Gosh Darned Shameless Woman

She propped herself back against a streetlamp, right foot raised to the metal. Languid smoke haloes her head. She turns to the camera and, bored, sighs.

“You want some?”
She doesn’t care if he does or he doesn’t.

She could be offering him sex for hire, or a magazine subscription.

“Cut!” I yell, a little too loudly for what is an intimate space.

The script supervisor, Tanya, who was already at my side, knows this is her cue to move to my side. But she’s already there, so she stands on my foot to make her presence felt.

“Ouch!”

“Sorry. Problem? That’s the line, right?” She’s all the nervous, tight energy that she should be.

“It’s shameless.”

She’s confused, because surely that was the point of this scene, wasn’t it?

“It’s shamelessly shameless. It’s a fucking joke.” Shit, even that was a ‘fucking’ joke! “I mean it’s a gosh darned joke. Let’s just say ‘gosh darned’ instead of ‘fuck’ or ‘fucking’ from now on, ok?”

“Okay…,” she says slowly, “So what do you think is the gosh darned problem, here, exactly?”

Leticia doesn’t wait for my reply to Tanya. She just butts in with a sufficiently audible “In or out?”.

I’m not sure if I should ask her to gosh darned rephrase that or not, so I respectfully answer her question. “Out. Two minutes”

Leticia, our erstwhile Shameless Woman, drops immediately out of character, curls her spine away from her lamp post, and takes a curt drag on the cigarette for real. She plops down on the curb, the space between her wide-flung knees filled with voluminous skirts that reach to her short-heeled button-up black boots.

I can feel Tanya breathing. She’s that close to my arm. And that short. She’s the only other person paying attention. Everyone else heard “Two minutes” and broke concentration, whether or not they moved, lit up, chugged down, or headed to the donuts or the bathroom. Filmmaking is a mentally and physically taxing occupation and, for most of these eager-to-be acolytes, it will never be their profession, no matter how much they demonstrate their love for it with long, muscle-wrenching, mind-frying hours of unpaid labor.

That’s my fate. I know it. I’m too late into this business, too not ready to do what’s required, on all levels. Too not the right look, age or background to be given the breaks, or to take them. But if I’m lucky, I’ll find enough desperate wannabes who will work for meals, and enough generous cafe owners to subsidize those meals for the short, sweet time it takes to have just one shot at getting a little speck of vision “in the can,” as they say.

I am driven to make this thing, this idea in my head, into something tangible. One silly little story – no, really more just an elongated scene – and I have begged, borrowed, and not quite stolen (because I might return them, maybe) a small circus of people and a huge tangle of lights and cameras and other equipment. I have negotiated the rights to public locations for exactly this time, and not a second more, whether it’s raining or shining. And I’m wrangling, wheedling and shoving them around in reality to make them match the vision in my head, but none of them can see what I want, because it’s in my head, which is why I want it out here, and is every filmmaker ever just stark raving mad, because how could they not be?

The bare skin on my right shoulder warms and cools rhythmically with Tanya’s breath. This used to freak me out just a little bit. Now, I understand now that she’s not disrespectful of my personal space; she’s just trying to get as close to my eye line as she can, to see exactly what I’m looking at. She might make it in this business, if she can luck herself into standing this close to the right Doña Quixote. She knows that’s not me, but she’s standing right there, practicing her craft, anyway. For a moment, it soothes my ego to pretend that she’s pretending that it could be me.

I have no idea if Tanya can see what’s in my eye line or not – either because my eyes are six inches higher than hers or because what I’m seeing is in my head, but it’s something that makes me ever-so-slightly nudge Bobby, the cameraman to my left, and whisper “Roll” out the side of my mouth. Bobby knows better than to make any sudden movements. He’s an old hand at not spooking the horses. Without looking like he’s doing anything other than checking his settings, he deftly zooms in and starts recording. Our professors like to tell us – or is it warn us? – that Camera Operator is the only job on a film set that really needs to be filled by a professional.

But subtle although Bobby is, a slight catch in the breathing pattern on my right arm lets me know that Ms Panza is cognizant that I’ve spied a windmill.
Bobby has gently sat down on the little stool next to the camera, and he’s quietly doing something else. He knows not to stare. He knows he’s got the shot, and he can look later. Tanya doesn’t quite trust that, mostly because it’s her job not to, so she stays on my arm, breathing as calmly as she can, which is not as calmly as I’d like.

