Chapter 19: Chapter 19
The smell of his own trailer was wrong. It was the same cleaning product, the same faint aroma of the leather sofa, the same dry, recycled air. But underneath it was something new: a cheap, floral perfume that clung to the surfaces like a stubborn stain. It came from the temp, a nervous young woman named Kelsey who had introduced herself with a too-bright smile and hands that fluttered like caught birds.
“Mr. Bomer! Welcome back. Elliot said you’d be in. I’ve got your revised schedule here, and the producers sent over the new pages, they’re marked in yellow, and your lunch is ordered from the usual place, it should be here at twelve-thirty.”
She spoke in a rushed, rehearsed monologue, her eyes darting from his face to the iPad in her hands. Matt stood just inside the door, his bag still on his shoulder. His gaze went past her, to the corner where Dasha’s desk had been.
It wasn’t empty.
Kelsey had moved into it. A garish pink water bottle sat next to the monitor. A small, fluffy faux-fur keychain was looped around the drawer handle. A sticky note on the screen read “U GOT THIS!” in bubbly handwriting.
“You moved the desk,” he said. His voice was flat.
Kelsey’s smile flickered. “Oh. Yeah. Elliot thought it would be more efficient if I was right inside the door. To, you know, greet people and manage the flow.”
The flow. Dasha’s desk had been positioned slightly back, angled so she could see anyone approaching but wasn’t the first thing they saw. It was a subtle piece of battlefield topography. This new arrangement felt like a ticket booth.
“Right,” Matt said. He dropped his bag by the sofa. “The pages?”
She thrust the binder at him. He took it, his fingers brushing the cold metal rings. The top page was indeed slashed with yellow highlight. Dialogue changes. His character now had a clunky, expository line about his father’s legacy. He felt a headache begin to pulse behind his eyes.
“Coffee,” he said, not looking up.
“On it!” Kelsey chirped, spinning toward the small machine in the corner. He heard the clatter of a pod, the gurgle of water. He sank onto the sofa, staring at the lines without seeing them. The silence between him and this new person was a loud, awkward thing. With Dasha, the quiet had been a neutral space, a mutual understanding that not every moment needed to be filled with sound. This quiet was a vacuum Kelsey was clearly terrified of.
She brought the coffee over in a paper cup. “Cream, no sugar, right?”
“Right.” He took it. It was lukewarm.
The morning unfolded with a grating, inefficient rhythm. Kelsey misdirected a call from the costume designer to his voicemail. She couldn’t find the digital release form for the new stand-in. She asked him, twice, how to spell “archival” for a memo. Each time, a spike of pure, undiluted frustration would lance through him, followed immediately by a wave of shame. It wasn’t her fault. She was trying. She was just… wrong.
During a break between setups, Elliot materialized, sliding into the trailer with the ease of a man who owned the air. He gave Kelsey a paternal wink. “Holding down the fort, kid?”
“Yes, Mr. Schiff!”
Elliot dropped onto the sofa beside Matt, his expression shifting into one of theatrical concern. “You look like hell. Jet lag or heartache?”
“Don’t,” Matt said, quietly.
“I’m just saying. You pulled a vanishing act of your own. People are talking. The ‘creative differences’ story is wearing thin. The word ‘volatile’ is being whispered. By people with very loud whispers.”
Matt took a sip of the tepid coffee. “Let them whisper.”
“That’s the spirit,” Elliot said, without conviction. He leaned closer, his voice dropping. “Listen. She’s gone. She did a midnight flit. It happens. People in this business, they crack. The pressure. The weird hours. She was a glorified secretary, Matt.”
“She wasn’t.” The words came out sharper than he intended.
Elliot held up his hands in surrender. “Fine. She was a stellar assistant who mysteriously vanished. Either way, she’s not here. And you being here, but not really here, is becoming a problem. The director asked me if you were on something.”
A bitter laugh escaped Matt’s throat. “What did you tell him?”
“I told him you were method-acting a man who’d lost his favorite pen.” Elliot sighed, the performative edge softening for a second. “Look. Get through today. Be charming. Hit your marks. Let Kelsey fetch your coffee. The world keeps spinning.”
After Elliot left, Matt had to go back to set. The lights were blindingly hot. He delivered the clunky new lines, his charm feeling like a suit two sizes too small. Between takes, he saw Chloe watching him from the shadows near the craft services table. Her gaze was curious, assessing. He looked away.
At the end of the grueling, meaningless day, he trudged back to the trailer. Kelsey was packing her tote bag, the fluffy keychain swinging.
“All set for tomorrow, Mr. Bomer! Your call sheet is on the table. Is there anything else you need before I go?”
“No. Thank you.”
She beamed, relieved her shift was over, and vanished out the door, leaving a cloud of that floral scent behind.
The silence rushed back in. He shrugged off his jacket, loosened his tie. He stood there, in the middle of the room, utterly still. His eyes were drawn, magnetically, to the wrong desk in the wrong place.
He walked over to it.
He pulled out the chair—Kelsey’s chair—and sat. The desk surface was a chaotic mosaic of her first day: more motivational sticky notes, a half-eaten bag of veggie chips, a tube of glittery lip gloss. He opened the top drawer. Paper clips, breath mints, a tangle of charging cables.