7 Elena
Elena
Planes are disgusting places. Cesspools. The man behind Elena coughed the entire flight. She wouldn’t be surprised if she and Gael both got the bubonic plague.
But after a shitty flight she could barely afford and a four-hour drive in a potent rental car, she’s here.
They’re here. And wow, this place hasn’t changed one bit.
It’s still the gritty town it always was.
The old square buildings stare down blankly.
A few people eye her curiously as they walk by.
She forgot this feeling, like she’s constantly being watched. Judged.
At the house, she showered beneath a tap that didn’t stay warm while Gael set up the laptop. She dried her hair and reapplied concealer. She’s aging well, but still. Things have happened. Life has happened. Fifteen years is a long time.
Front Street is busy. Two boxy trailers sit on either side of the road, taking up several parking spaces each.
A video village tent with cameras and equipment is set up near the old bank building.
On the other side of that, the road has been covered in dirt to make it look old-timey.
There are other set design props too, and livestock.
The Three Elks peaks rise behind it all, jagged and ominous in the dusky light. Hollywood has come to Whisper Ridge.
Elena’s agent secured her a job as a background actor in the film.
Being so last-minute, it was lucky the casting company was still booking even though filming had already started, probably because they were shooting in the middle of nowhere.
Elena’s two-pronged plan: Secure a day of work, and use this as the networking opportunity of a lifetime.
Then, after filming is wrapped in a few days, get the hell out of here.
Being here isn’t the most practical thing she’s ever done, since she’ll miss a few shifts at the restaurant.
But she’s finally in a place in her life where she can dip her toes into risk.
Rubbing shoulders with Phillip Granger seems like a good place to start.
She slings her cross-body bag over her head and makes her way down the street.
Gael wanted to stay in, but when Elena told him they would probably be filming right now, he jumped up and grabbed his camera.
Elena did not want him to come to Whisper Ridge at all.
Too much history here. She reminded him of his other commitments and said she just needed a few days to herself.
But he did not take no for an answer and all but threatened her if she didn’t let him come.
Now he’s playing with the settings on the camera as they walk, not even watching where he’s going.
He asks absently if she believes in the tommy-knockers, the terrifying little creatures they said would knock on the walls just before a mine collapsed.
Locals here love these kinds of stories, but she’s surprised Gael even knows about them.
He shrugs. “I looked it up.”
He tells her he’s going to go check out the horses, and she watches him wander away.
It’s surreal seeing him here, on this street where she used to spend her weekends.
As for her, she’s ready to get the hellos over with, deciding to say something generic like, “Wow, you look great.” That will set the tone, keeping things as peripheral as she needs them to be.
She’s thought about this moment before. Of course she has.
She’s only human. But she always imagined their reunion to be on some Southern California rooftop with lowball cocktails, where she could gloss over the details of her life.
Today, she chose a pair of white pleated pants and an earthen brown tank top—both thrifted—and paired them with a plain black baseball hat just for this occasion. She hopes it says, “I’m back but I’m not really back.”
She uses the group chat to message them now to tell them she’s here instead of dragging it out to the point of awkwardness.
When she hits Send, she doesn’t have to wait long at all.
Within minutes, they appear from the opposite end of the block.
Despite the low evening light, Joey is unmistakable with her black jeans and tee and ramrod-straight ponytail.
Next to her, Sophie is short and chaotic.
She wears a messy blond haircut and a flowy purple shirt.
“Here we go,” Elena says to herself through clenched teeth before gluing on a smile.
“Elena!” Sophie is speed-walking toward her. “You came.” She doesn’t hesitate when she reaches her; she just grabs her for a long, warm hug.
Joey is at her heels, a cautious cat, betraying almost no emotion except maybe a trace of surprise and something obdurate, like she’s not sure she wants Elena to be here.
Elena shrugs, then points vaguely in Sophie’s direction. “Wow, you look great.”
“So good to see you,” says Sophie, emphasizing the word see like sight is somehow not a given.
“Joey and I thought we could go for a little walk.” Sophie looks to Joey, as if for permission.
The way she says it, in a loud whisper, makes Elena understand immediately that she doesn’t mean walk at all.
They’re going into the woods. On cue, almost on instinct, it seems, all three of them look around toward First Street, where there’s a small, completely hidden trailhead.
The thought of that trail disturbs something inside Elena. She changes the subject, hoping to buy herself a pass without explanation. “They started filming, I guess?” She nods to the tent at the end of the road.
“Last week,” says Joey, turning to look. “They’re all obsessed with it.”
A small crowd has formed a semicircle around video village.
Gael is there, standing near one of the horses, oblivious to this moment, his neck still hunched over his camera’s screen.
Elena watches as a woman in ripped jeans and a headset walks over to him.
They talk for a minute, and then he puts the cap back on his camera and slings the strap over his head.
Sophie places a hand above her eyes to block out the setting sun. “Anyone know what the movie is about?”
“According to my agent, it’s a historical gold rush thriller,” says Elena. “A schoolteacher is brutally attacked by wolves or something, but the sheriff thinks someone else is behind her murder. It’s a Phillip Granger film.”
