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rsadelleMaster Post
Excerpt from Aaron's Film Blog review of First Date:
Despite reports of drama on the set - first it was Asher and Saporta's rumored affair, then Saporta's very public romance with co-star Meester, complete with tales of screaming matches and thrown drinks - with First Date, Asher has turned in a subtle and nuanced portrait of the evil that lurks within the hearts of men. For a director working on her first feature (Asher previously directed one student film and a Manhattan Short finalist), Asher has a surprisingly deft hand. No moment is overplayed. When Eduardo presses his hand against Juliette's throat, Asher lets the camera look but then pulls back to a wide shot showing us the whole room: faded blue curtains that don't quite cover the windows and Eduardo's bare feet against the wood floor contrasting with the precision of Juliette's dress and high heels.
Furthermore, Asher never lets Saporta give in to his tendency toward the unnecessarily theatric. Critics have been lauding his potential for years; for the first time, he lives up to it. I can only hope he takes the lessons he learned here and puts them to good use in future roles.
*
Victoria turned over the last page of the script and exhaled for what felt like the first time since she started reading it. It was a good script, a really good script. An Oscar-worthy script, even, in the right director's hands.
Victoria was the right director.
She could already see it playing out in her mind's eye. She knew what she wanted to tell Ryan about the art direction, and she thought she could get Kevin Jonas to do set design. All of that was great.
The problem was that every time she imagined it, it was Gabe she saw playing Jasper.
Two years and the sting of betrayal hadn't eased much. She'd started falling in love with Gabe at his audition for First Date. He read, and then did exactly what she wanted when she gave him some additional direction. They'd flirted and danced around each other, even as he followed all of her directions. And then he'd slept with Leighton.
Victoria shook off the memory. She'd seen Gabe around since then, and they'd nodded politely. Leighton had been filming on location for much of the last two years, so Victoria didn't have to see her, which was good. They'd been friends, before Victoria put Leighton in her movie. Leighton had betrayed her on a whole other level.
And now she had a project that could put everyone who worked on it on the map, and it needed Gabe to succeed.
Victoria picked up the phone and dialed Bob McLynn's number before she could reason her way out of it.
"You read it," he said in lieu of a greeting.
"I did. I have one condition for doing it."
"Only one? That makes you a lot less trouble than most directors. Shoot."
"Gabe Saporta." Victoria flipped the script over so the front page was showing. "If you can get him for Jasper, I'll do it."
Bob was silent for a very long five seconds. "You and Saporta have history. Do you really think that's wise?"
Victoria had her doubts, but she wasn't about to tell them to the man in charge of getting her what she needed to make her movie. "Gabe and I are professionals. We can work together."
Bob's next silence told her how much he believed her. "I can't promise anything," he told her, "but I'll set up a meeting."
If Bob could get Gabe there, Victoria could make him believe in the project. "You probably shouldn't tell him it's me," she said. "It might be easier that way."
"I was wrong about you being less trouble," Bob grumbled.
Victoria grinned. "You get Gabe to a meeting and talk money with Alex, and we'll make you an Oscar winner."
"Oh, I have no doubt about that," Bob replied. "But will it make me any money?"
Victoria laughed. "Yes, Bob, it will make you money. Come on, you know about me. I don't spend unnecessarily like some directors, and I hire good people so we get it right the first time instead of wasting time and money on reshoots. This movie's going to come in on time and on budget."
"I'll believe that when I see it." Victoria could hear the clicking of keys over the phone. "I'll set up the meeting and get back to you with the time."
"Thanks, Bob. I really want to do this project." That, at least, was the whole truth. As soon as they hung up, Victoria picked up a pencil and started sketching notes in the margins of the script.
*
Victoria made sure to get to Crush's offices early. Bob must have been thinking along the same lines, because instead of having her wait, the receptionist took her straight into an unoccupied conference room. A small table along one wall held coffee carafes and a plate of artfully arranged pastries and fruit. Victoria poured herself a glass of water from a pitcher next to the coffee. The main conference table was set parallel to the door; Victoria took the chair directly across from it.
She took her marked up copy of the script and her ever-present notebook-slash-sketchbook-slash-ideabook out of her bag. She did a lot of work digitally, but when it came to production meetings, she liked to have pen and paper to work with. She would transfer anything that needed to be transferred to her laptop later.
Bob was the second to arrive, with a dark-haired guy in tight jeans, a dark hoodie, and high-tops in tow.
"Victoria," Bob said, coming around the table to shake her hand. "This is Pete Wentz."
Victoria didn't have to fake her smile even a little bit. "Pete," she greeted him, "I love your script."
Pete beamed at her. "Thank you. I loved First Date." He pulled out a chair next to her and banged on the table with an imaginary gavel. "This meeting of the mutual appreciation society will now come to order."
There were voices in the hallway, and then the door opened again. Victoria had been steeling herself for it, but she still wasn't quite ready for the way her stomach flipped when she saw Gabe behind Alex.
Gabe paused in the doorway. He started moving again so quickly most of the room probably didn't even notice, but Victoria was watching him closely.
"Vicky," he drawled.
"Don't call me that," she snapped automatically.
He smirked, and took the chair directly across from her.
Alex came around the table, though, and Victoria stood up to hug him.
"Suarez," she said, "still trying to manage him."
Alex smiled at her, and he looked just the same: suit, neatly combed hair, and black-rimmed glasses, all of which contrived to make him look quirky rather than nerdy. "He does bring in the big bucks." He went back around the table to sit next to Gabe. "I don't think you've met Cassadee."
Victoria reached across the table and shook hands with the third member of Gabe's entourage. Cassadee was a very young woman with stylishly sharp angles to her hair and a floral patterned black tank top under a yellow vest.
"Cassadee's my assistant," Gabe informed her.
Victoria wondered if he was sleeping with her too, and then reminded herself that it wasn't any of her concern, not anymore.
"Gabe," Bob said, "this is Pete Wentz." Victoria watched the way Gabe's gaze sharpened for just a moment as he looked at Pete. "Pete, this is Gabe Saporta, Alex Suarez, and Cassadee Pope."
"Your script is the shit," Gabe said.
"You're an excellent actor in the hands of a competent director," Pete told him, and Victoria had to stifle the urge to laugh.
Gabe did laugh. "And you think Victoria's a competent director."
"More than," Pete said, with a smile much sharper than Victoria would have expected.
They were interrupted by the door opening again. There was another round of introductions so everyone could meet Jonathan. He was the less well-known co-founder of Crush. Victoria hadn't met him before, but she'd heard that where Bob was the public face of Crush, Jonathan was the one who took care of the difficult behind the scenes tasks. Appropriate, then to have him in this meeting.
"Jonathan, Pete, and I are the executive producers on this project," Bob said when everyone who wanted coffee had it and they'd all settled down. "We want to make this movie."
"We're going to make this movie," Pete corrected, and received a quelling look for his trouble.
"We believe in Pete's script." Bob nodded at Jonathan. "We think Victoria's the right person to direct it, and we're strongly considering Gabe for the role of Jasper." That wasn't quite laying all his cards on the table, but Victoria let it play.
"And you think that's a good idea?" Victoria wasn't surprised that it was who Gabe said it. "The two of us working together?"
"Frankly," Jonathan said, "we have our doubts."
"We also want to do this movie justice," Bob added. "And we think you two can do that."
"What kind of terms are we talking about?" Alex asked.
"Three million, up front, and net points." Victoria mentally translated Bob's answer to five and cash break, which meant they were willing to pour serious money into this project.
Gabe snorted. "You're paying me more than that if I do it." He looked at Victoria. "You think you can work with me again?"
Victoria met his eyes and didn't let her expression waver. "Yes. Can you work with me again?"
"That's going to be good publicity," Pete murmured. Victoria ignored it.
Gabe looked away first. "How about you give us a minute alone." It wasn't a question.
When Bob looked at her, a clear question on his face, Victoria nodded.
"That means you too, chickadee," Gabe said when everyone but Cassadee got out of their chairs.
"It's Cassadee, dumbass." Cassadee thwapped him on the back of the head as she followed the others out of the room. Victoria wouldn't be surprised if they were sleeping together.
The door closed behind everyone else, leaving Victoria and Gabe alone in silence.
Gabe finally broke it. "Are you going to throw your water at me?"
"Are you going to give me a reason to?"
Gabe tapped his fingers against the table. "What do you think?" He'd dropped the act and was actually being serious.
"I'm not doing it without you." Victoria folded her hands and rested them on top of the script.
Gabe's mouth twisted into something that might have been a smile if it were softer. "And if I say no?"
"Then I say no." Victoria leaned forward and met his eyes directly. "I know you, and if there's one thing you care about, it's movies. You can say yes and we can make this," she tapped the script, "into one hell of a movie. Or you can say no, and someone else will do it." She sat back. "No one else will be able to do it justice the way we can."
Gabe was silent, and Victoria let him be. She'd said what she had to say, and now it was up to him to think it over.
"That's a lot of trust you're putting in me."
"It was never your acting ability I doubted," Victoria said.
Gabe actually winced, and Victoria thought, for a moment, about taking it back or softening it, but it was true, and they'd never lied to each other.
Gabe was always fearless, and he met her eyes again. "You think this can be good?"
Just because she didn't lie to him didn't mean she had to tell him the whole truth. She stuck with the professional angle. "I think this can win us both Oscars."
Gabe smiled faintly. "That's a bold prediction."
"It's a good script. Crush and Pete are both gaining names for themselves, which means we can get the cast and crew we need for this. It's a risk," Victoria admitted, "but so is every other project."
