This Is Not a Love Scene

by S. C. Megale

  I checked my phone. Cole Stone’s:P was still the first thing I saw on my feed.

  “Is this where you want Camera One?” KC said, and I shoved my phone away. I joined him at the equipment to do my job—direct.

  Mags was the next to arrive. She bombed into the room with hands in her hoodie’s pockets and dark shadows under her eyes.

  “Late night?” I said with sympathy. She worked at CVS as a pharmacist’s assistant.

  “Yeah,” said Mags, not meeting my eyes. “I gave some guy his Sudafed and he rubbed my back really weirdly.”

  “Ew.”

  “Yeah.” She stared off. I used to have zero compassion for the thousands of advances Mags got, since I’d be happy with just one. I like back rubs. But that slightly-concerned-yet-blasé accepting look in her eyes usually nudged the empathy out of me. I’d run them over for her.

  I don’t know why, but I didn’t tell her about Cole’s messages yesterday. I guess I just …

  I didn’t want to hear it. Her logical and quick Fam. Pull back. Or Nah, he’s prob just being coy.

  I wanted to hang onto my thrill. I wanted to play with him for a little. Alone.

  Twenty minutes later—already fifteen minutes behind schedule—the scene was set. Mags’ class-act buddy Nate, who I didn’t even notice come in, operated boom for our audio guy, Michael, who crouched with the Zoom H4 recorder in his hand.

  Our little comedy skit about three museum docents arguing over the true story behind an artifact was ready. One docent thinks the artifact is a piece of modern art, one thinks it’s a fragment of an Egyptian canopic jar, and one—Cole’s character—insists it’s a hollowed-out mammoth fossil. In the end, a random museum guest walks up and throws away their soda in it. Kinda funny. Ten-page script, lots of dialogue, and one location. Easy. We’d planned on splitting filming into two days with more union-supported break times, but Elliot and I needed to run a tight ship to collapse it and keep my one-day promise to Cole. Later we’d snag some B-roll somehow to sell that it was in a huge, national museum. That’d be more interesting.

  I was so focused adjusting Camera Two a centimeter to obey the rule of thirds, I hadn’t noticed that our middle-aged actress had arrived and was smiling Hollywood-white teeth in conversation with Elliot. To my right, another actor, a hysterical five-foot-five Indian American college student, was cracking up with Mags. They wore the identical business-casual museum docent attire KC had scored. I checked the time on the camera screen: 9:07.

  My throat went dry.

  I rose from the camera and looked at the doorway.

  Cole Stone walked in. Everything lost focus in my sight but him, the background telephoto. His almost-black beard was evenly trimmed, his head nearly grazed the top of the door frame. A lanyard was attached to his black work pants and jingled with his car keys. He looked around the room, size and aloofness out of place like an American tourist in Beijing, a wolf in a modern art gallery. His white shirt and black leather belt combo gave him a car-dealership salesman appearance, and his walk was more of a sloppy swagger, as if he never quite got used to his muscle and height.

  Suddenly, I wanted to blend into the equipment. I probably sort of did already.

  “Just in the nick of time, as usual,” Elliot joked, coming over to Cole. Man, Elliot was really pulling my weight today with meet-and-greets. The two shook hands in a boyish, exaggerated way.

  Cole cocked a smile and crossed his arms. Although he was standing, I noticed how he continued to rock side to side on his feet. Always moving.

  Then his eyes fell on me. He continued to sway side to side.

  I didn’t have time for emotional vertigo or Kelly Clarkson’s “A Moment Like This” to play in the background of my head. He looked away fast and just kept smiling like nothing was up.

  Nothing was up, I reminded myself. What Mags hypothetically would have scolded to me was right. He was probably just being coy.

  I had to get over this. I didn’t even want to move. I didn’t want to move because then the wheelchair motor would click and tires would turn and the floor would squeak and suddenly everyone would remember. Everyone would remember what I can never forget.

