Sitting on the bed in my lovely Los Angeles apartment, on hiatus from a decent job as an acting coach on a television series, I relished my independent life with my choices and responsibilities mine alone. Then why did it bug me that William cringed at the idea of marriage? That should thrill me, not kill me.
And I put up a darn good disguise. I was two-faced about the issue. Before William left for Europe, we had a dinner conversation where I mentioned that our crosstown commute wasn't so bad. We were both ensconced in our homes and I saw no reason why a twenty-mile drive should interfere with that.
You mean we're never going to live together? William asked, forking a mouthful of food.
This question and his dismay surprised me. And secretly delighted me. Secretly being the operative word.
Why would we? This is fine...isn't it?
Forever? William frowned.
Sure.
I answered in a light and breezy voice because I like coming off as a "don't need anyone" kind of gal. I like this portrait of myself because the idea of dependency makes me cringe. I left my childhood home at seventeen and never entertained the concept of looking back, let alone moving back. I like long highways into distant horizons. I like getting in my car and driving for ten hours. Yup, forever would be just fine.
This was a complete lie, but even I didn't know that on this evening.
That's crazy.
Look, William, I've been down this road and obviously I'm not great at it. Furthermore, I have zero interest in living together to save gasoline.
What do you mean?
What do you mean, "What do you mean?"?
At this point our forks and knives were carefully placed next to our plates and the candles burned lower.
What do you mean? Pretty simple question. And he looked straight at me.
This chicken is going to be ice in a minute, I answered, and ducked his look.
Sarah Vaughan, crooning away from inside the CD player, acted like a real dolt and kept right on singing like nothing was amiss.
Okay, here's the thing, sounding like a lawyer making a case. I like my apartment. True, we've established I love you and you love me...but I couldn't just live together and not be married.
What?
It's not a moral thing. It's a dignity thing. I don't want to go into decade after decade as someone's girlfriend...I just don't. And frankly, no one has come up with a better title than wife. We all know what "partner" means, so that doesn't work. Anyway, that's what I mean.
Oh, and he started eating again. The chicken's good.
No it's not. It's wrecked.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Thursday, May 12, 2011
BERLIN: October, 2000 (Part 1)
Tomorrow I fly to Germany. A fantasy come true and yet....
It was not without trepidation. I hadn't been to Europe in fourteen years and had entirely misplaced the travel confidence I wore so well in that long-ago trip to Italy.
A nervy fear of monetary exchange and foreign communication had my pulse racing. I didn’t want to stick out as an American rube on foreign soil. Consoled with the thought that travel is anonymous, I surmised it was unlikely I would befriend anyone. So perhaps bumbling once or twice and moving on could work. I argued back and forth with myself, as if there were any serious doubt that I would accept an airline ticket to Germany.
In my apartment, I practiced counting, adding, multiplying and dividing Deutschmarks. Germany, like other countries in 2000, flirted with the Euro but was still using its own currency. I studied German and French phrasebooks. The plan: Start with hello, goodbye, please and thank you. Then move on to rudimentary sentences, and after that resort to drawing pictures or acting out as if in a game of charades.
As much as I wanted to go, I delayed the packing process. Pacing my bedroom and eyeing my empty bag didn't help. Packing for a weekend, let alone a month, frustrated me. I opened and shut drawers, stared in the closet and decided the antidote to my procrastination was to pack minimally.
I came up with a uniform. By eliminating choice, I'd never have to wonder what to wear and one bag would do. I decided on two pairs of corduroy pants, one black, one beige. Two pairs of walking shoes bought at a place called something like The Walking Shoe Store. A black cardigan, two white cotton turtlenecks, two white T-shirts, a gray sweater and a beige sweater. Socks, underwear and a bottle of Woolite. I could hand-wash along the way.