"I think," Gabe said, steepling his fingers and looking deep into her eyes, "the real risk is you and me working together."
Victoria looked away before she could stop herself from reacting. She took in a deep breath and met his gaze again. "I think," she echoed, "that we're both adults and we can make this work."
There was something bitter in his look, and she wasn't sure if it was directed at her or himself. "So," he said with false brightness, "if I don't sleep with my costar you won't throw drinks at me?"
Victoria could feel her shoulders tense and her stomach go tight with remembered hurt. She forced her shoulders back down. "How about," she said, "you don't keep bringing it up and we make a fucking movie?"
That same something bitter was back on his face, but he nodded sharply. "Okay." He pulled out his phone and sent a text, probably to Alex. "Who else are you going to try to get for this? Nate, obviously."
Victoria nodded. "Kevin Jonas, Ryan Ross, maybe Patrick Stump if I can sweet talk him into it."
Gabe shook his head. "You won't have any problem with that one."
Victoria was equal parts flattered and annoyed. Before she could make up her mind about which one to go with, the door opened and everyone else filed back in and came back to their seats.
"So what's the decision?" Bob asked.
Gabe leaned back in his chair. "Three mil is insultingly low," he said, and the negotiations got underway.
*
Nate always gave good hugs, whether it was in her office on set or in the middle of a restaurant at the peak of the lunch hour.
They caught up for a while, Victoria offering stories about Gizmo and Nate telling her about being second AD for a teen movie full of stars in their thirties.
"I've got a script," Victoria said almost off-handedly at the end of one of Nate's stories.
"A good one?"
Victoria nodded. "Really good. Writer is Pete Wentz. He and Crush are producing."
Nate looked at her as suspiciously as Nate ever looked. "So what's the catch?"
"What makes you think there's a catch?"
"If there wasn't, you wouldn't have invited me to lunch. You would've just asked me on the phone."
He had a point. "Gabe's the lead."
Nate paused with his fork halfway to his mouth and set it down instead of completing its journey. "That's a really shitty idea."
Victoria put her fork down too. "He's a great actor."
"This has nothing to do with that." Nate's stare was as intense as he ever got. "You're not ready for this."
"Sure I am," Victoria lied.
"You're not." Nate drummed his fingers on the table, picking out a rhythm she couldn't quite follow. "I'm not sure I am."
In the middle of her own turmoil over working with Gabe again, she hadn't stopped to think how Nate would feel about it. He'd gotten almost as close to Gabe as she had, and she'd heard tales - from both of them - about the adventures they had when they went out drinking together. But Nate had chosen her, in the end. He'd been the one to hold her together after she threw the glass at Gabe, when she thought her sobs and the pain of her heart breaking would tear her apart.
Victoria sighed. "Just read the script, okay? It's good. Good enough that I don't care that it's Gabe." That wasn't quite true. "You'll see. It can only be Gabe." That was.
"It can only be Gabe because you're in love with him."
Victoria could feel herself blanch, and Nate winced.
"Shit," he muttered.
Victoria's hand shook when she reached for her wine glass.
"Sorry," Nate offered.
Victoria sipped carefully, and then put her glass back down exactly where it had been before. "He's a good actor." She was enough in control that her voice didn't shake.
"Yeah," Nate agreed, "but someone else could do it."
"It's too late anyway. We've both signed contracts. I'll get another AD if I have to, but I'd rather have you." She pulled the extra copy of the script out of her bag and put it on the table. "Read the script."
Nate sighed and tugged it toward him. "No promises," he warned.
Victoria nodded. "Okay. Just let me know soon so I can find someone else if I need to."
*
Nate called not four hours after they'd parted ways outside the restaurant. "Fuck you," he said, but he was half laughing.
Victoria grinned. "Does that mean you're in?"
"Fuck yes, I'm in. This is the best script I've read in years."
Victoria grinned even harder. "Is this the part where I get to say 'I told you so'?"
"No, this is: Gabe's perfect for Jasper."
Victoria stopped grinning. "I know."
"Fucking shit, Victoria." Nate's laughter had trailed off, and she could hear his exhale loud over the phone. "If he pulls the same kind of shit again."
"I don't think he will." Gizmo always seemed to know when Victoria wasn't at her best; he jumped up into her lap and nosed at her chin. It made her smile despite the conversation. "When I talked to him-" She shrugged. "I think we can act like adults."
Nate snorted. "Yeah, because that's what you're both known for."
"Oh, shut up," Victoria shot back. "You draw dicks on any surface that'll stay still for it." She rubbed behind Gizmo's ears, his small weight on her lap keeping her steady.
"My dicks are art." Nate was silent for a moment, and then he said, "Gabe Saporta. Fuck."
Victoria had to swallow against the lump in her throat. She had to get herself under control. She couldn't make a movie with the guy if she kept letting herself get swept away by everything she felt every time she heard his name.
"You don't- You know you don't have to hate him." It hurt a little bit to say it, but maybe it was time they all stopped suffering for the past. "You were there for me when I really needed it, but I'm okay." Mostly. "You can be friends with him again."
"Maybe." Nate sounded doubtful. "We'll see."
"Just don't be too much of a dick to him. I'm going to need him to listen to you, and he won't if you piss him off to start with."
"Yes, mom," Nate drawled. "I'll play nice with the other kids."
Victoria smiled. "Good. I have a list of people to talk to, and then I'm going to want you in on a bunch of meetings."
"Meetings," Nate groaned. "The thing I hate most about this business."
"Necessary evil. Anyone you want on this project?"
"The people you hire have to be better than the last crew I worked with. Oh, except for this one guy, Brendon Urie. If you don't already have an editor, he's good."
Victoria reached over Gizmo for her notepad and pen to write it down. "Send me his details. I'll check him out."
*
Assistant director secured, Victoria felt a lot more confident about contacting the other people she wanted involved. It took her two weeks and numerous calls to Bob to use his clout, but she eventually managed to get her supervising crew together around her dining room table for a meeting.
"Introductions, for those of you who don't know each other," she said when she had everyone settled in with drinks and trays of munchies. "Nate's our AD, Ryan's art direction, Kevin's sets, Spencer's wardrobe, Brendon's editing, Jon's DP, Patrick's music, and Pete is our scriptwriter-slash-producer." They each raised a hand as she said their names.
"We're going to be seeing a lot of each other over the next couple of months, so get used to it. Don't be dicks to each other. If you have problems, you can come to Nate or to me, unless it's a problem with one of our stars, then you come straight to me." Victoria looked around the table to make sure they were all paying close attention. "And there will be problems with our stars. There always are." That brought a chuckle. "As I'm sure most of you have heard, our lead is Gabe Saporta. He can be an ass, but he's serious about the work. He and Crush are on board, but other than that, you're the only people attached to this project. If you have ideas about who else we should look at, let me know. I'm going to count on you to hire some of your own crews." Victoria glanced down at her notes to make sure she was covering everything she wanted to in her introductory spiel. "Any questions?"
Ryan raised his hand and asked, "Budget?"
Victoria pulled out the stack of papers below her notepad. "Here's the projected budget." She split the stack of budgets in two and send them around the table in either direction, keeping one for herself. "We know this is going to change a little as we go on, but we want to stick pretty close to it."
Her supervising crew bent over the budgets, some of them taking notes, some of them grumbling about the numbers, all of them taking it seriously.
*
The first thing Victoria noticed about Greta Salpeter was that she had a face that would look lovely on film. It was framed by a riot of blonde curls that would pick up the lights if Victoria could get them right. She had a mobile mouth that stretched into a smile as she introduced herself to each of them.
"We'd like to hear you read first," Victoria said.
"Of course." Greta took her place in the center of the room and became Caroline as she launched into the monologue from scene twelve.
Victoria fought to keep the grin off her face. This movie was going to be so good.
"Now we're going to have you read with Gabe. He's playing Jasper."
Gabe joined Greta in the middle of the room. He towered over her, which could work. Victoria started mentally composing shots and trying to think of what would need to be readjusted to fit them in a frame together.
Their chemistry was good, the two of them falling easily into Jasper and Caroline's roles. Greta moved around him as she delivered her lines, and he turned to watch her with the right mix of interest and wariness.
They grinned at each other when they got to the end of the scene, and Victoria knew they were seeing this all come together just as much as she was.
"How'd I do?" Greta asked, and Victoria hadn't already had a good feeling about her, that would have done it. She liked her actors to be direct.
"Good," she answered. She gestured at the camera. "We'll have to see how it plays on film, but that was good." She thought for a moment, and then said, "Can you do it again? This time I want you to remember that Caroline wants Jasper to find her interesting, but she's not about to let him know that. Gabe, Jasper desperately wants to be able to trust Caroline, but doesn't know if he can. She has to earn his trust. Let her start to pull you in."
They did the scene again, and Victoria could feel her heart beat faster. Greta could take direction, and their second take was even better than the first. From the corner of her eye, she could see Nate grinning. He knew what he was seeing just as much as she did, the magic that happened when two actors just worked.
Greta pushed her hair back from her face. "Whew! This is going to take a lot, isn't it?" She was smiling as she said it. "It's a good thing my boyfriend's band is on hiatus right now. He'll be making me dinner all through shooting."
Victoria found herself admiring how casually she'd managed to slip that into the conversation.
"If only I could get my dog to make me dinner," she said, and Greta laughed. "You did a great job today. We'll take a look at the film and call you by the end of the week."