  “All right, let’s get shit done,” I said. And moved. I homed in on the work and the other friends who were pretty used to me. In the four years we’d known each other, I’d only accidentally run over their feet, like, five times collectively. So their blanket of consistent acceptance made it easier to block it out and not look too hard at Cole.

  Elliot and I waved our actors in place. I glanced at the highlighted scene on the script Elliot handed to me. KC was on Camera Two diagonal to us. Mags was slating (“Take one.”). Audio called rolling.

  I watched Cole. The two actors surrounding him seemed relaxed, into it. Cole was drumming his stocky fingers against the wall, mouthing his lines super-fast.

  Then he stopped and kept his head hung. Everything was dead silent. No one moved. They awaited my word.

  “Action.”

  Elliot and I held our breaths.

  We took at least fifteen takes of the same scene. Once the actors were too rushed. Once KC accidentally hit the camera with his elbow. Finally we switched positions and moved onto the next two pages of script. I sped to Camera Two with KC to set up the frame.

  Through the digital feed, I watched the actors. Although they’d just been arguing on screen, they talked with each other at the wall next to the cannon exhibit, loose. The middle-aged woman was graceful with her hands crossed in front of her. The other kid—majorly talented, by the way—was reenacting some ridiculous story with hand gestures and flinches. Cole listened to both of them. He resumed that sensual swaying, hands in his black pockets. Something about the way he did that entranced me. Something about him enjoying all the physical freedoms I can’t.

  Cole’s résumé at the audition listed that he was a theater kid, not film. Made sense. He could project to the back row and his silhouette alone was cast-able. Last year, I hadn’t paid much attention to the magenta Beauty and the Beast fliers plastered around school. Now I could shoot myself. Cole had played the male lead, the Beast.

  I could so see it.

  “That good?” said KC. He had been adjusting the framing by a hair for thirty seconds now, and I cleared my throat.

  “Yeah, yeah. Right there.”

  KC screwed the tripod tight and locked the camera. It trained on a high-definition, clean shot of Cole.

  “Hey,” I said. “Take a still for me.”

  “What?” said KC.

  “Take a still of that for me. For the portfolio.” There was no portfolio. Do films have portfolios?

  KC gave me a weird sideways glance. Hesitantly, he raised his hand to the camera and captured a still.

  By the end of the day, every stomach growled in the silence after Rolling! It took a full five hours without break, but we wrapped the film. Michael loudly clunked away the audio kits. KC began shoving all the furniture back to the way it was before shooting. Cole was damp with sweat from the lights.

  “Anyone want dailies?” I said. Dailies were the playbacks of the best takes we’d gotten that day.

  Elliot came up to my right and sat in a plastic chair, focused on the camera’s little digital screen. Mags pressed the volume up as much as possible, and our actress and the college student actor pulled up two chairs as well.

  Just when I wondered where Cole was, weight pressed onto the metal back of my chair. The handlebars creaked. Behind me, right behind me, tired breath escaped.

  I froze. Something swooped through me. A charge, a feeling I usually lock my bedroom door for.

  Cole Stone was leaning on my wheelchair and watching the screen of the camera. He didn’t ask, didn’t speak. Just breathed heavily. Wiped a hand across his mouth once, I think. I could smell his virile perspiration.

  The dailies blurred into dirty paintbrush water on the screen to me. All I could do was count the beats of my pulse.

  Eventually ev
eryone was clapping and standing, and I guess we finished the clips. Cole released the weight on my chair and straightened. I didn’t move.

  “Hey, man, can I get you to sign a release?” Elliot said to Cole behind me. “The paper’s in my briefcase.”

  “Sure,” said Cole. “Let me just hit the bathroom.”

  When Cole was out of the room, I thawed and got the release signatures from our other actors. Smiled. Shook hands. Talked with the actress for a few minutes about her three middle-school kids.

  A lanyard jingled at the door across the room, and I looked over quick.

  Cole was pumping Elliot’s arm and turning for the exit hallway.

  God. God. God, he was leaving. I hadn’t said goodbye, I hadn’t planned anything. For all I knew, I would never see him again.

