The Trouble on Highway One

by Anne McClane

  Hurrying into the bathroom, she drew a line of toothpaste across her finger, and performed a quick, manual scrub of her teeth. She rinsed her mouth and finger, and righted the bottle of hotel shampoo that had keeled over in the quake.

  She looked in the mirror, pausing to contemplate how she’d say her goodbye. She dabbed a smudge of stray mascara away. She resisted the almost instinctive urge to feel guilty and classify her departure as a “walk of shame.” Because in truth, she didn’t feel shameful at all.

  I feel pretty good, and I don’t look too bad, either. What am I turning into?

  She answered her own question.

  Someone different, that’s for sure. Someone better than you were, I think.

  Her departure was executed with tactical precision. A kiss that lingered just long enough, hoping to leave him wanting more. The look on his face as she said “bye” with a toodle-loo of her fingers told her she’d succeeded.

  The cat who swallowed the canary. She was sure that’s what her expression looked like, as she lingered in the lobby, waiting for the ride she’d hailed. She turned down the corners of her mouth, trying to appear more dignified.

  Her Lyft driver played the 70s music station. She didn’t ask Lacey if she wanted to listen to anything else. As they turned into the neighborhood of Lacey’s rental, a harmonica solo heralded the opening of Supertramp’s “Take the Long Way Home.”

  Lacey nodded her head. She was sure there was some deeper meaning there, but she didn’t have the time or the capacity to contemplate it.

  7

  By Monday, Lacey finally felt settled. The whirlwind events of the weekend had shaken her up, in a good way. Saturday with her brother and his girlfriend reminded her of where she came from, and that, in essence, she was still the same person, just in a different venue. And her night with Trevor had been a brief, intensely satisfying respite. The evening made her feel like a new and improved version of her same old self. She longed to see Trevor again—but wondered if she would.

  Sunday had just been her and Kandace. Lacey had arrived at the set at 9:50 a.m., bone-tired and a little frazzled, but still ten minutes earlier than she’d told Kandace she’d arrive. Kandace didn’t arrive until 1:00 p.m. That only bothered Lacey a little bit, not as much as it might have just two days earlier. She began to feel that Kandace might no longer have her number. Maybe it was the palliative effects of her roll in the hay, or maybe it was because she and Trevor had their romantic dinner at the very place Kandace told her not to go.

  She and Kandace briefly discussed what needed to be done for the moneyman’s visit, and Lacey left the studio by 3:00 p.m. For the two hours they spent together, even the wobbly straw and Diet Dr. Pepper were less irksome.

  And Monday morning, she’d gone for a run, an earnest attempt to return to her three-times-a-week habit. That and a good night’s sleep had done wonders to clear her head. Now, the set was a bustle of activity, but there was little for her to do. She had gotten ahead of all her work the day before. Kevin Horner was due to arrive midday, with preproduction meetings scheduled for that afternoon, and his first shoot tentatively scheduled for tomorrow. With no expenditures to track, she wandered to a favorite spot near the soundstage. It was a place, she discovered, where she could stand and observe undetected.

  One of the crewmembers, a twenty-some-odd guy named Hans with long, dirty blond hair, was up in the scaffolding. She tried to remember his position—she would ask anyone she spoke to, trying to become passably fluent in the lingo—and she had asked this of Hans one late evening when they were each lingering around craft services. He’s a Gaffer, she seemed to recall.

  He fiddled with a light. Lacey tried to shrink back into her corner. She figured he could probably see her, but her presence didn’t seem to faze him. The soundstage was otherwise empty, so there was really no better spot to stand around and do nothing and not get called on it.

  The green screen area had been minimized, and faux furniture and faux half-walls installed for the interior shoots. Lacey thought of last week’s scene with the Unicorn, the poor horse silent and impatient. She imagined the mare longing to shuffle her hooves and whinny, but she knew better. She was too well-trained and well-paid to give into it.

  Lacey turned her head upward when she heard something from above, it sounded like Hans had cried out.

  When he had Lacey’s attention, he said, “Hey, hey, y’all,” drawing out the word “yaalll.”

