Everything Leads to You

So I take the afternoon.

As I’m going back through the room, thinning out the stacks of sheet music, rearranging the decorative objects, I keep thinking of Ava’s exit. She disappeared as quickly as my sofa did, and with barely more warning. I thought that we would at least have her phone number, but Charlotte told me it was blocked, which means that it’s up to her to get in touch with us if she ever wants to see us again. And why would she? We’re just two random girls who happened to discover something that belonged to her. Now she has the letter and if she chooses to learn more she can. She doesn’t need us. I try to talk myself into feeling glad that we got to play a small part in something so interesting. Something that was part of real life.

But, self-delusion aside, I can’t handle the thought of this being over.

So when my phone buzzes in my pocket, even though she never had my number and it would be almost impossible, I am overwhelmed by an irrational, electric hope that it’s her.

“Hello?” I say.

“Emi?” a woman says. I don’t know who she is, but her voice doesn’t have the raspiness of Ava’s, and I feel stupid for even hoping. “This is Rebecca. We met the other day. I’m Morgan’s friend.”

“Yeah, of course,” I say. “Hi.”

“I’m calling to offer you a job.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I’d love to tell you about it if you have time.”

“Sure,” I say. “That sounds great. When did you have in mind?”

“Five o’clock today, if possible.”

I take a step back and look over the room. It looks pretty good, and I think it’s what Ginger wants it to be.

“Yeah,” I say. “I actually just finished work for the day, so I’m free.”

~

I meet Rebecca and her boyfriend, Theo, at a café in Silver Lake. They’re sitting outside against these brilliant blue tiles I love, drinking matching cappuccinos.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” Theo says, speaking with a prominent accent that I’m fairly certain is South African. “Rebecca has been raving about you.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.” She nods and smiles at me, these cute tiny lines forming by her eyes.

“You should hear her go on and on about the sofa,” Theo says.

“They didn’t end up using it.”

“What?” Rebecca gasps. “Oh no.”

“I know, right?” I say. “That trip out to Pasadena was all for nothing.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” she says. “But what did you do?”

“Honestly? I had a meltdown. And then I spent the afternoon today figuring out how to make the room work with what my boss chose.”

“But it looked better before, I imagine,” Theo says. “The way you had envisioned it.”

“Definitely,” I say. “But it isn’t my movie, you know? I don’t get to make the calls. I understand how it works and I can appreciate my boss’s point of view.”

I’m switching into interview mode now, because I don’t know what they are going to offer me, but I do know that Morgan and her friends do really cool projects, and Rebecca and Theo just have that thing some people have that makes you want to be in their company, no matter what they’re doing. I have a portfolio to build and experience to gain, and if Rebecca saw what I did and liked it, then maybe she’ll let me do more of what I’m good at.

“Yes, but what if you had a situation where you knew that the choice you made was the right one. Let’s say, then, that someone tells you to change it to something hideous. And let’s say that the person making the call wasn’t even in the art department. Totally didn’t know what he was talking about. What would you do then?”

I don’t know what the right answer to this question is. Maybe it’s a trick because he hates it when the people who work for him are defiant, or maybe he wants someone who can stand her ground. So I just answer honestly.

“I guess I would take a little while to think about it. I’d really consider his point of view. And then, if I was still certain I was right, I’d tell him no,” I say. “I’d explain why.”

“And if he said, ‘Do it anyway’?”

“I’d try to explain again.”

“What if he said, ‘I’m the boss, listen to me.’”

“You’re saying he’s not in the art department?”

“Yes.”

I hesitate. I think about what Ginger would do, if the film director or a producer tried to change one of her concepts after she had worked so hard on conceptualizing and planning. After it all had been approved. She wouldn’t let anyone get away with that, no matter how powerful or intimidating he might be.

“Then I’d tell him that he hired me for a reason, and that was because I know what I’m doing and I’m good at it,” I say. “I’d insist, I guess. I’d insist that it stay that way as long as other people whose artistic visions I respected also agreed that it was good.”

Theo leans back and smiles.

“I like you,” he says.