The woman’s cheeks pinked as she smiled. “Oh, you know Mac? They’re out in the field today filming a car chase.” Field seemed like an interesting choice. I hadn’t seen a blade of grass since I got here. But I nodded. “He’ll be back in a few hours. Would you like to wait here?”
Her little office wasn’t much, but it had air conditioning. Still, I couldn’t imagine sitting on a folding chair for that long. Between the two flights and the car ride, I’d already done more than enough sitting. My muscles weren’t used to this much inactivity. “Thanks, but I need to stretch my legs. Can I leave my bags here?”
“Of course, dear.” Apparently, just the mention of the name Roy Mackenzie had made her incredibly eager to please.
I carried my bags behind her desk to the corner she indicated. That’s when I saw the picture on her desk—an autographed photo of Aiden Hunt. His dark hair and tan skin were instantly recognizable. His eyes gleamed as he seemed to grin at me from the picture frame. How ironic that his face looked so familiar when I wasn’t even sure I’d recognize Roy Mackenzie’s. Then again, I’d seen Aiden in a movie a year or two ago. I hadn’t seen Roy—or Mac, as they seemed to know him here—since I was a child.
Since he left me, my mother, and my brother.
He’d come through and gotten me this job, whatever it consisted of, when I really needed it, but that didn’t make up for decades of neglect. For him leaving us and starting a new family. For him never looking back.
All in all, I was glad he wasn’t around. I wasn’t ready to meet the man who’d been my father—but wasn’t now.
Two hours later, my feet pounded against the dirt of the narrow road. Music blasted in my ears and the red rock mesas in the distance looked incredibly vivid under the blue sky. Tina, the woman from the office, had told me where I could grab lunch. The food wasn’t much, and the only place to eat it was a smattering of picnic tables under the hot sun, but the ice-cold water had hit the spot. Then I’d wandered around the collection of buildings until I was bored out of my mind. I’d changed in the bathroom of Tina’s office and headed out for a run.
It felt good to put my sore muscles through their paces. When the shit hit the fan back home, I’d abandoned fitness routines I’d maintained for years. I’d paid for it with aches and pains during the first half hour of my run, but now it felt good to move. The buildings behind me disappeared behind a red rock mesa, and it felt like I was the only person in the world, which suited me just fine in my current mood. No other people meant no one misinterpreting my words and my writing. It meant no one saying horrible things about me and destroying the career I’d worked so hard to build.
I still didn’t know what I’d be doing here, but I didn’t much care. I was a hard worker—I’d do whatever they needed. Not that I knew anything about movie making.
My brain kept returning to Roy, though. Or, rather, Mac. Though I hadn’t seen him since I was in grade school, the name Mac seemed to suit what I remembered of him. He’d always been a larger-than-life kind of man. He’d forget my birthday or my brother Tonio’s two years in a row and then make some huge gesture for the third. Once, he’d driven us for three hours to play in a huge snowfall in southern Illinois. Another time, he’d rented horses, hired a guide, and took us camping for a few days in a remote state park.
He’d been a big guy, too, or at least that’s how I remembered him. When he swung me up to carry me on his broad shoulders, he had to duck going through doorways or under ceiling fans. The name Roy had always seemed too ordinary for him. Mac was a better fit.
He had to be nearing fifty now. Would his bushy hair be gray? It used to be a rather rusty red. Would he be as spry and strong as he used to be? A simple search online would’ve answered that question, but out of principle, I hadn’t looked him up even once since he left. Tonio did, from time to time, but I hadn’t let him tell me anything about him. If Mac didn’t want to be part of our family anymore, then I wasn’t going to waste any time keeping up with someone who didn’t give a damn about me.
For years, all I knew was that he’d returned to doing movie stunts, as he had before he met my mom. To cover the pain, I’d tried to play it up with my friends, telling them that my father had run off to Hollywood to make movies. Or at least I did until I stopped talking about him altogether.