  “Do you mean me?” Lacey asked in a quiet voice. Apparently, her attempts to de-southernize her speech hadn’t been successful.

  “Yes, please,” he said. “Can you go find some bandages? I’m on my way down.”

  Lacey caught herself before asking if he was hurt, and instead replied, “Yes, sure.” She ran off to the supply room.

  She was glad she had familiarized herself with the location of all the helpful things in the studio. First aid, private bath, the director’s liquor stash.

  She grabbed a roll of gauze, some sanitizer, and a handful of bandages from the first aid kit and ran back to the set. Hans was down from the scaffolding, standing off to the side, holding his hand. His dark t-shirt had a hand-print-shaped stain on it.

  “Here, let me see that,” Lacey said, setting down everything she had gathered. Hans had a nasty gash right through the center of his palm; a ragged, oozing wound.

  She felt a shock as soon as she grabbed his hand, and felt a heat radiate from her arm. She knew instantly what was happening. Elation surged through her—her power had returned! With one hand still covering his, she reached behind her for the sanitizer with her free hand.

  “What are you doing?” Hans asked, his eyes narrowed.

  “Nothing, I’m cleaning your cut.” Lacey kept her eyes down and her hands busy, trying to hide her handiwork. She wasn’t ready to field any questions from Hans about her supernatural ability.

  “What happened, how’d you do this?” Lacey asked, aiming to deflect his attention.

  “Oh, nothing, my own stupidity.” Now Hans was trying to deflect questions. Lacey guessed he’d rather not have the hassle of a workers comp claim. If she was successful, he wouldn’t have to. She decided not to press the issue.

  “It burns,” he said.

  “That’s the sanitizer.” It was a convenient cover for her power.

  She felt her own heat subside, and held his palm open for him to see. A red line, an inch and a half long, dissected it. But it wasn’t bleeding.

  “What do you think?” she asked. “You might need stitches. You should go have it checked out.” She knew he wouldn’t, but felt obliged to say it anyway.

  Hans curled his fingers, then flexed his hand. “I don’t know, Y’aaall, I’ve had worse. If you bandage it up, I should be able to finish my work up there.”

  Lacey bristled. “My name’s Lacey, you know. And I just want to be sure it doesn’t get infected with all that dust and gunk.”

  Lank hair framed a smile on Hans’ face. “I know your name, Y’aaall. And I’m not worried about infection, I think you burned up anything nasty with whatever you poured in there.”

  Lacey put some ointment and a gauze pad on the cut, and secured it with gauze tape crisscrossed over his palm in an “X.”

  “There you go, Jubilee,” she said to Hans. Jubilee was the only X-Men she could remember that had something to do with lights. He didn’t seem to catch the reference.

  “You bored, Y’aaall?”

  “No,” Lacey said, getting defensive. “I was just taking a break, and I’m trying to get familiar with as much as I can while I’m here.”

  “Relax,” Hans said, climbing back up the rigging. “I don’t mind you hanging around. Actually, you’re pretty good in a pinch. Stick around as long as you want.”

  “Thanks,” she said. She checked the time. “But I should get back to work. Be careful!”
>
  Lacey thought about what had just happened. It confirmed something she suspected. When she’d try to summon her healing power on her own, nothing would happen. She’d healed a cut on herself once before, but when she was without injury, nada. Crickets. She’d suspected there needed to be an injury, something to serve as a catalyst. Or, at least, she’d hoped that was the case. The cut on Hans’s hand seemed to prove this theory. She made a mental note to ask Eli about it.

  Kandace was sitting at Lacey’s workstation when she returned. Lacey’s joy over the return of her healing power was short-lived.

  “There you are,” Kandace said. “I need that report. Kevin Horner is only about twenty minutes away.”

  “Sure,” Lacey said, sliding into her place as Kandace got up. Her coffee mug and wobbly straw was too close to Lacey’s computer for her comfort.

  “Which report?” Lacey asked.

  Kandace huffed. “You know the one, Lacey. The one with all the budget numbers on the right.”

