Chapter Thirteen
The afternoon sun drenched the riverside in a golden glow, the autumnal leaves looking almost fake in their perfection.
The light danced off the deep but slow-moving river to create a sight so magic it could have been plucked straight from Wonderwick itself.
That is, if you were to overlook the abundance of E-Z UP tents, lighting technicians, grips, gaffers, camera operators, PAs, sound technicians, set dressers, costumiers and many, many more people buzzing around the set.
It was only a short scene, Linderley and Rowan, separated from the rest of the group, trying to find a way to cross the river once Loreia Buckthorn has destroyed the bridge.
We’d shot scenes with Darcy the day before, but today it was just Josh and me.
The problem was, we were time-limited, only being here for two days and yesterday things had, as always, taken longer than expected.
‘All right people, let’s get things going,’ Martin called.
Josh and I went over lines as the final checks were being carried out around us.
Josh proving that he had come prepared and wanting to get the scene right was surely an improvement on how things had been going so far.
It wasn’t a complicated scene, just the two of us going back and forth on our strategy as we stood on the outskirts of the forest, daunted by the river in front of us.
The previous day, which had gone without a hitch bar Darcy insisting on incessant cigarette breaks, had involved a much more labour-intensive action sequence with special effects green dots.
This should have been a walk in the park by comparison.
‘Action!’ Jonas shouted, and we shot some takes on the banks of the river, delivering our lines with various intonations, levels of urgency, the usual.
After a few takes, they needed to reset the lighting as the sun was starting to set.
It was too far for us to go back to the unit base, so we were whisked off to an E-Z UP tent complete with heater to keep us warm while we waited.
Josh was leaning back in a folding chair, his legs sprawled out in front of him. ‘Don’t you think the scene is kind of static?’ He took a swig from a bottle of water.
‘What do you mean, static?’
‘I don’t know, kinda boring? Don’t you think we should add a bit of movement? A bit of dynamism?’
‘Can’t we just keep doing it the way it’s written?’ I sighed. This was very Josh, acting on impulse and expecting everyone else to go along for the ride.
‘Fine.’ He shrugged, dragging the tip of his beaten-up brown leather Rowan Clearwater boot across the bottom of the tent. ‘But don’t you think we’ve done enough takes your way? Now we can try it my way and see what ends up in the final edit.’
‘It’s not a competition.’ I couldn’t help rolling my eyes.
‘Maybe not to you, Squirt.’ Josh nudged me with his elbow, grinning.
‘Right.’ Maria stuck her head into the E-Z Up. ‘We’re ready for you.’
Josh and I were herded back to the riverside, lighting reset, our faces powdered, everything under control for another few takes of the same section of script we’d just been shooting.
Once again, Jonas called action, and we were off.
‘There must be a way!’ I called out to Josh, delivering the first line.
‘I know,’ he said, but instead of looking out across the river, brow furrowed, hands on hips, he started to prowl the bank. ‘It’s just a question—’ he started stepping on stones, testing the water ‘—of finding it.’
‘We might not be able to cross it but a horse certainly could,’ I said, for the seventh time that day, trying to infuse it with the same sense of urgency I had given it on the first take.
‘You’re right!’ Josh turned to face me, about to deliver his next line, but with all of his moving about he had ended up with one foot on a perfectly smooth stone.
It might as well have been a banana peel.
No sooner had Josh’s foot slipped on the rock, he instinctively reached out to me for balance, and right then, all the momentum transferred from me to him, Josh now upright on a much more even patch of grass (precisely where he should have been in the first place) and me losing my footing.
But I didn’t grab onto Josh. Instead, I fell backwards. Straight into the river.
The shock of falling, of hitting the water, made me gasp, filling my mouth with water.
I was only underneath for a moment but that was enough to leave me coughing, spluttering, desperate for air when I resurfaced, furious, a second later.
Thank goodness I had the presence of mind to tread water, because I was seriously out of my depth.
As I pedalled my legs and pushed myself towards a big, stable-looking tree root to hold on to, the fury built in me that I had been humiliated and, frankly, endangered like this all because of Josh.
I felt a hand reach down towards mine and when I looked up, there he was.
Josh. All of his workouts paid off as he pulled me out of the water with relative ease, leaving me drenched and furious, the crew all surging towards us, calls being made to the medic tent, calls being made to I don’t know who.
And was that . . . my mother? Surely not.
I didn’t have time to wonder, anyway. I needed to give Josh a piece of my mind.
‘I can’t live like this anymore, Josh! I don’t understand how I’m meant to work with you when you’re so committed to just doing your own thing, marching off down your own path, shooting scenes how you think they should be done.
At some point every day for the past seven years on set you have made me feel like a bore or an idiot when all I’m doing is my job, while you’re always bringing some new scheme or plan to mess with the perfectly good work everyone else is doing.
You’re lazy, you’re immature, you have absolutely no integrity and I’m sick of it.
’ I glared at him with white-hot fury, waiting for him to laugh in my face.
All around me was quiet, everyone having realised that something juicy was happening, that I wasn’t in immediate danger and the medic could wait.
When I finished speaking, quiet murmurs broke out among the crew, but Josh just looked at me, bewildered.
So much for all my resolutions to be more exciting or sexy or cool or fun.
‘Emily,’ Carrie said, bundling me into a huge blanket. ‘Let’s get you back to the trailer, OK?’ I turned back and looked at Josh. He was still standing there, trying to figure out what had just happened.
‘All right,’ I said, starting to shake with the adrenaline.
‘Darling!’ came my mum’s voice. So she was there. I couldn’t deal with any of this right now.
It wouldn’t be so bad if it was the first time it had happened. But it wasn’t.