My flight path was Los Angeles to Paris, for a seven-hour layover before continuing on to Berlin. However, a bumpier flight path concerned me. I sat down on the bed next to my packed bag. Spencer dozed, a breeze rustled through branches outside the bedroom window of my apartment and I knew that as ready as I was, I wasn't.
This trip and my racing heart had less to do with concerns of language and money exchange than the precipice I was teetering above. My life was about to be altered. I didn't know the details, but something was afoot. My heart knew this well before my head caught on.
William owned a California cottage twenty miles across town, on the Westside of Los Angeles, and I lived on the east side in an old-fashioned, light-filled apartment with a cat and my stuff.
Two years into this and I was gettin' itchy. Still in love with the man, still laughing and carousing but...scratchy and fussy. I wanted to wriggle out of it. I'd never, ever made it longer than three and a half years in any marriage or romantic relationship. The time frame was natural for me: three and a half years and not a minute more.
Yet here I was, about to embark on a trip across the world to find him. William was already in Berlin. He'd been working there for a month. Up to this point in our two-year love affair, we'd only ventured away on one weekend, to Santa Barbara. That was the sum total of our travel together, and anyone who has ever journeyed with anyone — relative, friend, lover or "it could be somethin' " — knows this:
You find out a lot, fast, on foreign territory.
It was not without trepidation. I hadn't been to Europe in fourteen years and had entirely misplaced the travel confidence I wore so well in that long-ago trip to Italy.
A nervy fear of monetary exchange and foreign communication had my pulse racing. I didn’t want to stick out as an American rube on foreign soil. Consoled with the thought that travel is anonymous, I surmised it was unlikely I would befriend anyone. So perhaps bumbling once or twice and moving on could work. I argued back and forth with myself, as if there were any serious doubt that I would accept an airline ticket to Germany.
In my apartment, I practiced counting, adding, multiplying and dividing Deutschmarks. Germany, like other countries in 2000, flirted with the Euro but was still using its own currency. I studied German and French phrasebooks. The plan: Start with hello, goodbye, please and thank you. Then move on to rudimentary sentences, and after that resort to drawing pictures or acting out as if in a game of charades.
As much as I wanted to go, I delayed the packing process. Pacing my bedroom and eyeing my empty bag didn't help. Packing for a weekend, let alone a month, frustrated me. I opened and shut drawers, stared in the closet and decided the antidote to my procrastination was to pack minimally.
I came up with a uniform. By eliminating choice, I'd never have to wonder what to wear and one bag would do. I decided on two pairs of corduroy pants, one black, one beige. Two pairs of walking shoes bought at a place called something like The Walking Shoe Store. A black cardigan, two white cotton turtlenecks, two white T-shirts, a gray sweater and a beige sweater. Socks, underwear and a bottle of Woolite. I could hand-wash along the way.
My flight path was Los Angeles to Paris, for a seven-hour layover before continuing on to Berlin. However, a bumpier flight path concerned me. I sat down on the bed next to my packed bag. Spencer dozed, a breeze rustled through branches outside the bedroom window of my apartment and I knew that as ready as I was, I wasn't.
This trip and my racing heart had less to do with concerns of language and money exchange than the precipice I was teetering above. My life was about to be altered. I didn't know the details, but something was afoot. My heart knew this well before my head caught on.
William owned a California cottage twenty miles across town, on the Westside of Los Angeles, and I lived on the east side in an old-fashioned, light-filled apartment with a cat and my stuff.
Two years into this and I was gettin' itchy. Still in love with the man, still laughing and carousing but...scratchy and fussy. I wanted to wriggle out of it. I'd never, ever made it longer than three and a half years in any marriage or romantic relationship. The time frame was natural for me: three and a half years and not a minute more.