Sophie quickly turns to Elena. “That’s right. You’re an actress now. You have an agent.”
Elena’s surprised Sophie knows this about her.
Sophie waves her hands as if to erase any misunderstanding. “I’m not stalking you. Just found you on social.” She gives a rueful grimace.
“Huh,” says Elena, preferring not to comment either way.
It’s not that she tries to be private. She has to be online if she has any chance of making it as an actor.
Now that she thinks of it, she does remember seeing Sophie’s face pop up during a flurry of follows after one of her reels went semiviral.
It’s an odd feeling knowing that Sophie has kept tabs on her.
It makes her wonder if anyone else has too. Anyone that she might not want to.
“Oh, come on,” Sophie says, playfully. “You’re lying if you say you haven’t looked us up.”
“Nope,” Elena says.
Joey crosses her arms. “You two moved away. I assumed you didn’t want to be looked up.”
She’s right. But Elena doesn’t do guilt trips. “Well, we had to escape this sinkhole,” she says, hoping to drive her stake into the ground where it’s visible. She does not really want to be here, or at least wants to make sure that’s the impression she’s giving.
In response, Joey scrunches her lower eyelids in a movement so small it’s nearly imperceptible. Elena’s hit a nerve; that much is obvious. Maybe she was trying to hit one. Joey was going on the offensive. Elena’s response was just self-preservation.
“We’re here now,” says Sophie, and she gives Joey a knowing look that tells Elena they’ve already had some time to catch up. Elena has questions, but this doesn’t feel like the time or the place. Her curiosity almost wins over her indignation, but in the end, she stays quiet.
“Let’s walk,” Sophie says, sounding flustered, maybe hoping to quell some tension. “Stretch our legs before it gets too dark.”
Before Elena can respond, the woman in the ripped jeans who was just talking to Gael jogs toward them, pushing the headset away from her face. “We’re clearing this block,” she says, tapping on a smartwatch.
“Got it. We were just leaving,” Elena says to the woman, who seems relieved she didn’t get pushback.
She strides away, toward a trailer, presumably to tell others to move off the block in question too.
In the distance, Gael begins to saunter over.
Elena watches his familiar movements. In thirty seconds, she will have to introduce him.
“It’s so weird seeing all these people here,” says Joey, breaking the silence. “It’s like we’ve been discovered. Tourists will be next.”
“I don’t know. I think it’s exciting,” says Sophie, standing on her toes to see more of the film equipment.
“Tourists already,” says Elena, pointing an elbow toward Sophie.
Elena sees Joey’s lips twitch. It’s not a smile, but it feels like a temporary truce.
Something inside Elena unwinds gently, and she lets her eyes close.
She’s been Spandex-tight, fretting all day over whether coming back was the right thing.
She shoved Whisper Ridge so far back into the cobwebbed recesses of her brain, she thought she’d forgotten it altogether.
But this place sticks to you like gum on your shoe.
When she booked the last-minute flight, she tried to convince herself she wouldn’t feel anything when she arrived.
That she was just traveling to a set. But, deep down, she knew better.
And she can feel this place pulling at her already.
“That woman said we have to leave this block,” Gael’s voice rings out nearby. Elena opens her eyes instinctually at the sound. He stands a few feet away, and she takes in all of him: his thin face, a wave of black hair with that enviable shine, and his enormous feet and beanpole legs.
Sophie and Joey both turn toward this new voice, and Elena can see Joey preparing her retort. “We said we were going.” But once they see who has spoken, they’re silent, stunned maybe. They were clearly not expecting a child.
Gael’s eyes bounce between the three of them. He seems just as confused as they are, and for one manic moment, Elena feels like laughing out loud.
He doesn’t say anything, just walks around Sophie to stand next to Elena to wait, not shy or bothered, just curious. For a second, none of them speak. Gael’s presence has made them incapable of continuing their conversation. Then Elena says, “Gael, this is Joey and Sophie. We grew up together.”
Sophie is the first to recover from her surprise. “Nice to meet you, Gael,” she says with the warmth of a woman who is good with kids.
“Hi,” he says, coolly. He’s unconcerned in his typical, fourteen-year-old way.
Joey offers him a small wave, then slips her thumbs behind the straps of her backpack. Gael must deem this a sufficient introduction because he turns to Elena and says, “Food?”
“We literally just ate,” she says, referring to the two burgers he wolfed down in the car less than an hour ago. He shrugs with one shoulder as if to say, “What does that matter?”
Joey pulls her bag to her front and rummages through it, eventually producing a small wrapped energy bar. She holds it out to him, her eyes still wide with shock. “Peanut butter?” she asks.
“Hell yeah,” he says, taking it from her. “Thank you.”
They observe him tear at it with his teeth for a silent minute, like they’re watching a creature in the wild.
“I guess no walk?” Sophie asks eventually, her eyes moving between Elena and Joey.
Joey looks at Gael, who’s already finished the energy bar and is crumpling the plastic wrapper in one hand.
Then she looks back at Elena like she isn’t sure exactly what to do.
“No walk,” says Elena, relieved that at least this part is over. “Let’s get a drink.”