  There are a thousand reports you can get with the budget numbers on the right.

  Lacey pulled a revised production schedule with overtime factored in, which seemed to be the one Kandace was looking for.

  Kandace breathed down Lacey’s neck as she peered over her shoulder at the screen. “Crap,” Kandace said. “We’re going to have to reschedule all the Liam scenes to meet this deadline.”

  Liam was the character Kevin Horner was supposed to play in Magical Choices. While he was young, to Lacey he seemed a little too old for a “coming-of-age story with elements of magic and light.” Every bit of promotion for the movie boasted that tagline. Even the banner across the Movie Marvel report dashboard sported it. Lacey was sure she’d be fine if she never read those words strung together ever again.

  The female lead’s character was named Sinead, yet the story wasn’t remotely Irish in any way. Lacey had only seen Mia Lindsey, the actress playing Sinead, once, when she’d watched the scene with the unicorn. Mia was quiet and seemed afraid of the horse when the camera wasn’t rolling.

  “Deadline?” Lacey asked.

  “Yeah. Kevin Horner’s a month late, but we still can’t extend on the back end. We only have him for two and a half weeks.”

  “Oh, wow,” Lacey said, trying to appear sympathetic.

  “Yeah, tell me about it. Okay, thanks for this. I need to get it to Marco.”

  Kandace headed off to Marco’s office and Lacey turned back to her computer.

  A half an hour later, Kandace appeared again. And stayed.

  Kevin Horner and Eli had been ushered into a meeting room with the director, Marco, and a line producer as soon as they arrived. Even though they had entered on the opposite side of the studio, Lacey couldn’t help herself from staring in their direction. She wanted to see if Eli would acknowledge her. A slight turn of his head was all she got.

  With Eli, that’s enough. It means he at least knows I’m here.

  Kandace appeared jittery, worse than Lacey had ever seen her. She wondered why Kandace wasn’t in the meeting. She wished she was. Nearly two hours passed with the principals behind closed doors. Lacey was sure Kandace was going to wear a rut in the floor between her office and Lacey’s desk. She imagined setting up a trip wire when Kandace wasn’t looking. She was sure Hans could help with that.

  Lacey wondered what Eli might be saying in the meeting. On the payroll, Eli Bardzani was listed as “Special Effects Supervisor,” but she suspected his role might be something that transcended a job title. That seemed to be the case in the last production, the one he and Angele worked on together in New Orleans. Lacey hadn’t been on that set, but she’d met much of the cast and crew during after-hours. Everyone seemed to defer to Eli, especially Kevin Horner.

  Sometime around 4:30, Kandace shuffled back to Lacey’s desk.

  “I just got called in,” she said. She grabbed a stack of reports from Lacey’s workstation. “You sure everything’s right in these?”

  “I plugged in everything, exactly as you told me,” Lacey said.

  Kandace scurried toward the meeting room. “Be prepared for a late night,” she said without turning around.

  Whatever. And what does it matter if you screw up what you tell them, as long as I can back up the reports I’ve produced.

  “Jesus,” Lacey said out loud. What the hell has happened to me? She made an intention to be more charitable toward Kandace—the woman was annoying and passive-aggressive, but it didn’t mean Lacey needed to be.

  And the day started off so well.

  Lacey sighed and kept herself busy with what work she could.

  When the door to the conference room finally opened, Lacey thought of white smoke rising from St. Peter’s Basilica. All seemed to be in good moods—Marco and Kevin Horner with their arms around each others’ shoulders, Kandace on their heels, Eli and Tony, the line producer, in intense conversation but relaxed.

  They were en route to the soundstage, and Lacey tried to shrink from view. To little avail.

  Kevin Horner broke off from the director and headed toward Lacey. He was every bit the movie star in a white t-shirt and jeans, his blond hair a little longer than the last time she’d seen him. And he must have kept an insane workout schedule in the past month, because he was also significantly more ripped.

  “Ha, ha—Nola Girl!” he said as he grabbed Lacey in a rocking embrace. “What are you doing here?”