Yet here I was, about to embark on a trip across the world to find him. William was already in Berlin. He'd been working there for a month. Up to this point in our two-year love affair, we'd only ventured away on one weekend, to Santa Barbara. That was the sum total of our travel together, and anyone who has ever journeyed with anyone — relative, friend, lover or "it could be somethin' " — knows this:
You find out a lot, fast, on foreign territory.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
LOS ANGELES: October, 1998 (Part 8)
Two years into our relationship and William was about to travel across the Atlantic on a job. His career as an assistant editor continued apace. It's a good job and many assistant editors spend their entire careers in the position.
Assistant editors aren't assistants in the sense of picking up dry cleaning and making coffee. They carry very specific technical responsibilities in the filmmaking world, and the position is not an automatic precursor to becoming a film editor. William, however, dreamed of cutting movies. He wanted to move up.
How long will you be gone?
Mmmm...three months, looks like.
Huh.
I want you to come.
Well, I do have a hiatus, but....
What did I want him to do? Beg?
Maybe I did.
I'll buy you the airline ticket. The apartment over there is free.
Yeah.
Come, because I'll miss you too much if you don't.
Okay.
My lackluster response hid my thrill.
Assistant editors aren't assistants in the sense of picking up dry cleaning and making coffee. They carry very specific technical responsibilities in the filmmaking world, and the position is not an automatic precursor to becoming a film editor. William, however, dreamed of cutting movies. He wanted to move up.
How long will you be gone?
Mmmm...three months, looks like.
Huh.
I want you to come.
Well, I do have a hiatus, but....
What did I want him to do? Beg?
Maybe I did.
I'll buy you the airline ticket. The apartment over there is free.
Yeah.
Come, because I'll miss you too much if you don't.
Okay.
My lackluster response hid my thrill.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
LOS ANGELES: October, 1998 (Part 7)
And then we went on another date, and another, and my stomach rolled itself into tight knots. The situation was entirely out of control because I couldn't say no to one more dinner and one more conversation. I planned and rehearsed an exit. I would carefully cross my legs, clasp my hands and address William with the sophistication of royalty. I practiced a speech.
Look, this has been delightful and you know I think you're a great guy, but there's no future here. I see these dates as a way to maybe get myself off ice and maybe as a way for you to venture into a greater romantic life — with someone else — but there's no future, not for us. We really should end this now and please know that I've had a wonderful time....
I tested out the chat on my bedroom ceiling. I sounded pompous and ridiculous. I tossed, I turned, and the words screeched around in my skull. And, one evening, during an autumn sunset, William stood in my apartment while I launched into the speech. Through the living room blinds, red and orange stripes flared across the walls, and he listened for a little while, until he put his finger on my lips.
Okay, he said, how old are you?
I told him, whispering to the floor.
Really? I thought you were way younger than that.
And I loved him even more.
Come on, I said. This is nuts, not possible...fun, but not realistic—
Don’t you sabotage this….Don't do that. I don't care about the age thing. I really don't.
But I do.
You'll have to get over that.
William placed his hands on my shoulders. His dark brown eyes stared hard into my tear-filled pair and I couldn't hold his look. His face was so kind and so filled with goodness and belief that I didn't have the guts to finish my speech. I dropped my face and shook my head. William didn't buy my excuses any more than I did.
Let's get some dinner, he said. I sniffed, blew my nose, and off we went on another chipper outing.
The next day my fears crashed down upon me as I sat cross-legged on the floor of my bedroom, trying to meditate. I wanted strength and clarity. I wanted to settle my heart, but started crying instead. Overcome with gulping sobs, I tipped sideways and lay my cheek on golden hardwood. My cat, Spencer, circled around and around my prone body. I cried like a lost child. I pressed my forehead to the floor and begged for an answer.
And it came. Don't ask me from where, but with the purity of an excellent radio signal these words ran through my head:
It doesn't matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.
I sniffed, I slurped, and I stopped crying. I pushed myself up straight, picked Spencer up and assured him I was going to be okay because I believed those words. I couldn't predict where William and I would end up but It doesn't matter rang true and I decided to try to erase the age thing from my worries.
