7. Antonio #2
I’m starting to wonder what’s taking Gianni so long when I hear voices - his and someone else’s, coming from the direction of my dressing room. I open my eyes and see him walking back, phone in hand, but there’s something off about his expression. Confusion, maybe. Or surprise.
“Got it?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He hands me back the phone. “Bianca was already in there. Said she was looking for the number for you.”
“Bianca?”
“She had your phone when I walked in. Said you’d asked her to find the coordinator’s contact. Looked like she was scrolling through something.”
I hadn’t asked her anything. I’ve barely spoken to her all day except for our scenes. The chair I’m sitting in suddenly feels less stable, though I can’t articulate why. She was in my dressing room. With my phone. For reasons I didn’t authorize.
But my head is pounding too hard to think about it clearly, and Gianni is already moving on to the next crisis, and probably she was just trying to help. She’s been doing that a lot lately - helping.
Appearing with water and aspirin and concern, reading my exhaustion like a script. Maybe she thought finding the number would save me the trouble.
“Thanks,” I say, and slide the phone into my pocket without looking at it.
I’ll figure out what that was about later. Right now, I just need to make it through the wrap meeting without falling over.
***
The wrap meeting lasts forty-five minutes, and by the end of it, I can barely see straight.
The fever has climbed while I wasn’t paying attention, settling into my bones like an unwelcome guest. My hands are shaking when I try to sign the call sheet, and Gianni takes one look at me and announces that I’m not driving anywhere tonight.
“I’ll call Francesco,” he says firmly. “He can take you home.”
“And Antonio? The set doctor cleared you to go home, but she said the fever needs monitoring. Francesco’s driving you - don’t argue.”
“I can…”
“You can barely stand. Sit down and wait for your driver like a reasonable person.”
I sit down and wait for my driver like a reasonable person. It’s easier than arguing, and besides, he’s right. I shouldn’t be driving. I shouldn’t be doing anything except lying down in a dark room and letting this fever run its course.
The corridor is quieter now, most of the crew already headed home for the night.
The documentary team is packing up their equipment, and I watch them coil cables and stow cameras with the practiced efficiency of people who do this every day.
More footage in the can. More behind-the-scenes reality for whatever promotional package they’re assembling. I wonder what story they’ll tell about this production - the long hours, the creative tensions, the leading man who looked like death for the last three weeks of shooting.
Bianca appears at the end of the corridor.
She’s changed out of her Sofia costume into civilian clothes - jeans and a cashmere sweater, her hair down around her shoulders. She walks toward me with purpose, her phone in her hand, typing something as she moves.
“Gianni said you’re heading home,” she says when she reaches me.
“Apparently I’m not allowed to drive.”
“Good. You shouldn’t be driving.” She finishes whatever she’s typing and slides the phone into her pocket, then looks at me with what seems like genuine concern. “I hope you feel better. Get some rest tonight. The shoot will survive without you for a day or two if you need more time.”
“That’s the plan.”
She smiles, that professional warmth she does so well, and then she’s gone - heading for the exit, her heels clicking on the floor. I watch her go and feel something I can’t quite name. Not suspicion, exactly. More like the prickle at the back of your neck when you’ve missed something important.
The way Gianni looked when he came back with my phone. Bianca in my dressing room, handling my things, when I never asked her to be there.
But the fever is making everything feel strange, making connections where probably none exist. She was being helpful. That’s all. It’s what colleagues do.
Francesco arrives before I can think about it any further.
“Signor Guerriero.” He’s at my elbow, steady and calm as always. “The car is ready.”
“Thank you.” I push myself to my feet, and the world tilts sideways for a moment before righting itself. “Let’s go home.”
Home. Where Cassandra is waiting. Where I’m going to have to face the silence between us and try, again, to find the words I keep failing to say.
In the car, I lean my head against the cool glass of the window and close my eyes. The city slides past outside, but I don’t see it. I’m thinking about the dressing room, about Gianni’s confused expression, about Bianca standing there with my phone in her hands.
Something feels wrong.
But I’m too tired and too sick to figure out what, and by the time we pull up to the villa, I’ve convinced myself it was nothing. Just a colleague being helpful. Just a professional kindness I’m too paranoid to accept at face value.
The house is dark when I go inside. Cassandra must be asleep, or pretending to be, and I don’t have the energy to find out which.
I climb the stairs alone, fever burning through me, and fall into bed without even changing out of my clothes.
Tomorrow, I think. Tomorrow I’ll feel better. Tomorrow I’ll figure out how to talk to my wife.
Tomorrow I’ll make sense of the strange feeling that something is happening just outside my field of vision.