  Lacey caught Kandace’s expression out of the corner of her eye. Shock and awe over the star’s apparent affection for Lacey. It made the upcoming late night worth it.

  “I’m working here!” Lacey answered. Her enthusiasm over seeing Kevin wasn’t faked.

  Kevin Horner let her go, and Eli appeared at his shoulder. Eli, by contrast, appeared exactly the same as Lacey remembered. Bald head, floating eye, and a barrel chest clothed in a multi-pocketed shirt. Lacey figured he owned the same shirt in multiple neutral colors. In a low and monotone voice, he said, “Hello, Lacey.”

  “Hello, Eli,” she said, dropping her hands to her side and matching his intonation.

  “You know him, too?” Kandace asked. Lacey wondered if she really couldn’t stop herself from saying it out loud.

  Eli turned to Kandace, hand to his temple. “Kevin and I met Lacey Becnel when we were in New Orleans for the last production. I’m glad she’s here on this set, she has great capacity.”

  That shut everyone up. Even Marco, usually on some sphere high above everyone else, turned his head and took note.

  It was short-lived. Marco went into director mode. Lacey imagined him with a bullhorn and flared pants.

  “Kandy, get a skeleton crew for tonight. We’re shooting scenes five and seventeen. Let’s make a movie, people!”

  With that, everyone scrambled.

  At around one in the morning, Lacey found herself trying not to twiddle her thumbs. A thought occurred: maybe some part of Kandace does like Lacey, and finds her competent, and that’s why she insists on making her part of these “skeleton crews” even though there’s nothing for her to do. She tried to hold on to that thought as she sat far behind the line of cameras watching Kevin Horner recite inane dialogue with another actor.

  Or maybe she doesn’t like me at all and just wants me to suffer.

  She tried not to think about Trevor. But it was so much more entertaining when she imagined him up on the soundstage with Kevin instead of that other actor.

  Lacey had pieced together that these were the scenes with Liam and his best friend. The first, when he admits he has feelings for the mysterious Sinead, the second, when he and his best friend quarrel over the same mysterious Sinead.

  Best friends fighting. Angele—her best friend from childhood and her connection into this whole, rather ridiculous world of show business. Who had recommended her for this job. Angele was one of the only people who kne
w about Lacey’s supernatural ability, but she was hardly a staunch and loyal ally. She had been very vocal in her displeasure over Lacey’s insignificant dalliance with Kevin Horner. But what bothered Lacey more was Angele’s judgment of her healing power. Angele seemed to believe that Lacey should use her powers sparingly, if at all. That went against everything Lacey believed in. When she finally figured out how to use them, she intended to employ her powers as much as they were needed.

  They had reached a truce, and things had been copacetic between them since Lacey had been in California. But if Lacey was honest with herself, she could admit that she was glad Angele was three hours away, working on a different production in Los Angeles.

  She imagined a fight with Angele playing out on a soundstage.

  Jesus. Maybe I’m living out a coming-of-age story with elements of magic and light.

  She suddenly felt horribly clichéd.

  “I like this story,” a voice behind her said.

  Lacey jumped in her seat and turned. Eli had a headset draped around his neck, and the perfunctory pockets on his shirt were near bursting with useful things.

  “Eli,” she stammered. “Don’t you have stuff to do up there?”

  “They just called a break,” he said. “Were you paying attention?”

  The corners of his mouth turned up, ever so slightly.

  “Yes,” she answered, defensive. “I was just thinking of Angele, though. My mind wandered just a bit.”

  “What were you thinking?” he asked.

  Recalling the Professor X-like mind-reading abilities he’d displayed before, she thought, I’m sure you already know.

  “Oh, nothing, I was thinking about what it would be like with her here on this set. I’ve never really seen her work, but now I have some idea of context.”

  Eli stared like he didn’t understand her. His floating eye tracked right. Lacey resisted the urge to look in that direction.

  After a near eternity, he said, “We will have the opportunity to work together in the coming days. Think of what you would like to learn. I’ve been in these situations before, I might be able to offer you some enlightenment.”