Everything Leads to You

She nods.

“That room actually had no ceiling and only two walls. It’s in a giant warehouse. Nothing claustrophobic about it. And you know that fight scene where Benjamin’s all shirtless and sweaty? I bet between takes he put on a robe and drank Perrier. You’ll see how it all happens. We work so hard to create an illusion and to make it seem real. But for us, the more you know about what happens behind the scenes, the more difficult it is to maintain the fantasy.”

“Does it spoil things a little?” she asks.

“You just have to make an effort to forget.”

“Which doesn’t work a lot of the time,” Charlotte says. “Watching a movie with Emi is like getting a tutorial on how films are made. Look at that shot! They must be using natural light. That backdrop is so fake.”

“I’m not that bad.”

“You’re pretty bad.”

“But when a movie is really good, it’s easy to forget.”

Charlotte nods. “That’s true.”

Ava closes her script and looks at the cover.

“I think our movie is going to be really good. Don’t you guys?”

I nod yes and this moment almost feels like a premonition. Here we are, in the room where we will shoot the first scenes, with the girl who will play Juniper working on her lines and the beginnings of the set in place. These portraits are everything I wanted them to be; I can already picture how they will look on Toby’s wall. And even though we still don’t have George’s house or the grocery store, even though I’ve been starting awake most nights worried about all I need to do, there is a calm in this room that assures me that we are exactly where we are meant to be.





Chapter Fifteen



Theo and I have appointments at five potential locations for George’s house.

The first one is infested with rats. The second has a terrible, unidentifiable smell and I end up coughing so hard that Theo says, “Let’s get out of here. Run for your life!” The third one has such cramped rooms that it would be impossible to fit everyone inside with our lights and the cameras. The fourth is too modern with high ceilings and stainless steel everywhere.

We are desperate by the time we pull up to the fifth.

We park and walk up to it. Paint is peeling off the walls of the house in thick strips, but we try to stay optimistic.

“I don’t think we could use it for the street-view shot,” I say.

“Nope,” Theo says. “No way.”

“But we could choose a different house for that.”

“Right. No big deal.”

A middle-aged woman pulls up in a dirty car and sits there for a moment, digging through a giant purse.

“You figure that’s her?” Theo asks.

“Probably,” I say, but she doesn’t look over at us or appear to be in any kind of hurry.

Eventually, though, she gets out of the car and crosses the street toward us.

“Patricia?” Theo asks. “Hello.”

“You have an accent. Are you legal to live here?” Patricia asks, scrutinizing his face.

“Yes, in fact, I am. But as I said on the phone, we’re only looking for a one-week rental for a film.”

She looks at me and then back to him.

“How old is she? I can’t rent to minors.”

I laugh but Theo tries his best to keep his composure even though this woman obviously suspects him of some statutory rape–immigration scandal.

“This is Emi. She is eighteen years old. But it wouldn’t matter anyway because she is not interested in renting the space. I would be renting it and only for a week to shoot a film.”

“You got insurance?”

“Yes. I have insurance.”

“Is it pornography? I can’t have pornography shot here.”

Theo seems on the verge of exploding, but he runs his hand through his hair and smiles down at her.

“It is not pornography,” he says in a voice that is part polite, part menacing.

Patricia sighs and unlocks the iron gate and then the front door.

“Go on in,” she says. “I have some calls to make.”

We make a quick lap of the house—splotchy carpets, dingy walls with water stains from what must have been a leaky pipe, dreary lighting in most of the rooms. How difficult is it to find just a humble, decent house?

I expect Theo to say we should move on, but instead he says, “Well, Emi, what do you think?”

“It would be a pretty bleak interpretation,” I say. “Is that what you’re going for?”

“It isn’t what I had in mind exactly, but I’m feeling desperate. It’s a good day rate.”

“That’s true.”

I know how important the good price is, and also that it’s my job to take whatever we can get and then transform it into something we want. So I do another lap and I look for opportunities this time.