I closed my eyes, breathed calmly and made the choice to rid myself of the anxiety. The resolution was born of these overriding thoughts: I do not want to lose him. I want to love him. Nothing else matters because there is no room for those concerns. I have no space for those thoughts.
Spencer purred in my lap. If cats could talk. The poor fellow had adapted to his share of homes, boyfriends and husbands. Now he was going to hang in for one more chancy maneuver by his owner.
So is the way of the world, the heart, kismet, and the wisdom of a hardwood floor.
Look, this has been delightful and you know I think you're a great guy, but there's no future here. I see these dates as a way to maybe get myself off ice and maybe as a way for you to venture into a greater romantic life — with someone else — but there's no future, not for us. We really should end this now and please know that I've had a wonderful time....
I tested out the chat on my bedroom ceiling. I sounded pompous and ridiculous. I tossed, I turned, and the words screeched around in my skull. And, one evening, during an autumn sunset, William stood in my apartment while I launched into the speech. Through the living room blinds, red and orange stripes flared across the walls, and he listened for a little while, until he put his finger on my lips.
Okay, he said, how old are you?
I told him, whispering to the floor.
Really? I thought you were way younger than that.
And I loved him even more.
Come on, I said. This is nuts, not possible...fun, but not realistic—
Don’t you sabotage this….Don't do that. I don't care about the age thing. I really don't.
But I do.
You'll have to get over that.
William placed his hands on my shoulders. His dark brown eyes stared hard into my tear-filled pair and I couldn't hold his look. His face was so kind and so filled with goodness and belief that I didn't have the guts to finish my speech. I dropped my face and shook my head. William didn't buy my excuses any more than I did.
Let's get some dinner, he said. I sniffed, blew my nose, and off we went on another chipper outing.
The next day my fears crashed down upon me as I sat cross-legged on the floor of my bedroom, trying to meditate. I wanted strength and clarity. I wanted to settle my heart, but started crying instead. Overcome with gulping sobs, I tipped sideways and lay my cheek on golden hardwood. My cat, Spencer, circled around and around my prone body. I cried like a lost child. I pressed my forehead to the floor and begged for an answer.
And it came. Don't ask me from where, but with the purity of an excellent radio signal these words ran through my head:
It doesn't matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.
I sniffed, I slurped, and I stopped crying. I pushed myself up straight, picked Spencer up and assured him I was going to be okay because I believed those words. I couldn't predict where William and I would end up but It doesn't matter rang true and I decided to try to erase the age thing from my worries.
I closed my eyes, breathed calmly and made the choice to rid myself of the anxiety. The resolution was born of these overriding thoughts: I do not want to lose him. I want to love him. Nothing else matters because there is no room for those concerns. I have no space for those thoughts.
Spencer purred in my lap. If cats could talk. The poor fellow had adapted to his share of homes, boyfriends and husbands. Now he was going to hang in for one more chancy maneuver by his owner.
So is the way of the world, the heart, kismet, and the wisdom of a hardwood floor.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
LOS ANGELES: October, 1998 (Part 6)
Inside the apartment I foolishly grabbed the candle holders in an attempt to carry them to the kitchen sink, royally burning both hands and an arm with boiling wax. Could there have been a clearer signal that I was messing around with a bad idea?
After he left that night, I swallowed a double dose of Advil and smeared burn cream on my hands and arm. The next day I bought proper supplies at a pharmacy and gave my injuries proper treatment.
A week later, William asked me out on a real date. I decided to go for the "fun" of it, to step into a night out as I might try on a new pair of shoes. Just this one time we'll go to a nice restaurant, eat well, drink wine, and then I'll be clear to him about our lack of a future together. William's wit may have been as dry as James Bond's martinis, but this was not going any further.
Why? The slick escarpment blocking my way was the age thing. William was younger than me. And not just a little younger, but a lot younger, and that could not be changed or reasonably joked about. I was in big trouble. I knew his age because I'd asked him. He didn't know mine because he had the good grace not to ask. This age difference carried more weight than any issues of commitment or my adaptation to life alone or the quivers I felt when he brushed against me or the way he made me laugh or those kisses or anything I could come up with.