Greta picked up her bag, a large canvas tote that she slung over her shoulder with practiced ease. "Thank you." She came over to shake Victoria's hand. "I would love to work with you." She shook Nate and Pete's hands, and then turned back to Gabe. "You too."
Gabe pulled her into a hug that Greta seemed perfectly comfortable returning. "I'd be happy to let you seduce me," he said with a grin and a patently false eyebrow waggle. Greta laughed and waved at them all on her way out.
"You liked her," Nate said.
Victoria nodded. "If she looks good on film, she'll be a great Caroline."
"She looked good through the lens," Jon said from behind the camera.
"I've heard good things about her," Pete said. "She's responsible, doesn't cause trouble." He shrugged. "Not a diva type."
"I'm the only diva on this set," Gabe said with a toss of his head.
"You said it, not me." Victoria smirked at him for a moment, then asked, "You think you can work with her?"
He shrugged. "Sure. She's a good actress, she took direction." He tapped his fingers against the back of the chair he was straddling. "I particularly liked the way she said wasn't going to sleep with me."
Trust Gabe to notice that. Victoria felt her shoulders tense and her mouth thin out into a flat line. She would have liked to delay any variation on this conversation, or skipped it altogether.
Pete looked back and forth between them, but Gabe and Nate were both looking at her. She couldn't see Jon, but she would bet his gaze mirrored Pete's.
"Don't," she said.
"It's a valid concern," Gabe said, "considering my past history."
Victoria was a professional with a job to do. She couldn't scream at him or dissolve into tears.
"Gabe!" she snapped, and Nate's face went from watchful to worried. She didn't look at Gabe.
"I just thought I would bring it up," Gabe said. "Since I know the producers are worried about that kind of thing."
"I'm not one of the producers," Victoria said. Every word felt like glass scraping its way out of her throat. "And I am not talking about this." She slammed her notebook shut. "If you have something of substance to contribute to this process, I'll listen, but not this." She was very proud of the way her voice didn't shake, even if her hands did. She stared at the blank cover of her notebook and waited to see if he had anything to say.
It was Nate who finally broke the silence. "I think we're done for the day."
Gabe, Pete, and Jon left while she was packing up her things. Nate stayed.
"Want to talk about it?" he asked after the door had closed behind the others.
"What is there to talk about?" Victoria finally looked up. "He's always been like that, and I just have to get over it."
"It's not too late," Nate said slowly, "to change your mind. Get rid of him or give it to another director."
Victoria shook her head fiercely. She wasn't giving up on this movie. Pete's script deserved the best they had to give. "I want this. This feels like the movie I've been waiting for."
Nate actually caught her wrist and held onto it until she stopped her fussing with her bag. "I know this sounds crazy, but the movie isn't everything."
Victoria took a deep breath and pushed everything Gabe had brought up back down. "I can do this." Even she wasn't sure if she was telling the truth.
*
Gabe came in the next day wearing his trademark sunglasses and clutching a Starbucks cup. He was the last one to arrive, Pete, Victoria, and Nate already in a row at the table and Jon behind the camera. When Gabe took off his sunglasses, his eyes were red and there were circles under them. He stood in front of Victoria and shoved his sunglasses into a pocket, then brought his hand to join the other in almost clinging to his cup.
"I was being a dick yesterday," he said, subdued and quiet, and that was the other Gabe Victoria knew, the one who was serious, the one who cared. The briefest of smiles flitted across his face. "Cassadee yelled at me for like twenty minutes about it."
That meant he'd told her about it. Maybe he was just open with his assistant. Maybe he was sleeping with her.
"And then I felt like shit and got drunk and she yelled at me about that too."
Victoria wasn't surprised by that; she remembered what Gabe with a hangover looked like. She'd yelled at him about it herself once or twice, when he was supposed to not look like shit on camera.
Gabe was completely earnest when he said, "I'm sorry," and Victoria knew him well enough - had known him well enough, anyway, and she didn't think he'd changed all that much - to know he was telling the truth.
She nodded. "Maybe you could give me some warning next time you're going to be a dick."
Pete made a choked noise, and both Victoria and Gabe turned to look at him. It was like a spell breaking, Pete intruding on a conversation that had felt private, no matter how many witnesses they had.
"Are you going to do press together?" Pete asked. "Because this is gold. They would eat it up."
If she hadn't read his script, she would never have guessed he was anything other than a shrewd businessman.
Victoria tapped her pen against her notebook. "We should probably make a movie before we start worrying about press."
"It's never too early to start worrying about press," Pete said.
When Victoria glanced at Gabe, he was almost smiling. "Man has a point," he said, gesturing meaninglessly with his coffee cup.
Victoria shook her head. "Don't help." She looked down at her notes to try to get them back on schedule. "We're trying to cast Mark this morning." Mark was the third principle character, and if she could find someone to play him, and if he and Gabe and Greta could all work together, everything else would fall into place around them. "Guy we're seeing is named Ryland. He's one of Alex's too."
Gabe didn't even need her to ask before he was answering her question. "I've never worked with him, but I've met him. He's funny. He and Alex go way back." Gabe shrugged. "Good guy, for all I can tell."
Victoria surprised herself with how much she still trusted Gabe's instincts about people; if he said Ryland was a good guy, then she believed it.
"Same process as yesterday." She looked at Gabe. "Without the acting like a dick."
Gabe saluted her with his coffee cup. "Yes ma'am."
Victoria ignored it in favor of the woman poking her head in the door to tell them Ryland had arrived.
Ryland was even taller than Gabe with a mobile face and a sharp nose that was going to be a bitch to light properly.
They went through the same process as the day before with similar results. Ryland slipped right into Mark as he delivered his lines. When Victoria had him read with Gabe, their chemistry was good, and she liked the way Gabe had to look up to look him in the eye. It would make both of them tower over Greta; she could do something with that.
"Let's do that one more time," she said. "Ryland, you think he's making a bad decision, but he's your friend. Let's see a little more of that this time. Gabe, no going over the top, but don't underplay quite that much."
Gabe responded to her direction the way he always did, by doing exactly what she asked and sharpening his performance into something amazing. Ryland looked thoughtful for a moment, but when he played the scene, he shifted the whole tone of it from Mark's disapproval of Jasper's choice to his concern for his friend.
"Thank you," Victoria said when they'd finished the scene. "That was great."
"That felt great," Ryland said. He clasped Gabe's hand. "Nice to have a chance to work with you."
Gabe nodded. "You too. Alex says good things about you."
"He says you're a pain in the ass but worth it."
Gabe laughed, and Victoria wondered if Ryland had known he would find that funny instead of getting offended. If he was a good judge of character or knew enough from Alex's stories, that was one thing, but she didn't want someone on her set who was likely to say shit that would cause problems.
Ryland turned to her. "He says you're a wonderful director and I should suck up as much as possible." He said it as cheesily as possible, and Victoria found herself smiling at him.
"I don't know how Alex figures out you people can act with how completely unsubtle you are."
"He has a sense for talent," Ryland said, "if I do say so myself."
"You do have talent," Victoria said. "We'll let you know by the end of the week."
Ryland shook hands all around, doing some sort of complicated handshake with Gabe that Victoria supposed was an invention of Alex's.
"He's in," Nate said, almost before the door closed behind Ryland. "That means we only have to audition for the minor characters now." He looked up from where he was making notes on his laptop. "Do you want everyone in on those or just us?"
"I thought Victoria made the decisions."
Victoria was seated in the middle and facing Nate, so she had to turn almost all the way around to see the bemused look on Pete's face. "I do. I already did." She studied his face for a moment, trying to figure out if he had an objection to Nate or just didn't understand. "You'll figure out how we work." She turned back to Nate. "I'd like to do it with everyone. It's a little overwhelming for them, but I want to see how they work with the principles." She asked Gabe, "You can free your schedule for a week or so, right?"
Gabe had pulled up a chair on the other side of the table. He nodded. "Just tell me when, or tell Cassadee. She keeps my schedule."
Victoria was pretty sure that Gabe had an exact copy of any schedule Cassadee was keeping for him, and that he was just as, if not more, diligent about keeping his appointments.
"Good. That means we're on track." Victoria smiled at all three of them. "Want to look at the film?"
One of the other offices had a screen large enough to make watching film worth it. Victoria cued up both Greta and Ryland's screen tests and then turned out the lights. It was a room with a conference table, and Victoria sat at the far end, where she could watch the others' reactions as well as the film.
Nate had his laptop open to make notes. Jon leaned back in his chair and seemed perfectly at ease. Pete rested his elbows on the table, chin on his hands, and watched with an intensity that Victoria wouldn't have guessed at. Gabe nodded at some things and grimaced at others. The places he didn't like were the same places Victoria could see needed to be smoothed out.
She hadn't loved working with him just because she'd been in love with him.
"We're going to need someone really good on lights," Nate said when Ryland's screen test ended and Victoria turned on the room's lights.
"I know a guy," Pete said. "He gets fired up about things and has this whole thing about the downfall of society, but," he shrugged, "he's really good with lighting. He did that trippy video for Animal Vegetable."
Victoria remembered that video, and "trippy" really was the best word to describe it. The lighting had been very creative.
"I'm not sure trippy is the look we're going for," Victoria said very diplomatically.
Pete waved a hand. "He can do other stuff. That's just the most interesting." He pulled out his phone. "I'll send you his info."
Nate and Victoria exchanged looks over Pete's head. The last thing she wanted from her producers was to have them foist an untalented friend on her.
Pete must have caught their looks, because he said, "You don't have to use him. Just check him out."
Since she didn't have any other ideas, Victoria agreed to at least check out his work. If that didn't work out, she knew plenty of other directors who could make recommendations.
"So screen tests look good, Nate and I will make a schedule for auditions, and we have a lead on a lighting guy." Victoria looked around the table. "Anything else we need to take care of today?"
No one had anything, so Nate and Victoria packed up their things, and Pete tucked his notebook into his pocket. Gabe hovered around them without getting in the way, and he lingered in the parking lot while Nate walked Victoria to her car and talked scheduling.
"You want me to stick around?" Nate asked, cutting his eyes toward Gabe but not making any other movement that would let Gabe know they were talking about him.
Victoria shook her head. "No. I can handle it." She squeezed his arm. "Thanks, though."
"Any time. I'll call you later." Nate nodded at Gabe and waved at Victoria over his shoulder as he went to his own car.
Victoria tossed her bag into the Mini's passenger seat and waited for Gabe to come to her. He stopped a few feet away, outside of her personal space and with the car door between them.
Despite the sun shining down on them, he hadn't put his sunglasses back on, so she could see his eyes.
"There's a Starbucks down the street," Gabe said. "Want to get a cup of coffee?"
Victoria wished he'd put his shades back on so she couldn't see the cautious hope in his eyes. She steeled herself against it, though, and shook her head. "I don't think so. This isn't going to be like last time."
Without his sunglasses covering it up, she had to watch that hope die, too.
"No," he said, "it's not," and there was something about his determination that made her wonder what he was thinking but not saying. "I guess I'll see you for the next round of auditions."
Victoria nodded and got into the car. There were lines across her palms where she'd been gripping the top of the door without noticing.
*
Setting up a movie always took longer than Victoria expected. From auditions to meetings with producers, the process dragged on until Victoria was impatient to just start filming already. Having a supervising crew she could trust to hire their own crew made it easier, but it also meant she had more downtime than she otherwise might.
She tried to stay busy - she spent a couple of nights a week with her parents, called up old friends, took Gizmo on long walks - but the movie was all she really wanted to be doing. And she found it hard to stop thinking about Gabe, and what it was going to be like to work with him again, to have to see him every day.
The time between, when auditions were done but administrative details were still being worked out, gave Victoria a reprieve from him, but it also gave her time to worry about it.
She spent one afternoon in front of the large monitor in her office pulling up the folder of pictures taken during filming for First Date. She didn't let herself look at them very often - it hurt too much - and she didn't look at the ones of Leighton at all.
She ended up in the kitchen, doing shots of tequila at the counter, and then sinking down to the floor to cry. Gizmo whined and crawled into her lap. He was a comfort - at least some creature in the world loved her and wouldn't leave her - but he wasn't Gabe.
Victoria dragged herself off to bed, even though it was barely five and she hadn't eaten, and woke up in the morning feeling sick to her stomach. She promised herself, as she showered away the worst of the grimy feeling, that she wasn't going to let this do that to her again. She was going to be a professional about this, and work with Gabe without letting this happen to her again.
It was almost easier, after that, to settle herself into planning for the movie and steel herself for working with Gabe.
And after all of that, it was a relief to walk into their first full table read and have Gabe act like a professional. Her heart still ached for him - one of the things she'd always loved about him was his commitment to film - but she could handle it better when he wasn't pushing things.
*
Alex DeLeon waited patiently, which Victoria didn't know he could do, until she finished talking out the camera angle with Jon. Then he said, "Patrick said he wanted to talk to you. He's in your office," and sounded a little awed by the very prospect. "That guy is amazing. Like JT."
Victoria reminded herself it was not a good idea to laugh at her PAs. They had a way of getting revenge. "Thank you," she said instead. "You know, Gabe's a big Timberlake fan too."
Alex's eyes lit up. "Really?"
Victoria nodded, and Alex scurried off. She almost felt bad for setting him on Gabe, but knowing Gabe's fondness for younger members of the crew, it would probably work out for the better.
Patrick was indeed in her office, pacing the scant length of it with a scowl on his face and his fedora jammed low on his forehead.
"You have to do something about Pete," he said without even waiting for her greeting.
"Pete's kind of a force of nature. What's he done now?"
"He won't leave me alone!" Patrick actually waved his arms around a little. "He's always there, looking over my shoulder and grinning at me. Victoria, I need some space to work."
That did sound like Pete. Victoria always forgot how much managing went into directing. Nate was good about doing a lot of it, but of course he couldn't be the one to talk to Pete.
"I can talk to him," she said. "He is an executive producer, so I don't know how much good it'll do. If he keeps bothering you, let me know and we can talk to Bob and Jonathan."
Patrick nodded crisply. "Thank you."
"Other than Pete, how's it going?"
Patrick's shoulders had come down about a thousand feet, and he was a lot calmer when he said, "Pretty good. I want you to listen to some stuff soon."
Victoria pulled her phone out of her pocket and pulled up her calendar. "How soon?"
"Maybe the next day you're not filming?"
That was Saturday. She'd hoped to take Gizmo to the park and at least have a few hours without thinking too much about the movie. "Sure." She created a new event. "Here?"
Patrick shook his head. "Come to my house. I have a studio; you can listen to everything and we can play around with stuff if you want."
Victoria added his address to her calendar.
*
Pete was almost always hanging around the set, except when he had to go do "producery things," so it was easy enough for Victoria to run into him and say, "Hey, Pete, you got a minute?"
Pete pushed his sunglasses up onto the top of his head and said, "For you, of course."
They went to her office, and she let him sit down on the couch before settling into her usual chair. "I need to talk to you about Patrick."
Pete's face lit up. "Dude. Dude. That guy is amazing. Have you heard what he's doing with my words and the music? It's, like, genius."
"Dude," Victoria echoed back, "you need to chill."
Pete laughed. "I can't chill. It's too good."
"Don't you have a wife?"
Pete nodded vigorously. "She's going to love him. I keep trying to get Patrick to come over for dinner, but he hasn't said yes yet."
He was like an overeager puppy, and Victoria almost didn't have the heart to take that away from him, but she was an adult and she needed Patrick on her movie. "You need to dial it down a little," she said. "Patrick needs some space to work."
Pete's face fell. "Did he say that?"
Victoria felt horribly guilty in the face of the way Pete looked, but she soldiered on anyway. "You come on a little strong, and Patrick needs some space. I'm not saying you can't talk to him, just let him work, okay?"
Pete nodded, but it was slow and his shoulders had rounded over. "Okay." Then he smiled, and Victoria had worked with enough actors of varying skill levels to detect a fake when she saw one. "Hey, I should go do some other producery things." His hands waved about indeterminately. "I'll see you later." He pushed his sunglasses back down onto his face and yanked the door open a little too hard.
*
Victoria looked up when the door of her office banged open without even a knock. She hadn't eaten since before she'd gotten to set and she was out of cigarettes. Gabe was not a welcome interruption.
"I think Pete's trying to steal my assistant," Gabe announced.
Victoria squeezed her eyes shut. "Please don't tell me I have to have another talk with him about not sleeping with someone." When she opened her eyes again, the look Gabe was giving her didn't make any sense. It was almost like he was waiting for her to laugh.
"Wait," he said after a moment where she just stared at him, not knowing what he wanted from her. "You don't know? Cassadee's a lesbian. She has a huge crush on you."
Victoria's first thought was that she knew for sure now that Gabe wasn't sleeping with her. It took a moment for the rest of it to sink in.
"That's just what I need," she muttered.
Gabe shrugged. "What can I say? She has a type. She likes smart and bitchy. You, me, and Pete."
Victoria closed her eyes again and rubbed at her temples. "Gabe," she said, "I am really not in the mood for this. Did you have a reason for coming in here?"
Gabe's voice, when it came, was a lot closer. "I thought Pete stealing my assistant was a good enough reason." His hands settled onto her shoulders. She tensed at the touch, but then he started rubbing at the tight spots and she let her head drop forward so he could dig his thumbs into the knots at the base of her skull.
It felt so good, and he clearly remembered what he'd learned before about where she got tense.
Thinking about before jerked her out of her complacency, and she shifted forward, just out of his grip. "Shouldn't you be in makeup or wardrobe right now?"
Gabe's hands slid off of her shoulders, and he came around in front of her again. "I'm already all pretty. It's Greta's turn."
"Maybe you could go bug her instead."
"She's not as forgiving as you."
Victoria exhaled and reminded herself that they were too far along for her to fire him and recast someone else as Jasper. "Then go talk to Nate. Or read a book. Or call someone. Just get out of my office." It wasn't a particularly forceful command, more tired than anything else, but it got him to leave.
Victoria turned back to the papers spread out across her desk. She'd been staring at them for so long that they'd started to lose meaning, and she wasn't even sure why she was looking at them in the first place.
The second interruption was at least preceded by a knock. Victoria put on a pleasant face and called, "Come in."
Alex Johnson pushed the door open with one hand, and had a plate balanced on top of a Diet Coke can in the other. He somehow found the single clear spot on her desk and put the plate and the soda down on it. "Gabe said I should offer you a smoke, too, but only after you eat." He was already halfway back to the door. "I'll be hanging around."
Victoria blinked at the sandwich, fruit salad, and cookie on the plate in front of her. "Thanks," she managed to call before Alex was all the way out the door. His hand waved at her before it shut.
She should have been annoyed; Gabe was acting awfully presumptuous, and this wasn't before, when he'd had the right to. But he'd made sure she had something to eat and the promise of a cigarette, and he'd sent the quietest of the PAs to do it. She bit into the sandwich and couldn't be anything other than grateful.
Part 2
Excerpt from Aaron's Film Blog review of First Date:
Despite reports of drama on the set - first it was Asher and Saporta's rumored affair, then Saporta's very public romance with co-star Meester, complete with tales of screaming matches and thrown drinks - with First Date, Asher has turned in a subtle and nuanced portrait of the evil that lurks within the hearts of men. For a director working on her first feature (Asher previously directed one student film and a Manhattan Short finalist), Asher has a surprisingly deft hand. No moment is overplayed. When Eduardo presses his hand against Juliette's throat, Asher lets the camera look but then pulls back to a wide shot showing us the whole room: faded blue curtains that don't quite cover the windows and Eduardo's bare feet against the wood floor contrasting with the precision of Juliette's dress and high heels.
Furthermore, Asher never lets Saporta give in to his tendency toward the unnecessarily theatric. Critics have been lauding his potential for years; for the first time, he lives up to it. I can only hope he takes the lessons he learned here and puts them to good use in future roles.
*
Victoria turned over the last page of the script and exhaled for what felt like the first time since she started reading it. It was a good script, a really good script. An Oscar-worthy script, even, in the right director's hands.
Victoria was the right director.
She could already see it playing out in her mind's eye. She knew what she wanted to tell Ryan about the art direction, and she thought she could get Kevin Jonas to do set design. All of that was great.
The problem was that every time she imagined it, it was Gabe she saw playing Jasper.
Two years and the sting of betrayal hadn't eased much. She'd started falling in love with Gabe at his audition for First Date. He read, and then did exactly what she wanted when she gave him some additional direction. They'd flirted and danced around each other, even as he followed all of her directions. And then he'd slept with Leighton.
Victoria shook off the memory. She'd seen Gabe around since then, and they'd nodded politely. Leighton had been filming on location for much of the last two years, so Victoria didn't have to see her, which was good. They'd been friends, before Victoria put Leighton in her movie. Leighton had betrayed her on a whole other level.
And now she had a project that could put everyone who worked on it on the map, and it needed Gabe to succeed.
Victoria picked up the phone and dialed Bob McLynn's number before she could reason her way out of it.
"You read it," he said in lieu of a greeting.
"I did. I have one condition for doing it."
"Only one? That makes you a lot less trouble than most directors. Shoot."
"Gabe Saporta." Victoria flipped the script over so the front page was showing. "If you can get him for Jasper, I'll do it."
Bob was silent for a very long five seconds. "You and Saporta have history. Do you really think that's wise?"
Victoria had her doubts, but she wasn't about to tell them to the man in charge of getting her what she needed to make her movie. "Gabe and I are professionals. We can work together."
Bob's next silence told her how much he believed her. "I can't promise anything," he told her, "but I'll set up a meeting."
If Bob could get Gabe there, Victoria could make him believe in the project. "You probably shouldn't tell him it's me," she said. "It might be easier that way."
"I was wrong about you being less trouble," Bob grumbled.
Victoria grinned. "You get Gabe to a meeting and talk money with Alex, and we'll make you an Oscar winner."
"Oh, I have no doubt about that," Bob replied. "But will it make me any money?"
Victoria laughed. "Yes, Bob, it will make you money. Come on, you know about me. I don't spend unnecessarily like some directors, and I hire good people so we get it right the first time instead of wasting time and money on reshoots. This movie's going to come in on time and on budget."
"I'll believe that when I see it." Victoria could hear the clicking of keys over the phone. "I'll set up the meeting and get back to you with the time."
"Thanks, Bob. I really want to do this project." That, at least, was the whole truth. As soon as they hung up, Victoria picked up a pencil and started sketching notes in the margins of the script.
*
Victoria made sure to get to Crush's offices early. Bob must have been thinking along the same lines, because instead of having her wait, the receptionist took her straight into an unoccupied conference room. A small table along one wall held coffee carafes and a plate of artfully arranged pastries and fruit. Victoria poured herself a glass of water from a pitcher next to the coffee. The main conference table was set parallel to the door; Victoria took the chair directly across from it.
She took her marked up copy of the script and her ever-present notebook-slash-sketchbook-slash-ideabook out of her bag. She did a lot of work digitally, but when it came to production meetings, she liked to have pen and paper to work with. She would transfer anything that needed to be transferred to her laptop later.
Bob was the second to arrive, with a dark-haired guy in tight jeans, a dark hoodie, and high-tops in tow.
"Victoria," Bob said, coming around the table to shake her hand. "This is Pete Wentz."
Victoria didn't have to fake her smile even a little bit. "Pete," she greeted him, "I love your script."
Pete beamed at her. "Thank you. I loved First Date." He pulled out a chair next to her and banged on the table with an imaginary gavel. "This meeting of the mutual appreciation society will now come to order."
There were voices in the hallway, and then the door opened again. Victoria had been steeling herself for it, but she still wasn't quite ready for the way her stomach flipped when she saw Gabe behind Alex.
Gabe paused in the doorway. He started moving again so quickly most of the room probably didn't even notice, but Victoria was watching him closely.
"Vicky," he drawled.
"Don't call me that," she snapped automatically.
He smirked, and took the chair directly across from her.
Alex came around the table, though, and Victoria stood up to hug him.
"Suarez," she said, "still trying to manage him."
Alex smiled at her, and he looked just the same: suit, neatly combed hair, and black-rimmed glasses, all of which contrived to make him look quirky rather than nerdy. "He does bring in the big bucks." He went back around the table to sit next to Gabe. "I don't think you've met Cassadee."
Victoria reached across the table and shook hands with the third member of Gabe's entourage. Cassadee was a very young woman with stylishly sharp angles to her hair and a floral patterned black tank top under a yellow vest.
"Cassadee's my assistant," Gabe informed her.
Victoria wondered if he was sleeping with her too, and then reminded herself that it wasn't any of her concern, not anymore.
"Gabe," Bob said, "this is Pete Wentz." Victoria watched the way Gabe's gaze sharpened for just a moment as he looked at Pete. "Pete, this is Gabe Saporta, Alex Suarez, and Cassadee Pope."
"Your script is the shit," Gabe said.
"You're an excellent actor in the hands of a competent director," Pete told him, and Victoria had to stifle the urge to laugh.
Gabe did laugh. "And you think Victoria's a competent director."
"More than," Pete said, with a smile much sharper than Victoria would have expected.
They were interrupted by the door opening again. There was another round of introductions so everyone could meet Jonathan. He was the less well-known co-founder of Crush. Victoria hadn't met him before, but she'd heard that where Bob was the public face of Crush, Jonathan was the one who took care of the difficult behind the scenes tasks. Appropriate, then to have him in this meeting.
"Jonathan, Pete, and I are the executive producers on this project," Bob said when everyone who wanted coffee had it and they'd all settled down. "We want to make this movie."
"We're going to make this movie," Pete corrected, and received a quelling look for his trouble.
"We believe in Pete's script." Bob nodded at Jonathan. "We think Victoria's the right person to direct it, and we're strongly considering Gabe for the role of Jasper." That wasn't quite laying all his cards on the table, but Victoria let it play.
"And you think that's a good idea?" Victoria wasn't surprised that it was who Gabe said it. "The two of us working together?"
"Frankly," Jonathan said, "we have our doubts."
"We also want to do this movie justice," Bob added. "And we think you two can do that."
"What kind of terms are we talking about?" Alex asked.
"Three million, up front, and net points." Victoria mentally translated Bob's answer to five and cash break, which meant they were willing to pour serious money into this project.
Gabe snorted. "You're paying me more than that if I do it." He looked at Victoria. "You think you can work with me again?"
Victoria met his eyes and didn't let her expression waver. "Yes. Can you work with me again?"
"That's going to be good publicity," Pete murmured. Victoria ignored it.
Gabe looked away first. "How about you give us a minute alone." It wasn't a question.
When Bob looked at her, a clear question on his face, Victoria nodded.
"That means you too, chickadee," Gabe said when everyone but Cassadee got out of their chairs.
"It's Cassadee, dumbass." Cassadee thwapped him on the back of the head as she followed the others out of the room. Victoria wouldn't be surprised if they were sleeping together.
The door closed behind everyone else, leaving Victoria and Gabe alone in silence.
Gabe finally broke it. "Are you going to throw your water at me?"
"Are you going to give me a reason to?"
Gabe tapped his fingers against the table. "What do you think?" He'd dropped the act and was actually being serious.
"I'm not doing it without you." Victoria folded her hands and rested them on top of the script.
Gabe's mouth twisted into something that might have been a smile if it were softer. "And if I say no?"
"Then I say no." Victoria leaned forward and met his eyes directly. "I know you, and if there's one thing you care about, it's movies. You can say yes and we can make this," she tapped the script, "into one hell of a movie. Or you can say no, and someone else will do it." She sat back. "No one else will be able to do it justice the way we can."
Gabe was silent, and Victoria let him be. She'd said what she had to say, and now it was up to him to think it over.
"That's a lot of trust you're putting in me."
"It was never your acting ability I doubted," Victoria said.
Gabe actually winced, and Victoria thought, for a moment, about taking it back or softening it, but it was true, and they'd never lied to each other.
Gabe was always fearless, and he met her eyes again. "You think this can be good?"
Just because she didn't lie to him didn't mean she had to tell him the whole truth. She stuck with the professional angle. "I think this can win us both Oscars."
Gabe smiled faintly. "That's a bold prediction."
"It's a good script. Crush and Pete are both gaining names for themselves, which means we can get the cast and crew we need for this. It's a risk," Victoria admitted, "but so is every other project."
"I think," Gabe said, steepling his fingers and looking deep into her eyes, "the real risk is you and me working together."
Victoria looked away before she could stop herself from reacting. She took in a deep breath and met his gaze again. "I think," she echoed, "that we're both adults and we can make this work."
There was something bitter in his look, and she wasn't sure if it was directed at her or himself. "So," he said with false brightness, "if I don't sleep with my costar you won't throw drinks at me?"
Victoria could feel her shoulders tense and her stomach go tight with remembered hurt. She forced her shoulders back down. "How about," she said, "you don't keep bringing it up and we make a fucking movie?"
That same something bitter was back on his face, but he nodded sharply. "Okay." He pulled out his phone and sent a text, probably to Alex. "Who else are you going to try to get for this? Nate, obviously."
Victoria nodded. "Kevin Jonas, Ryan Ross, maybe Patrick Stump if I can sweet talk him into it."
Gabe shook his head. "You won't have any problem with that one."
Victoria was equal parts flattered and annoyed. Before she could make up her mind about which one to go with, the door opened and everyone else filed back in and came back to their seats.
"So what's the decision?" Bob asked.
Gabe leaned back in his chair. "Three mil is insultingly low," he said, and the negotiations got underway.
*
Nate always gave good hugs, whether it was in her office on set or in the middle of a restaurant at the peak of the lunch hour.
They caught up for a while, Victoria offering stories about Gizmo and Nate telling her about being second AD for a teen movie full of stars in their thirties.
"I've got a script," Victoria said almost off-handedly at the end of one of Nate's stories.
"A good one?"
Victoria nodded. "Really good. Writer is Pete Wentz. He and Crush are producing."
Nate looked at her as suspiciously as Nate ever looked. "So what's the catch?"
"What makes you think there's a catch?"
"If there wasn't, you wouldn't have invited me to lunch. You would've just asked me on the phone."
He had a point. "Gabe's the lead."
Nate paused with his fork halfway to his mouth and set it down instead of completing its journey. "That's a really shitty idea."
Victoria put her fork down too. "He's a great actor."
"This has nothing to do with that." Nate's stare was as intense as he ever got. "You're not ready for this."
"Sure I am," Victoria lied.
"You're not." Nate drummed his fingers on the table, picking out a rhythm she couldn't quite follow. "I'm not sure I am."
In the middle of her own turmoil over working with Gabe again, she hadn't stopped to think how Nate would feel about it. He'd gotten almost as close to Gabe as she had, and she'd heard tales - from both of them - about the adventures they had when they went out drinking together. But Nate had chosen her, in the end. He'd been the one to hold her together after she threw the glass at Gabe, when she thought her sobs and the pain of her heart breaking would tear her apart.
Victoria sighed. "Just read the script, okay? It's good. Good enough that I don't care that it's Gabe." That wasn't quite true. "You'll see. It can only be Gabe." That was.
"It can only be Gabe because you're in love with him."
Victoria could feel herself blanch, and Nate winced.
"Shit," he muttered.
Victoria's hand shook when she reached for her wine glass.
"Sorry," Nate offered.
Victoria sipped carefully, and then put her glass back down exactly where it had been before. "He's a good actor." She was enough in control that her voice didn't shake.
"Yeah," Nate agreed, "but someone else could do it."
"It's too late anyway. We've both signed contracts. I'll get another AD if I have to, but I'd rather have you." She pulled the extra copy of the script out of her bag and put it on the table. "Read the script."
Nate sighed and tugged it toward him. "No promises," he warned.
Victoria nodded. "Okay. Just let me know soon so I can find someone else if I need to."
*
Nate called not four hours after they'd parted ways outside the restaurant. "Fuck you," he said, but he was half laughing.
Victoria grinned. "Does that mean you're in?"
"Fuck yes, I'm in. This is the best script I've read in years."
Victoria grinned even harder. "Is this the part where I get to say 'I told you so'?"
"No, this is: Gabe's perfect for Jasper."
Victoria stopped grinning. "I know."
"Fucking shit, Victoria." Nate's laughter had trailed off, and she could hear his exhale loud over the phone. "If he pulls the same kind of shit again."
"I don't think he will." Gizmo always seemed to know when Victoria wasn't at her best; he jumped up into her lap and nosed at her chin. It made her smile despite the conversation. "When I talked to him-" She shrugged. "I think we can act like adults."
Nate snorted. "Yeah, because that's what you're both known for."
"Oh, shut up," Victoria shot back. "You draw dicks on any surface that'll stay still for it." She rubbed behind Gizmo's ears, his small weight on her lap keeping her steady.
"My dicks are art." Nate was silent for a moment, and then he said, "Gabe Saporta. Fuck."
Victoria had to swallow against the lump in her throat. She had to get herself under control. She couldn't make a movie with the guy if she kept letting herself get swept away by everything she felt every time she heard his name.
"You don't- You know you don't have to hate him." It hurt a little bit to say it, but maybe it was time they all stopped suffering for the past. "You were there for me when I really needed it, but I'm okay." Mostly. "You can be friends with him again."
"Maybe." Nate sounded doubtful. "We'll see."
"Just don't be too much of a dick to him. I'm going to need him to listen to you, and he won't if you piss him off to start with."
"Yes, mom," Nate drawled. "I'll play nice with the other kids."
Victoria smiled. "Good. I have a list of people to talk to, and then I'm going to want you in on a bunch of meetings."
"Meetings," Nate groaned. "The thing I hate most about this business."
"Necessary evil. Anyone you want on this project?"
"The people you hire have to be better than the last crew I worked with. Oh, except for this one guy, Brendon Urie. If you don't already have an editor, he's good."
Victoria reached over Gizmo for her notepad and pen to write it down. "Send me his details. I'll check him out."
*
Assistant director secured, Victoria felt a lot more confident about contacting the other people she wanted involved. It took her two weeks and numerous calls to Bob to use his clout, but she eventually managed to get her supervising crew together around her dining room table for a meeting.
"Introductions, for those of you who don't know each other," she said when she had everyone settled in with drinks and trays of munchies. "Nate's our AD, Ryan's art direction, Kevin's sets, Spencer's wardrobe, Brendon's editing, Jon's DP, Patrick's music, and Pete is our scriptwriter-slash-producer." They each raised a hand as she said their names.
"We're going to be seeing a lot of each other over the next couple of months, so get used to it. Don't be dicks to each other. If you have problems, you can come to Nate or to me, unless it's a problem with one of our stars, then you come straight to me." Victoria looked around the table to make sure they were all paying close attention. "And there will be problems with our stars. There always are." That brought a chuckle. "As I'm sure most of you have heard, our lead is Gabe Saporta. He can be an ass, but he's serious about the work. He and Crush are on board, but other than that, you're the only people attached to this project. If you have ideas about who else we should look at, let me know. I'm going to count on you to hire some of your own crews." Victoria glanced down at her notes to make sure she was covering everything she wanted to in her introductory spiel. "Any questions?"
Ryan raised his hand and asked, "Budget?"
Victoria pulled out the stack of papers below her notepad. "Here's the projected budget." She split the stack of budgets in two and send them around the table in either direction, keeping one for herself. "We know this is going to change a little as we go on, but we want to stick pretty close to it."
Her supervising crew bent over the budgets, some of them taking notes, some of them grumbling about the numbers, all of them taking it seriously.
*
The first thing Victoria noticed about Greta Salpeter was that she had a face that would look lovely on film. It was framed by a riot of blonde curls that would pick up the lights if Victoria could get them right. She had a mobile mouth that stretched into a smile as she introduced herself to each of them.
"We'd like to hear you read first," Victoria said.
"Of course." Greta took her place in the center of the room and became Caroline as she launched into the monologue from scene twelve.
Victoria fought to keep the grin off her face. This movie was going to be so good.
"Now we're going to have you read with Gabe. He's playing Jasper."
Gabe joined Greta in the middle of the room. He towered over her, which could work. Victoria started mentally composing shots and trying to think of what would need to be readjusted to fit them in a frame together.
Their chemistry was good, the two of them falling easily into Jasper and Caroline's roles. Greta moved around him as she delivered her lines, and he turned to watch her with the right mix of interest and wariness.
They grinned at each other when they got to the end of the scene, and Victoria knew they were seeing this all come together just as much as she was.
"How'd I do?" Greta asked, and Victoria hadn't already had a good feeling about her, that would have done it. She liked her actors to be direct.
"Good," she answered. She gestured at the camera. "We'll have to see how it plays on film, but that was good." She thought for a moment, and then said, "Can you do it again? This time I want you to remember that Caroline wants Jasper to find her interesting, but she's not about to let him know that. Gabe, Jasper desperately wants to be able to trust Caroline, but doesn't know if he can. She has to earn his trust. Let her start to pull you in."
They did the scene again, and Victoria could feel her heart beat faster. Greta could take direction, and their second take was even better than the first. From the corner of her eye, she could see Nate grinning. He knew what he was seeing just as much as she did, the magic that happened when two actors just worked.
Greta pushed her hair back from her face. "Whew! This is going to take a lot, isn't it?" She was smiling as she said it. "It's a good thing my boyfriend's band is on hiatus right now. He'll be making me dinner all through shooting."
Victoria found herself admiring how casually she'd managed to slip that into the conversation.
"If only I could get my dog to make me dinner," she said, and Greta laughed. "You did a great job today. We'll take a look at the film and call you by the end of the week."
Greta picked up her bag, a large canvas tote that she slung over her shoulder with practiced ease. "Thank you." She came over to shake Victoria's hand. "I would love to work with you." She shook Nate and Pete's hands, and then turned back to Gabe. "You too."
Gabe pulled her into a hug that Greta seemed perfectly comfortable returning. "I'd be happy to let you seduce me," he said with a grin and a patently false eyebrow waggle. Greta laughed and waved at them all on her way out.
"You liked her," Nate said.
Victoria nodded. "If she looks good on film, she'll be a great Caroline."
"She looked good through the lens," Jon said from behind the camera.
"I've heard good things about her," Pete said. "She's responsible, doesn't cause trouble." He shrugged. "Not a diva type."
"I'm the only diva on this set," Gabe said with a toss of his head.
"You said it, not me." Victoria smirked at him for a moment, then asked, "You think you can work with her?"
He shrugged. "Sure. She's a good actress, she took direction." He tapped his fingers against the back of the chair he was straddling. "I particularly liked the way she said wasn't going to sleep with me."
Trust Gabe to notice that. Victoria felt her shoulders tense and her mouth thin out into a flat line. She would have liked to delay any variation on this conversation, or skipped it altogether.
Pete looked back and forth between them, but Gabe and Nate were both looking at her. She couldn't see Jon, but she would bet his gaze mirrored Pete's.
"Don't," she said.
"It's a valid concern," Gabe said, "considering my past history."
Victoria was a professional with a job to do. She couldn't scream at him or dissolve into tears.
"Gabe!" she snapped, and Nate's face went from watchful to worried. She didn't look at Gabe.
"I just thought I would bring it up," Gabe said. "Since I know the producers are worried about that kind of thing."
"I'm not one of the producers," Victoria said. Every word felt like glass scraping its way out of her throat. "And I am not talking about this." She slammed her notebook shut. "If you have something of substance to contribute to this process, I'll listen, but not this." She was very proud of the way her voice didn't shake, even if her hands did. She stared at the blank cover of her notebook and waited to see if he had anything to say.
It was Nate who finally broke the silence. "I think we're done for the day."
Gabe, Pete, and Jon left while she was packing up her things. Nate stayed.
"Want to talk about it?" he asked after the door had closed behind the others.
"What is there to talk about?" Victoria finally looked up. "He's always been like that, and I just have to get over it."
"It's not too late," Nate said slowly, "to change your mind. Get rid of him or give it to another director."
Victoria shook her head fiercely. She wasn't giving up on this movie. Pete's script deserved the best they had to give. "I want this. This feels like the movie I've been waiting for."
Nate actually caught her wrist and held onto it until she stopped her fussing with her bag. "I know this sounds crazy, but the movie isn't everything."
Victoria took a deep breath and pushed everything Gabe had brought up back down. "I can do this." Even she wasn't sure if she was telling the truth.
*
Gabe came in the next day wearing his trademark sunglasses and clutching a Starbucks cup. He was the last one to arrive, Pete, Victoria, and Nate already in a row at the table and Jon behind the camera. When Gabe took off his sunglasses, his eyes were red and there were circles under them. He stood in front of Victoria and shoved his sunglasses into a pocket, then brought his hand to join the other in almost clinging to his cup.
"I was being a dick yesterday," he said, subdued and quiet, and that was the other Gabe Victoria knew, the one who was serious, the one who cared. The briefest of smiles flitted across his face. "Cassadee yelled at me for like twenty minutes about it."
That meant he'd told her about it. Maybe he was just open with his assistant. Maybe he was sleeping with her.
"And then I felt like shit and got drunk and she yelled at me about that too."
Victoria wasn't surprised by that; she remembered what Gabe with a hangover looked like. She'd yelled at him about it herself once or twice, when he was supposed to not look like shit on camera.
Gabe was completely earnest when he said, "I'm sorry," and Victoria knew him well enough - had known him well enough, anyway, and she didn't think he'd changed all that much - to know he was telling the truth.
She nodded. "Maybe you could give me some warning next time you're going to be a dick."
Pete made a choked noise, and both Victoria and Gabe turned to look at him. It was like a spell breaking, Pete intruding on a conversation that had felt private, no matter how many witnesses they had.
"Are you going to do press together?" Pete asked. "Because this is gold. They would eat it up."
If she hadn't read his script, she would never have guessed he was anything other than a shrewd businessman.
Victoria tapped her pen against her notebook. "We should probably make a movie before we start worrying about press."
"It's never too early to start worrying about press," Pete said.
When Victoria glanced at Gabe, he was almost smiling. "Man has a point," he said, gesturing meaninglessly with his coffee cup.
Victoria shook her head. "Don't help." She looked down at her notes to try to get them back on schedule. "We're trying to cast Mark this morning." Mark was the third principle character, and if she could find someone to play him, and if he and Gabe and Greta could all work together, everything else would fall into place around them. "Guy we're seeing is named Ryland. He's one of Alex's too."
Gabe didn't even need her to ask before he was answering her question. "I've never worked with him, but I've met him. He's funny. He and Alex go way back." Gabe shrugged. "Good guy, for all I can tell."
Victoria surprised herself with how much she still trusted Gabe's instincts about people; if he said Ryland was a good guy, then she believed it.
"Same process as yesterday." She looked at Gabe. "Without the acting like a dick."
Gabe saluted her with his coffee cup. "Yes ma'am."
Victoria ignored it in favor of the woman poking her head in the door to tell them Ryland had arrived.
Ryland was even taller than Gabe with a mobile face and a sharp nose that was going to be a bitch to light properly.
They went through the same process as the day before with similar results. Ryland slipped right into Mark as he delivered his lines. When Victoria had him read with Gabe, their chemistry was good, and she liked the way Gabe had to look up to look him in the eye. It would make both of them tower over Greta; she could do something with that.
"Let's do that one more time," she said. "Ryland, you think he's making a bad decision, but he's your friend. Let's see a little more of that this time. Gabe, no going over the top, but don't underplay quite that much."
Gabe responded to her direction the way he always did, by doing exactly what she asked and sharpening his performance into something amazing. Ryland looked thoughtful for a moment, but when he played the scene, he shifted the whole tone of it from Mark's disapproval of Jasper's choice to his concern for his friend.
"Thank you," Victoria said when they'd finished the scene. "That was great."
"That felt great," Ryland said. He clasped Gabe's hand. "Nice to have a chance to work with you."
Gabe nodded. "You too. Alex says good things about you."
"He says you're a pain in the ass but worth it."
Gabe laughed, and Victoria wondered if Ryland had known he would find that funny instead of getting offended. If he was a good judge of character or knew enough from Alex's stories, that was one thing, but she didn't want someone on her set who was likely to say shit that would cause problems.
Ryland turned to her. "He says you're a wonderful director and I should suck up as much as possible." He said it as cheesily as possible, and Victoria found herself smiling at him.
"I don't know how Alex figures out you people can act with how completely unsubtle you are."
"He has a sense for talent," Ryland said, "if I do say so myself."
"You do have talent," Victoria said. "We'll let you know by the end of the week."
Ryland shook hands all around, doing some sort of complicated handshake with Gabe that Victoria supposed was an invention of Alex's.
"He's in," Nate said, almost before the door closed behind Ryland. "That means we only have to audition for the minor characters now." He looked up from where he was making notes on his laptop. "Do you want everyone in on those or just us?"
"I thought Victoria made the decisions."
Victoria was seated in the middle and facing Nate, so she had to turn almost all the way around to see the bemused look on Pete's face. "I do. I already did." She studied his face for a moment, trying to figure out if he had an objection to Nate or just didn't understand. "You'll figure out how we work." She turned back to Nate. "I'd like to do it with everyone. It's a little overwhelming for them, but I want to see how they work with the principles." She asked Gabe, "You can free your schedule for a week or so, right?"
Gabe had pulled up a chair on the other side of the table. He nodded. "Just tell me when, or tell Cassadee. She keeps my schedule."
Victoria was pretty sure that Gabe had an exact copy of any schedule Cassadee was keeping for him, and that he was just as, if not more, diligent about keeping his appointments.
"Good. That means we're on track." Victoria smiled at all three of them. "Want to look at the film?"
One of the other offices had a screen large enough to make watching film worth it. Victoria cued up both Greta and Ryland's screen tests and then turned out the lights. It was a room with a conference table, and Victoria sat at the far end, where she could watch the others' reactions as well as the film.
Nate had his laptop open to make notes. Jon leaned back in his chair and seemed perfectly at ease. Pete rested his elbows on the table, chin on his hands, and watched with an intensity that Victoria wouldn't have guessed at. Gabe nodded at some things and grimaced at others. The places he didn't like were the same places Victoria could see needed to be smoothed out.
She hadn't loved working with him just because she'd been in love with him.
"We're going to need someone really good on lights," Nate said when Ryland's screen test ended and Victoria turned on the room's lights.
"I know a guy," Pete said. "He gets fired up about things and has this whole thing about the downfall of society, but," he shrugged, "he's really good with lighting. He did that trippy video for Animal Vegetable."
Victoria remembered that video, and "trippy" really was the best word to describe it. The lighting had been very creative.
"I'm not sure trippy is the look we're going for," Victoria said very diplomatically.
Pete waved a hand. "He can do other stuff. That's just the most interesting." He pulled out his phone. "I'll send you his info."
Nate and Victoria exchanged looks over Pete's head. The last thing she wanted from her producers was to have them foist an untalented friend on her.
Pete must have caught their looks, because he said, "You don't have to use him. Just check him out."
Since she didn't have any other ideas, Victoria agreed to at least check out his work. If that didn't work out, she knew plenty of other directors who could make recommendations.
"So screen tests look good, Nate and I will make a schedule for auditions, and we have a lead on a lighting guy." Victoria looked around the table. "Anything else we need to take care of today?"
No one had anything, so Nate and Victoria packed up their things, and Pete tucked his notebook into his pocket. Gabe hovered around them without getting in the way, and he lingered in the parking lot while Nate walked Victoria to her car and talked scheduling.
"You want me to stick around?" Nate asked, cutting his eyes toward Gabe but not making any other movement that would let Gabe know they were talking about him.
Victoria shook her head. "No. I can handle it." She squeezed his arm. "Thanks, though."
"Any time. I'll call you later." Nate nodded at Gabe and waved at Victoria over his shoulder as he went to his own car.
Victoria tossed her bag into the Mini's passenger seat and waited for Gabe to come to her. He stopped a few feet away, outside of her personal space and with the car door between them.
Despite the sun shining down on them, he hadn't put his sunglasses back on, so she could see his eyes.
"There's a Starbucks down the street," Gabe said. "Want to get a cup of coffee?"
Victoria wished he'd put his shades back on so she couldn't see the cautious hope in his eyes. She steeled herself against it, though, and shook her head. "I don't think so. This isn't going to be like last time."
Without his sunglasses covering it up, she had to watch that hope die, too.
"No," he said, "it's not," and there was something about his determination that made her wonder what he was thinking but not saying. "I guess I'll see you for the next round of auditions."
Victoria nodded and got into the car. There were lines across her palms where she'd been gripping the top of the door without noticing.
*
Setting up a movie always took longer than Victoria expected. From auditions to meetings with producers, the process dragged on until Victoria was impatient to just start filming already. Having a supervising crew she could trust to hire their own crew made it easier, but it also meant she had more downtime than she otherwise might.
She tried to stay busy - she spent a couple of nights a week with her parents, called up old friends, took Gizmo on long walks - but the movie was all she really wanted to be doing. And she found it hard to stop thinking about Gabe, and what it was going to be like to work with him again, to have to see him every day.
The time between, when auditions were done but administrative details were still being worked out, gave Victoria a reprieve from him, but it also gave her time to worry about it.
She spent one afternoon in front of the large monitor in her office pulling up the folder of pictures taken during filming for First Date. She didn't let herself look at them very often - it hurt too much - and she didn't look at the ones of Leighton at all.
She ended up in the kitchen, doing shots of tequila at the counter, and then sinking down to the floor to cry. Gizmo whined and crawled into her lap. He was a comfort - at least some creature in the world loved her and wouldn't leave her - but he wasn't Gabe.
Victoria dragged herself off to bed, even though it was barely five and she hadn't eaten, and woke up in the morning feeling sick to her stomach. She promised herself, as she showered away the worst of the grimy feeling, that she wasn't going to let this do that to her again. She was going to be a professional about this, and work with Gabe without letting this happen to her again.
It was almost easier, after that, to settle herself into planning for the movie and steel herself for working with Gabe.
And after all of that, it was a relief to walk into their first full table read and have Gabe act like a professional. Her heart still ached for him - one of the things she'd always loved about him was his commitment to film - but she could handle it better when he wasn't pushing things.
*
Alex DeLeon waited patiently, which Victoria didn't know he could do, until she finished talking out the camera angle with Jon. Then he said, "Patrick said he wanted to talk to you. He's in your office," and sounded a little awed by the very prospect. "That guy is amazing. Like JT."
Victoria reminded herself it was not a good idea to laugh at her PAs. They had a way of getting revenge. "Thank you," she said instead. "You know, Gabe's a big Timberlake fan too."
Alex's eyes lit up. "Really?"
Victoria nodded, and Alex scurried off. She almost felt bad for setting him on Gabe, but knowing Gabe's fondness for younger members of the crew, it would probably work out for the better.
Patrick was indeed in her office, pacing the scant length of it with a scowl on his face and his fedora jammed low on his forehead.
"You have to do something about Pete," he said without even waiting for her greeting.
"Pete's kind of a force of nature. What's he done now?"
"He won't leave me alone!" Patrick actually waved his arms around a little. "He's always there, looking over my shoulder and grinning at me. Victoria, I need some space to work."
That did sound like Pete. Victoria always forgot how much managing went into directing. Nate was good about doing a lot of it, but of course he couldn't be the one to talk to Pete.
"I can talk to him," she said. "He is an executive producer, so I don't know how much good it'll do. If he keeps bothering you, let me know and we can talk to Bob and Jonathan."
Patrick nodded crisply. "Thank you."
"Other than Pete, how's it going?"
Patrick's shoulders had come down about a thousand feet, and he was a lot calmer when he said, "Pretty good. I want you to listen to some stuff soon."
Victoria pulled her phone out of her pocket and pulled up her calendar. "How soon?"
"Maybe the next day you're not filming?"
That was Saturday. She'd hoped to take Gizmo to the park and at least have a few hours without thinking too much about the movie. "Sure." She created a new event. "Here?"
Patrick shook his head. "Come to my house. I have a studio; you can listen to everything and we can play around with stuff if you want."
Victoria added his address to her calendar.
*
Pete was almost always hanging around the set, except when he had to go do "producery things," so it was easy enough for Victoria to run into him and say, "Hey, Pete, you got a minute?"
Pete pushed his sunglasses up onto the top of his head and said, "For you, of course."
They went to her office, and she let him sit down on the couch before settling into her usual chair. "I need to talk to you about Patrick."
Pete's face lit up. "Dude. Dude. That guy is amazing. Have you heard what he's doing with my words and the music? It's, like, genius."
"Dude," Victoria echoed back, "you need to chill."
Pete laughed. "I can't chill. It's too good."
"Don't you have a wife?"
Pete nodded vigorously. "She's going to love him. I keep trying to get Patrick to come over for dinner, but he hasn't said yes yet."
He was like an overeager puppy, and Victoria almost didn't have the heart to take that away from him, but she was an adult and she needed Patrick on her movie. "You need to dial it down a little," she said. "Patrick needs some space to work."
Pete's face fell. "Did he say that?"
Victoria felt horribly guilty in the face of the way Pete looked, but she soldiered on anyway. "You come on a little strong, and Patrick needs some space. I'm not saying you can't talk to him, just let him work, okay?"
Pete nodded, but it was slow and his shoulders had rounded over. "Okay." Then he smiled, and Victoria had worked with enough actors of varying skill levels to detect a fake when she saw one. "Hey, I should go do some other producery things." His hands waved about indeterminately. "I'll see you later." He pushed his sunglasses back down onto his face and yanked the door open a little too hard.
*
Victoria looked up when the door of her office banged open without even a knock. She hadn't eaten since before she'd gotten to set and she was out of cigarettes. Gabe was not a welcome interruption.
"I think Pete's trying to steal my assistant," Gabe announced.
Victoria squeezed her eyes shut. "Please don't tell me I have to have another talk with him about not sleeping with someone." When she opened her eyes again, the look Gabe was giving her didn't make any sense. It was almost like he was waiting for her to laugh.
"Wait," he said after a moment where she just stared at him, not knowing what he wanted from her. "You don't know? Cassadee's a lesbian. She has a huge crush on you."
Victoria's first thought was that she knew for sure now that Gabe wasn't sleeping with her. It took a moment for the rest of it to sink in.
"That's just what I need," she muttered.
Gabe shrugged. "What can I say? She has a type. She likes smart and bitchy. You, me, and Pete."
Victoria closed her eyes again and rubbed at her temples. "Gabe," she said, "I am really not in the mood for this. Did you have a reason for coming in here?"
Gabe's voice, when it came, was a lot closer. "I thought Pete stealing my assistant was a good enough reason." His hands settled onto her shoulders. She tensed at the touch, but then he started rubbing at the tight spots and she let her head drop forward so he could dig his thumbs into the knots at the base of her skull.
It felt so good, and he clearly remembered what he'd learned before about where she got tense.
Thinking about before jerked her out of her complacency, and she shifted forward, just out of his grip. "Shouldn't you be in makeup or wardrobe right now?"
Gabe's hands slid off of her shoulders, and he came around in front of her again. "I'm already all pretty. It's Greta's turn."
"Maybe you could go bug her instead."
"She's not as forgiving as you."
Victoria exhaled and reminded herself that they were too far along for her to fire him and recast someone else as Jasper. "Then go talk to Nate. Or read a book. Or call someone. Just get out of my office." It wasn't a particularly forceful command, more tired than anything else, but it got him to leave.
Victoria turned back to the papers spread out across her desk. She'd been staring at them for so long that they'd started to lose meaning, and she wasn't even sure why she was looking at them in the first place.
The second interruption was at least preceded by a knock. Victoria put on a pleasant face and called, "Come in."
Alex Johnson pushed the door open with one hand, and had a plate balanced on top of a Diet Coke can in the other. He somehow found the single clear spot on her desk and put the plate and the soda down on it. "Gabe said I should offer you a smoke, too, but only after you eat." He was already halfway back to the door. "I'll be hanging around."
Victoria blinked at the sandwich, fruit salad, and cookie on the plate in front of her. "Thanks," she managed to call before Alex was all the way out the door. His hand waved at her before it shut.
She should have been annoyed; Gabe was acting awfully presumptuous, and this wasn't before, when he'd had the right to. But he'd made sure she had something to eat and the promise of a cigarette, and he'd sent the quietest of the PAs to do it. She bit into the sandwich and couldn't be anything other than grateful.
Part 2