  I gave the actress an apologetic pat on the arm and before I could think one more word, raced for Cole.

  Elliot turned his head as I streaked by and tried to take the bend of the door on two wheels.

  I was in the brick hallway. Fire exit plan framed on the right. Cork bulletin board on the left.

  Cole walked towards the exit as nonchalantly as he had leaned upon me. He cocked his head to toss hair from his eyes and flipped the jingling lanyard into his thick hand.

  “Cole!” I said.

  Cole stopped and spun around. He looked at me.

  My mouth was dry. I fumbled for breath.

  Talk to me.

  His expression didn’t change.

  Let’s move in together.

  Definitely nothing.

  Suddenly, everything deflated in me with a gust of breath.

  “Great job today,” I said.

  Cole pursed his lips and nodded. He ran the lanyard through his hands.

  I nodded too, and then he waved and was walking away again. Away.

  And I watched him leave. Just like that. The sound of the exit door closing was like a bullet in my ears.

  Then the hall was silent. So … so silent. For some reason, the corners of my eyes prickled.

  A square of magenta drew my attention to the left.

  Last year’s old, faded flier for Beauty and the Beast was thumbtacked to the community bulletin board. Slowly, I ripped it down. I dropped my head to it and stared. Felt its cool, worn texture in my fingers.

  I thought of the play and us, in real life. Cole and me. Beast and Beauty.

  I wondered who would be cast as whom.

  6

  With a few pumps, the technician lifted my back left wheel off the ground. Wrenches and drills hung on the plywood wall and skeletons of pieced-apart wheelchairs surrounded me, covered in tarps. The air smelled of oil and fresh rubber.

  “What have you been doing to this thing?” the technician said. He knelt and pulled out a mini flashlight from his jumpsuit pocket. Inspecting the wheel.

  “Is there still blood on it?”

  “Very funny,” said the technician, without humor. He grunted as he thumped to his knees. “You wore off every groove.”

  Sounds about right. I take my chair off-roading plenty, into woods and over gravelly fields. I must have ground that wheel down to the bone. Mom had noticed and drove me here right after school the next day.

  “Gonna have to replace the whole thing.” He reached over and grabbed a screwdriver from the plastic bucket François held in his mouth for us. François seemed to twitch up an eyebrow as he watched the technician.

  I scrolled Instagram absently on my phone as the technician began the replacement.

  Elliot posted a selfie from the Laser Tag Planet he worked at. He was throwing up a peace sign next to two super-serious ten-or-so-year-old boys aiming their plastic guns at his phone. I liked it.

  My phone buzzed.

  I forgot I’d texted her last night with just Dude after the shoot. I was gonna tell her about Cole leaning up on me, but she hadn’t replied until now. I regretted sending the text. Some part of me still didn’t want to tell her. The other part was dying to.

  My chair shook as the technician yanked out something in the back. I jumped.

  Screw it.

  Ugh. Maybe this was why I always regretted starting these conversations with Mags. Here I am ready to gush about something probably platonic and totally vague and maybe .0001 percent sexual. She just cut to the chase of what a guy should do if he were really into me. And I always have to say no.

  I sighed and set the phone in my lap. Maybe that was a good place to stop replying.

  “So once I’m done with this … you want me to make your headrest removable? Why?” said the technician, still tinkering back there. He might even find some leftover equipment from the audio duffel bag.

  “Because headrests look extra handicapped,” I said.

  “But you need it.”

  “The aforementioned reason invalidates your argument.”

  Buzz.

  I pursed my lips, grateful she at least followed up.

  The drill roared out all other sounds as I waited for her reply.

  I stared at her question.

  Cole leaned on me. So?

  Many disabled people I knew were No Touch Nazis when it came to anyone laying a finger on their medical equipment. Not me.

  So how did I explain? How did I say that someone choosing to lean their weight on the metal that dehumanizes me humanizes it? That not asking my permission, just doing it, showed unquestioning acceptance? Maybe even intimacy?