This was serious business. This was a first for me and I didn't like it one bit. Society had come up with a feline epithet for women like me. Years later, television producers would develop a high-larious sitcom named for women like me. The age difference thing gave rise to a sour taste in my mouth and I couldn't speak of it.
Except to my hairdresser.
As Peter snipped my hair, I sighed. When he asked about the film and my life, I sighed and then had an outburst. Peter was being polite, not avid, in his queries, and didn't expect the sudden outpouring of angst I spilled all over my salon robe. He stopped clipping, held his scissors aloft, looked at me in the mirror and listened. At the end of my gushing, Peter tilted his head, our eyes met, and he said, I think this is the last social taboo.
He might have been right about that, but I didn't want to be on the edge of new frontiers. I didn't want to be another Oprah subject or some crappy movie of the week. It didn't matter to me that Jack or Warren or Hugh or any other older guys didn't get called a disparaging name for their love affairs. Of course, it's unfair and even misogynistic, but I wasn't the least bit interested in the politics of the situation. It made me feel crappy and sad. I didn't want to be a social taboo. It had to end and that was all there was to it.
After he left that night, I swallowed a double dose of Advil and smeared burn cream on my hands and arm. The next day I bought proper supplies at a pharmacy and gave my injuries proper treatment.
A week later, William asked me out on a real date. I decided to go for the "fun" of it, to step into a night out as I might try on a new pair of shoes. Just this one time we'll go to a nice restaurant, eat well, drink wine, and then I'll be clear to him about our lack of a future together. William's wit may have been as dry as James Bond's martinis, but this was not going any further.
Why? The slick escarpment blocking my way was the age thing. William was younger than me. And not just a little younger, but a lot younger, and that could not be changed or reasonably joked about. I was in big trouble. I knew his age because I'd asked him. He didn't know mine because he had the good grace not to ask. This age difference carried more weight than any issues of commitment or my adaptation to life alone or the quivers I felt when he brushed against me or the way he made me laugh or those kisses or anything I could come up with.
This was serious business. This was a first for me and I didn't like it one bit. Society had come up with a feline epithet for women like me. Years later, television producers would develop a high-larious sitcom named for women like me. The age difference thing gave rise to a sour taste in my mouth and I couldn't speak of it.
Except to my hairdresser.
As Peter snipped my hair, I sighed. When he asked about the film and my life, I sighed and then had an outburst. Peter was being polite, not avid, in his queries, and didn't expect the sudden outpouring of angst I spilled all over my salon robe. He stopped clipping, held his scissors aloft, looked at me in the mirror and listened. At the end of my gushing, Peter tilted his head, our eyes met, and he said, I think this is the last social taboo.
He might have been right about that, but I didn't want to be on the edge of new frontiers. I didn't want to be another Oprah subject or some crappy movie of the week. It didn't matter to me that Jack or Warren or Hugh or any other older guys didn't get called a disparaging name for their love affairs. Of course, it's unfair and even misogynistic, but I wasn't the least bit interested in the politics of the situation. It made me feel crappy and sad. I didn't want to be a social taboo. It had to end and that was all there was to it.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
LOS ANGELES: October, 1998 (Part 5)
One Monday morning we met back at work. I'd spent Sunday at the beach and arrived with a slight sunburn. William touched my peeling shoulder with his fingertips.
Does that hurt?
No, I wanted to scream. It feels really, really good when you do that.
Gone, I was a goner, gone, gone. I fell tippy-top down a steep incline, laughing all the way….
Until an impediment opened up like a steep black chasm in front of me, and I balked.
