“Yeah.”
“We’ll write rules,” he said.“No kissing.No hand on the small of your back.We walk.We talk.We smile once, like people who like each other.Then we leave in separate cars.”
Her mouth tilted.“You forgot ‘no touching faces’ like we’re in a teen drama.”
He laughed, short and real.“No touching faces.”
She pulled her legal pad from the table and wrote the rules anyway.It helped to see them take shape in ink.She added exit times and the line they’d use if a mic got shoved in a face.
We’re taking things slow.He’s focused on the music.
It read like truth and deflection at the same time.It would do.
“Clothes,” Maddyn said, materializing with purpose.“Nothing formal.Nothing black.Carlene, soft blouse, flats, hair down.Jami, sleeves pushed, no hat.Keep the watch.It photographs as steady.”
Carlene didn’t argue.Practical felt like oxygen."Thanks, Maddyn.That's all great."
The stringer texted Tony a thumbs-up and a time.Jace replied that the dock lights were working and he’d have the marina clear of fishermen for fifteen minutes.Margo said the takeout bag would be at the back bar in twenty minutes, no charge, with a heart sticker and a winky face.
They ran a rehearsal pass because music was how this room breathed when nerves showed up.Jami sang clean.The chorus did its job.The bridge hurt in the right place and made you want to earn the chorus again.When they stopped, Carlene realized her hands had steadied.
“Okay,” Tony said, scanning the clock.“We meet at the marina at seven fifteen.We walk at seven twenty.We leave at seven thirty.Nobody runs late.Nobody improvises.We do not invite chaos.”
“Copy,” Jami said.
Carlene nodded.
The hour before sunset stretched thin.She drove back to her rental, stood in front of an open suitcase like a person who’d forgotten how to pick out clothes, then picked the blouse Maddyn had named, forgetting she'd packed it.She wore flats because Maddyn told her to and because docks and heels didn’t mix with grace.She let her hair down and brushed it out until it shone.
In the mirror, she looked like someone she almost recognized.Not the strategist.Not the ghost in a room full of lights.A woman who could walk next to a man and look like it didn’t cost her anything.
Her phone buzzed.A text from Marla.
Saw the edit.You okay?
I’m fine,
Carlene wrote.
We’re handling it.
You always do,
Marla replied.
Just don’t forget you’re a person in this.
I won’t,
Carlene typed and set the phone face down because if she didn’t, she’d keep looking for permission she didn’t need.
The marina parking lot smelled like salt and summer.The sky leaned toward peach.A handful of boats cut seams in the water, engines low, gulls loud and opportunistic near the bait shack.
Tony waited by the path, face sober.He looked at Carlene the way a good manager looks at a person taking on an extra burden.With respect and a hint of apology.
“Stringer’s set,” he said.“He’ll shoot from the outside bar.He knows the rules.If anyone else lifts a phone, we keep walking.”
“Got it,” she said.
