Stunt Doubled: A Movie Star Standalone

For a moment, I thought of that nice man who’d driven me here and his offer to take me to a bar sometime. I wasn’t a huge drinker—but I was beginning to see how it might be necessary at some point in the future.

“He’ll treat you like a queen, if I know him,” Tina continued. “You should see how he dotes on his boys.”

If humans had hackles, mine would’ve raised. I’d been careful not to think of Mac’s stepsons, because the subject made me so angry. He’d left my brother, mother, and me high and dry—and a year or two later, he already had a new family. New wife. New sons, a few years older than me. He’d left two kids and a wife—and gained two kids and a wife. Nothing much had changed from his standpoint—but everything had changed from ours.

My mom had taken me and Tonio out for ice cream to break the news. I think I must’ve been seven or eight. Tonio had asked her questions, but I hadn’t. From that moment on, I didn’t want to know a single thing about my dad.

And I hadn’t—until last week when, out of desperation, I’d asked Tonio if he had his number. But that didn’t mean I wanted to hear about his stepsons—I refused to think of them as my stepbrothers because I hadn’t met them and didn’t ever want to. Still, I wondered how Tina knew them. Did they ever visit the set? If so, hopefully they wouldn’t while I was here.

Tina got a phone call while I was fuming. After that, I figured that since I was now officially hired, I should help out where I could. I asked her what needed to be done, and she gave me some filing to do. Not very exciting, but I did it. The task wasn’t complex enough to keep my thoughts away, but Tina was the type to fill the silence. She kept up a steady stream of chatter. Among the things I learned was that they were filming day scenes this week. That was why Mac could go to dinner. When they were shooting night-time shots, sometimes the cast and crew didn’t get to leave until four or five in the morning.

She had other interesting tidbits about movie making but offered no clue as to what the movie was actually about—and I didn’t ask.

By the time the black pickup truck pulled up outside, I’d filed and/or cleaned practically everything in the office. I was more than ready to go, even if that meant an hour’s drive with Mac. What on earth could we talk about for that long? It was true that two decades of things had happened to me and him since we’d last spent an evening together, but talking about that would lead to a very painful drive. Hopefully Mac was like Tina and would be able to fill the silence mostly by himself.

Not that there was anything wrong with silence, in my opinion.

4

Ronnie

“Don’t forget your bags,” Tina said as I stepped out of the door. Feeling foolish, I retrieved my luggage. I hadn’t spared half a thought for where I’d be staying tonight, but it obviously wasn’t in this office. Mac had told me on the phone that he’d take care of it, and apparently, I’d trusted him to do it.

Or more like I just hadn’t cared about it. It was a pretty big issue to overlook, but ever since my life imploded, I hadn’t been able to focus on more than one step ahead. Break my lease. Hop on a plane. Arrive here in the middle of nowhere. At some point, I needed to take charge of my life again, but right now, I was barely hanging on. Taking it one day at a time was all I could handle.

So yeah, I was counting on Mac, but I had money for a hotel if he let me down again. All I needed was a bed and a bathtub. Surely someplace in Moab would fit that bill.

Mac took my bags and put them in the back of his truck. Then he came around to open the passenger door. “How are you feeling?”

I looked around at the collection of buildings and trailers. “It all still seems a bit surreal.”

He chuckled. “I meant after that tumble you took.”

“Oh. I’m okay.”

“It can be a bit surreal, though,” he said once he climbed into his side, making the truck rock on its shocks from his size. “What we do here is take one shot at a time, and it’s not real. Every second of the movie is painstakingly created. But when they put it all together, that’s when it looks real. If every one of us does our jobs right.”

I wasn’t quite sure what to say as he turned onto a road that was narrow but paved. Soon the movie set was behind us and all I could see was red dirt in every direction and the fading sun off to our left.