I had a dinner to thank both the producer and William for their hard work. We sat at my long pine table in candlelight, laughing about the ups and downs of production. Then the producer said she had to leave. William stayed. I showed him my clunker of a computer. I put a Carlos Jobim CD on the player. We chatted about…nothing. Time stood still, time ticked by, until he said it was time for him to leave. I busied myself packing up leftover roast lamb and chocolate mousse for him to take home. We stepped outside into the dark, cool summer night. I walked with him to his car across the street.
You know, Mel, I almost made a really clumsy pass at you back there.
Really?
Yeah.
Oh, William…I've had a terrible crush on you for a long time.
And we stopped in the middle of the street, right by his 1993 Nissan Altima.
What? You have?
Yeah.
I have to kiss you. Right now. I do.
And he did. I leaned back against the car, he took my face in his hands and our lips sank into each other like marshmallows dipped in the juice of ripe raspberries. He pulled away, looked into my eyes and we both smiled.
Then I glanced over his shoulder and screamed FIRE!
I could see through my living-room windows that my apartment was aflame. The candles on the dining table had burned down into their holders, which were decorated with flammable fabric flowers — and good God they were blazing.
William, thinking I was attempting to extricate myself from our make-out session, looked at me skeptically. I screamed, No really, FIRE! And ran.
Does that hurt?
No, I wanted to scream. It feels really, really good when you do that.
Gone, I was a goner, gone, gone. I fell tippy-top down a steep incline, laughing all the way….
Until an impediment opened up like a steep black chasm in front of me, and I balked.
I had a dinner to thank both the producer and William for their hard work. We sat at my long pine table in candlelight, laughing about the ups and downs of production. Then the producer said she had to leave. William stayed. I showed him my clunker of a computer. I put a Carlos Jobim CD on the player. We chatted about…nothing. Time stood still, time ticked by, until he said it was time for him to leave. I busied myself packing up leftover roast lamb and chocolate mousse for him to take home. We stepped outside into the dark, cool summer night. I walked with him to his car across the street.
You know, Mel, I almost made a really clumsy pass at you back there.
Really?
Yeah.
Oh, William…I've had a terrible crush on you for a long time.
And we stopped in the middle of the street, right by his 1993 Nissan Altima.
What? You have?
Yeah.
I have to kiss you. Right now. I do.
And he did. I leaned back against the car, he took my face in his hands and our lips sank into each other like marshmallows dipped in the juice of ripe raspberries. He pulled away, looked into my eyes and we both smiled.
Then I glanced over his shoulder and screamed FIRE!
I could see through my living-room windows that my apartment was aflame. The candles on the dining table had burned down into their holders, which were decorated with flammable fabric flowers — and good God they were blazing.
William, thinking I was attempting to extricate myself from our make-out session, looked at me skeptically. I screamed, No really, FIRE! And ran.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
LOS ANGELES: October, 1998 (Part 4)
Okay, so the AFI gives us three weeks to cut this. Is that reasonable? I asked William. All business.
It'll have to be if that's what we get, he answered. Matching my professionalism.
How old is this guy? He has the weight of wisdom and the earned confidence of someone in their fifties. I wanted that, and if I couldn't find it on my own, I wanted to hang around it and feel the protection of such certainty.
By the end of August, the film had been shot and William and I started our work in a tiny editing suite. I had earned my own spunk simply by getting up every day and doing the job. I was on a high and riding the thrill of having directed a film, having answered a million questions from cast and crew, having made decisions, and having had control of a project in a way an actor never experiences. I was feeling pretty damn hot and on top of the world, but there was still much I didn't know. I learned about film editing from William. He led me through the process of finishing sound and music. We sat on a mixing stage with our sound crew. I was way out of my element and looked across the table as William spoke.
What the director would like....
What she's trying achieve here....
I don't think that's the direction she's looking for....