  I typed out a paragraph explaining this in the simplest and most poetic way I could. The cursor on the screen blinked as I reread my explanation three times.

  I held the backspace button and watched it all swipe away.

  Finally the technician rose and wiped his forehead with a soiled rag. I flipped on my joystick. The wheelchair illuminated to life.

  Out in the lobby, Mom sat on the couch and typed on her iPad with a stylus, dressed in a business suit. Her edgy, sterling-silver earrings dangled. They looked like miniatures of the modern sculptures you’d find on the lawns of graphic design companies.

  I’d heard her arguing before with the vendors in the office about insurance, about making sure I was serviced with only the best, highest-grade equipment. Mom taught me to fight, to not let anyone run me over. Easy enough. I glanced down at my new wheel.

  I did the running over.

  “How’d it go back there?”

  I turned to the new voice. A man in his late thirties came out of the vendor office. He was in a power wheelchair just like mine.

  Ralph, the office manager. Tattoos inked up his neck and his blond hair was long and scraggly. Even when it was hot out, he wore a running jacket. I wondered if it might be his way of giving his frame an extra boost of bulk to mask frailty. A tray was attached in front of his chair and held a laptop covered in Comic Con stickers that he could work on while he rolled around the office.

  I’ll be honest. Usually being around others with disabilities makes me uncomfortable. Those annual conventions where we all gather for support and research I don’t touch with a 20,000-foot pole. That shit is just a giant-sized mirror I can’t cringe hard enough away from.

  But this guy was all right.

  “It went fine,” I said.

  He smiled at me. “No more headrest, huh?”

  “Removable,” Mom corrected, rising from the couch. “We can put it back when needed. I don’t like the idea of your head just falling back whenever.” She studied me with concern.

  “It looks better this way,” I said. Ralph didn’t have one either.

  Mom rolled her eyes, but it was loving. A little. “It’s not about what’s attractive, Maeve. It’s about what can support you.”

  Ralph just stared at me and tried hard not to smile. He was familiar with our mother/daughter push and pull.

  “All right, let’s get out of here,” Mom said briskly, gathering her things and heading for the door.

  “Don’t forget the headrest.” Ralph nodded to the wheelchair appendage I’d “a
ccidentally” forgotten on the lobby coffee table; Mom was already out the door.

  I grabbed it and stuffed it under my arm. Gave him two middle fingers before twirling for the door. He threw his head back and laughed, turning away as well.

  It was late afternoon by the time we got home. Mom stripped François of his work uniform, and he instantly romped for his squeaky toy and shook it with a puppyish growl. Stuffing flew everywhere. “I’ll make you some tea, darling,” Mom said, as she clopped into the kitchen with her high heels.

  She handed me the hot mug a few minutes later along with a plate of cookies I couldn’t really balance that well and then ran her fingers through my hair to tug loose a knot. I winced and smiled at once—such was Mom. The mug she chose for me was my favorite—the one with lilies. Mom never forgets the things that make me feel cared for.

  I went to my room with some Western civ homework to knock out.

  Spotify played in my earbuds while I labelled a map of the Central and Allied Powers in World War I. My first-floor bedroom was littered with so much crap, I could barely call it handicapped accessible. But at my little white desk with one lamp in the corner, I was safe to park.

  Every now and then, I looked up from my homework. The faded Beauty and the Beast flier sat on my desk. I can’t remember if I smiled or frowned.

  I thought of Cole sitting at that long table on stage as the violins began “Beauty and the Beast.” Some lucky sophomore in a beautiful yellow dress and perfect makeup with a graceful, normal figure took his hand then.

  She led him onto the floor, and he stumbled in a way that was half acting and half who he was. He took her in his hands and drew in breath. The whole audience gazed at his beastly masculinity and perfectly trimmed beard and wetted hair and gold buttons that shined in the spotlight. Whatever low-budget ornaments they’d put on him to make him seem like a monster probably appeared natural.

  And then he started to dance.

  I can’t imagine he didn’t ask Belle out after that play. Everyone on that production probably thought they were adorable together. Fitting.