‘I don’t know,’ the man said. ‘I wonder every day.’ He buried his face in his hands.
Marc wanted to tell the DOP to make sure to stay on the dentist, not to cut just because he’s not talking. But then he felt her, silent and attentive at his side. She was getting all of it.
Afterwards, out on the street, Marc and the camerawoman took deep breaths, almost in unison.
‘You were good back there,’ she said.
‘You too.’ He offered her a hand. ‘Marc.’
‘Scheherazade.’
He laughed at the resignation in her face.
‘My parents smoked a lot of weed.’
‘Let’s get something to eat,’ Marc said. ‘I’ve got a job coming up in New Jersey next month.’
Marc calls her Kimble because of her many ways of being. Like Richard Kimble in the old TV show, or the movie with Harrison Ford. Kimble seems equipped for every circumstance. Her real self is fugitive.
‘I’m ok,’ Marc says to Kimble now. ‘Really.’ The firelight cracks and dances. ‘Don’t worry about me, Scheherazade.’
‘Don’t call me that.’
‘But it suits you so well.’
She snorts.
‘They’ll only buy this if it features him.’ Marc feels the rising pressure of anger and takes a deep breath. ‘Leaf Winham.’
The fire spits and they both jump.
‘Maybe,’ Kimble says. ‘It’s part of the story, after all.’
‘I hate it.’
‘Not everyone’s like you, Marky Mark.’
‘What am I like?’ he asks. Sometimes it’s better when other people answer this question for you. It means you don’t have to do it yourself.
‘Blank. It’s relaxing.’
‘I am not blank,’ he says, irritated. ‘Anyway you’re so back and forth. You go away behind a camera, and then you come out and make people like you and then you go away again. You’ve got no centre.’
‘Au contraire,’ Kimble pokes up sparks from the fire with a stick. ‘I’m just showing you all of who I am. I have layers.’
‘I have layers too.’
‘But your layers are all the same,’ Kimble says. ‘All the way down.’
‘Wow.’
‘It’s not a bad thing. There’s just no nuance to you. No complexity. You’re kind of simple—’
Marc growls. Kimble is already laughing and he can’t help snorting in return, because he’s not really mad and Kimble’s not really being mean. She often annoys him like this when he gets all twistedup inside. It gives him focus. He can never tell whether she knows this and is doing it to help him – or not.
‘They don’t let anyone near the gate,’ he says. ‘Maybe it’s over before it starts.’
Kimble looks into the fire and smiles. ‘I’ve been trying to say—’