He gave words to our work. He spoke with authority and respect for my ideas to his fellow crew members responsible for putting the finishing aspects on our movie. He spoke as if he were representing a hundred-million dollar studio picture. This short film was William's first solo job as an editor but no one in the room knew that. I relaxed into my chair and watched his confidence infuse the room. I was hard-pressed to remember creatively trusting anyone like this. I barely had to speak in our sound meetings. I was much too busy falling in love.
It's a pain to rise above when a fella's smart and funny. This delectable combo platter is difficult to ignore. One afternoon in our tiny, dark editing room, the telephone rang. I picked up the receiver but heard only dial tone. Hmmm. I replaced the receiver. William was busy at his editing console, fixing some thingamajiggy. Again the phone rang and again I answered, with the same result. It took three times before I caught sight of William's shoulders shaking in silent laughter.
What are you doing?
What are you doing? William broke out laughing as he played his telephone ring sound effect over and over.
Okay, enough hilarity, he said. We have to edit sound.
Sure, I answered, ripping open a package of crackers. I munched and he did something technical. Then his fingers ceased tapping. He waited for something, I munched another handful of crackers. He pressed a few more buttons, listened, then stopped again.
I'm trying to edit sound, he said.
Yeah, I see that. Crunch.
So, I'm trying to hear it.
Got it. Crunch.
Are you going to eat all of those?
I'm so sorry, did you want some? How rude. Here.
No, I want to get this sound done.
Of course. Crunch.
And with the speed of an attacking rattler, he grabbed the crackers out of my hands and set them down on the other side of the desk. This man: dry as the Sahara, dry as stale crackers.
It'll have to be if that's what we get, he answered. Matching my professionalism.
How old is this guy? He has the weight of wisdom and the earned confidence of someone in their fifties. I wanted that, and if I couldn't find it on my own, I wanted to hang around it and feel the protection of such certainty.
By the end of August, the film had been shot and William and I started our work in a tiny editing suite. I had earned my own spunk simply by getting up every day and doing the job. I was on a high and riding the thrill of having directed a film, having answered a million questions from cast and crew, having made decisions, and having had control of a project in a way an actor never experiences. I was feeling pretty damn hot and on top of the world, but there was still much I didn't know. I learned about film editing from William. He led me through the process of finishing sound and music. We sat on a mixing stage with our sound crew. I was way out of my element and looked across the table as William spoke.
What the director would like....
What she's trying achieve here....
I don't think that's the direction she's looking for....
He gave words to our work. He spoke with authority and respect for my ideas to his fellow crew members responsible for putting the finishing aspects on our movie. He spoke as if he were representing a hundred-million dollar studio picture. This short film was William's first solo job as an editor but no one in the room knew that. I relaxed into my chair and watched his confidence infuse the room. I was hard-pressed to remember creatively trusting anyone like this. I barely had to speak in our sound meetings. I was much too busy falling in love.
It's a pain to rise above when a fella's smart and funny. This delectable combo platter is difficult to ignore. One afternoon in our tiny, dark editing room, the telephone rang. I picked up the receiver but heard only dial tone. Hmmm. I replaced the receiver. William was busy at his editing console, fixing some thingamajiggy. Again the phone rang and again I answered, with the same result. It took three times before I caught sight of William's shoulders shaking in silent laughter.
What are you doing?
What are you doing? William broke out laughing as he played his telephone ring sound effect over and over.
Okay, enough hilarity, he said. We have to edit sound.
Sure, I answered, ripping open a package of crackers. I munched and he did something technical. Then his fingers ceased tapping. He waited for something, I munched another handful of crackers. He pressed a few more buttons, listened, then stopped again.
I'm trying to edit sound, he said.
Yeah, I see that. Crunch.
So, I'm trying to hear it.
Got it. Crunch.
Are you going to eat all of those?
I'm so sorry, did you want some? How rude. Here.
No, I want to get this sound done.
Of course. Crunch.
And with the speed of an attacking rattler, he grabbed the crackers out of my hands and set them down on the other side of the desk. This man: dry as the Sahara, dry as stale crackers.
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