But my focus, which I’m trying to keep diffused lest it infects the space between us, is on Leticia. She’s face on, knees still splayed, head down, an image of…what? Exhaustion? Resignation? Boredom? The two feathers in her head dress, however, are obliviously jaunty. They bob when she moves her head towards the cigarette, like they are just gosh darned going to keep up the pretense of…what? Joy? Amusement? Self confidence?

I watch her hands. She rests her forearms on her thighs. She takes a steady, twelve second cycle to bring the cigarette to her lips, her head moving down to meet it, draw in, sit slightly up, hold a beat, expel, wait a beat, then repeat. A million of these cycles go by.

Tanya is now breathing in synch with Leticia. I would be, too, were I not holding my breath altogether.

The cigarette has reached the contemplative stage, its middle age, the point where the smoker has had enough to stop the craving and has enough left to be confident of cruising on nicotine for a few more minutes. It is universally so very often the point where instead of taking the next drag, instead of bending their head to meet the filter, a smoker will lift their hand but keep their head still. They just look at the cigarette for one cycle, maybe even knocking off the accumulated ash with a tap of their little finger. Then they either resume smoking, or they look up, momentarily disoriented, re-engaging with the world.

Leticia doesn’t take the next drag. She absentmindedly knocks off the ash.

“LOOK UP!” I scream, but only in my head. Out here, I continue to hold my breath. I’m glad she didn’t hear me, that she’s still looking at the cigarette, because she cocks her head to the side, examining it, and it’s sort of perfect. For what, I don’t know, but this is why we have editing software. I could build a story around that one, small, completely real gesture.

Leticia has so forgotten everything except the cigarette that she is surprised when one of the feathers flutters briefly into her peripheral vision. It’s enough to remind her that she’s on a film set, and this time she looks up. I’m twelve feet away, and I’m staring right at her. Her head twitches, slightly, the way human heads do when their owners are trying to focus. Her eyes widen bit, acknowledging me. A smile – slight, not self-conscious in any way – forms and she slowly extends her arm towards me, deftly flipping the cigarette as smokers do, offering me the filtered end.

“Want some?”

I smile, a bit, but only a bit, and incline my head slightly in acceptance. I’m just standing there, but I know she will come. I am, after all, the director. Leticia rises, slowly, confidently, and takes a few sure-footed steps towards me.

Now I am breathing again, but Tanya has stopped. She noiselessly slides two large steps away from me. Bobby casually tilts the camera upwards without even looking at it and appears to dust the focus ring.

Leticia is a gorgeous girl, all natural blond curls and when I first saw her I knew she could be my teenage prostitute, if I could convince her to join my project and not those of the other student directors. The combination of demand for her services and the way my script is written has made her portray a character wise beyond her years. A bit too laconic. A touch too bored. Altogether too self assured.

Feeling like a complete bitch, I suddenly glare, and Leticia stops, awkwardly. She actually nearly falls over sideways, so shocked is she at my suddenly changed demeanor. Yes, kid, you’ve got the looks, but I’ve got the “disapproving English teacher stare” that can still stop you in your tracks. She cocks her head to the side, looking at me like she did at the cigarette. It’s only a moment, and I shift, again. I smile encouragingly and hold out my hand for her gift. She smiles back and actually bounces the last two steps towards me, so puppy-like pleased is she to see my approval once more.

I wait a few seconds, so we don’t have to edit it out, then say “Thanks, but I don’t smoke.”

And that was it, our last shot, in the can, and my final assignment needed only grueling editing and the systematic abuse that is peer review.

I never made another film.

Two years later, Leticia had a small part in a Benedict Cumberbatch movie, a part so small that you’d miss it if you didn’t watch the whole movie in slo-mo, like I did. It wasn’t even a part, really, just a background interaction between two people in a crowd scene. While Cumberbatch is scanning the street for his contact, Leticia crosses behind him, walking purposefully towards a man waiting for her at an outdoor cafe. Cumberbatch looks right, the man at the cafe lowers his newspaper and looks at Leticia, who stops, for half a beat, so suddenly that she appears to almost fall over. She cocks her head slightly, then breaks into a smile and skips the last two steps to her lover.

It won’t win her a prize for “Best Background Character in a Cumberbatch Movie,” but she will win many awards in the years to come. I am as sure of that as I am of the fact that she won’t ever thank me in an acceptance speech.