thing and rushed it off. I scanned the crowd; everyone was looking at me.
"Then you don't shoot." I said, turning and walking away form the total madness. Was he really being serious, it was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard.