The email reads: time 4 a call?
It’s early here, which means it could still qualify as a ‘late night’ from their time zone. Funnily enough, I’m not surprised. They once asked me to join them on a morning jog at four a.m. And, yes, I reluctantly went, because when in L.A., you run at four a.m. for work meetings.
I sit up, corralling my hair into a halfway presentable bun before dialing one of their numbers and calling. It doesn’t matter who it is; they will be together.
When the monotone ringing stops, I’m greeted by two men sitting on a couch, as expected. They’re shoulder to shoulder, which is not uncommon, seemingly stuck together as if they’re conjoined twins. They’re not even related.
Fact number two about Sean and Dean: They do not chat. They video-call. There are no exceptions.
“Vi!” Dean calls out. I only know it’s him from the side-swept bangs.
“Ellis!” Sean yells. He prefers the shaved head and backward ballcap look, as well as the backward way of addressing anyone. I don’t think he’s ever called me by my first name.
“Hi, guys,” I say, giving a small wave into the camera.
“How are you settling in out there?” Sean asks.
“Experiencing the small-town life?” Dean follows up.
“How’re the chickens?”
“Or cows?”
Sean and Dean are like the personification of when someone asks if you’ve actually ever seen two specific people in the same room, as if to imply they might be the same person—except I don’t think I’ve ever seen Sean and Dean more than three or four feet apart at any given time, and I still struggle to think they’re not from the same egg.
They go back and forth with guessing at the intricacies of “small-town life” until there’s enough of a pause for me to pop in.
“I’m settling in fine,” I say. “Just getting things unpacked.”
“Great, we have news,” they continue on, breezing past any other niceties. “We’re still talking to a few others, but I think we’re gonna have a really good crew for you.”
“Oh, wow, that’s great!” A crew. I can’t even imagine having my own crew. That was the first thing they hooked me with when they proposed backing with me funds for my next documentary. It was a one-man project the first time around, and I have no desire to go through that again.
“We’ll keep you posted,” Sean says.
Dean shifts into frame. “How’s another meeting in two weeks or so, huh? Maybe get the creative juices flowing and send us what you have.”
My heart sinks. “Sure thing.”
“We trust you,” Sean says.
Dean nods. “Yeah, get that brain pumping, and we’ll talk to you later.”
“Sounds great.”
No, it doesn’t.
I flop back on my bed and wish for nothing more than to melt into it. It takes a bit more rolling around, kicking the covers, and eventually losing them to the floor before I grab my laptop and open a new document.
My fingers hover over the keys for what might be five, ten, or thirty minutes.
Nothing. I got nothing.
I hop out of bed and decide to go to the one place that might give me some inspiration. After tossing on some high-waisted jeans and a black crop top, throwing my blonde hair in a slightly neater top knot, and grabbing a light jacket, I head down the stairs, stopping to see a scribbled note on the foyer table.
Vi,
Left you the van. Have fun, and remember: You’re an Ellis. The Ellis family are winners.
Love,
Daddy
Well at least he has faith in my directorial skills.
Next to the note is a car key. I loop it on my fob and walk out the front door onto the porch, where my mom sits in her Adirondack chair. Her coffee cup rests on the chair’s arm, and her glasses are slid to the end of her nose so she can concentrate on the phone only a couple inches from her face.
“Look at you! Up and at ’em even on your first day back,” she says, putting the phone in her lap and picking up the coffee cup adorned with mums, which I truly believe she bought with an intended pun in mind. “I thought you would sleep in.”
“Have I ever been one to sleep much past when the birds wake up?” I ask, leaning down to kiss her cheek. “This movie isn’t gonna make itself.”
I internally cringe at myself.
“That’s my girl. Dad left you the van,” she says, motioning her cup toward the side driveway where my dad’s old navy blue van is parked. “Washed it and filled up the tank for you. He’s riding his Harley today.”
“Is he hitting his midlife crisis?”
“Hit, hitting, about to hit…it’s all blending together at this point,” she says with a wave of her hand.
I hold up the key with a smile. “Well, I’ll thank him when he gets home.”
“What’s on the agenda today?”
“Research,” I say.
“Do you think you could be home in time for dinner?” she asks. “I think Asher wants to take you to the bonfire tonight.”
“The bonfire?” I ask.
“Over at Kayla’s?” she says, blinking. “I thought Asher would have told you. That boy…”
Asher did not tell me, but I don’t need to have Kayla’s Friday night bonfire explained—I’m sure it’s the same as it ever was. Bonfire and beers at Kayla’s was a post-football-game tradition where Asher and his friends—and me tagging along—would sneak alcoholic drinks and we’d all get a small buzz. I think what I do need explained is why every person I went to high school with is still out here making bonfires on a Friday night when we don’t go to football games anymore.
“Kayla still does those?” I ask.
“Oh, you know that girl,” she says, as if that’s all that needs to be said on the subject. I don’t press further.
“Well, sure, I’ll be back for dinner.” What else would I be doing? I just woke up in my childhood bedroom and I’m talking about a high school football party.
“Good. Have a nice day, dear.” With a nod, Mom pulls her phone back up and her glasses dip down to the edge of her button nose once more. I imagine Sheryl Ellis is two cups of coffee away from tending to her garden in the back and relocating to the kitchen for morning dishes. This is my mom’s usual schedule, and I bet it hasn’t changed in the past decade. She likes her routine, and she likes it completed early.
I drive down the road in my dad’s old van, flipping through the radio stations. It’s the same car I drove in high school, and it still doesn’t have a Bluetooth connector or an auxiliary cord, just local radio playing Top 40 hits. It’s the same music that blares in every department store, and I recognize some of the pop songs from my tenure in retail. Even four years later, they are the same songs that pounded in my head as I plotted out my first movie on receipts between ringing up customers.
The van rumbles into the empty public parking lot on Main Street ten minutes later, scarce traffic to be seen and stoplights still blinking red with no residents around to abide by them. It’s too early for even the intersections to function, though it does seem emptier than I remember. It’s a bit eerie.