3
Ronnie
“I didn’t know you were Mac’s daughter,” Tina said. She’d already apologized for brushing me off earlier multiple times since I’d returned to her office. She sprayed antiseptic on a scratch near my knee. “You just look so… different.”
Did she mean that I wasn’t six-foot-two with masses of rust-colored hair on my head and chin like Mac? No, I was pretty sure she meant more than that. My mom was from Mexico, and I looked far more like her than Mac. In Tina’s mind, men like Mac were probably supposed to have blonde or red-headed daughters with fair skin. My dark hair, brown eyes, and other Latina features seemed to have flummoxed her.
“How does that feel?” She carefully applied the last bandage even though I’d assured her I could do it. Apparently, Mac’s daughter got the royal treatment no matter what she looked like.
“Better, thanks.”
“Do you want any more water?”
“I’m good. I just want to change out of these dirty clothes.”
The middle-aged woman straightened up with a grunt. “Understandable, but let me warn you, your clothes are going to be filled with that red dust no matter what you do. Or at least for the next month.”
“What happens after a month?” I asked. Was the dust that seemed to be everywhere somehow seasonal?
“The shooting will be done out here and we can go back to California to film the rest.”
“Oh.” Somehow that had never occurred to me. When I’d asked Mac for a job—any job—he’d said they were shooting on location for his latest film. I hadn’t thought about what might happen after that.
Still, whether they shot here for one month or thirty, my future was still an uncertain blur. This was just a stop-gap measure. Sooner or later, I’d have to figure out what would happen in the next chapter of my life. Now, thanks to Tina’s words, I knew it would have to be sooner.
But not today.
“Is this your first time working on a movie production?” she asked once I was changed into jeans and a halter top. The a/c unit on the wall of the little office was doing its best, but it was no match for the desert heat. I’d combed most of the dust out of my hair and left it down.
“Yes. Do you know what I’m going to be doing?”
She indicated the chair on the other side of the desk, and I sat down. “No, I don’t, but there’s always stuff that needs doing around here. There aren’t enough of us non-Hollywood types to go around.”
We spent the next half-hour on paperwork. Apparently, Tina acted as the human resources manager in addition to being a combination of receptionist and office manager. She seemed like a good person to know. And she apparently thought the world of Mac.
“He’s worked with everyone at one point or another. Just about any movie star you can name, he’s worked with them. Well, if it’s a movie that has stunts. Mac doesn’t work on many romantic comedies!” She laughed as if it was the best joke ever, and I had to smile at her enthusiasm. “But he takes his work seriously. It’s his job to make sure everyone stays safe. Ooo, he can have a temper if anyone doesn’t follow the rules and puts themselves or someone else in danger.”
That thought made me pause. Had he shown temper when I was a kid? Not that I could remember. More like… indifference, which struck me as being worse. At times, he’d been a huge presence in our day-to-day lives, and at others, it was like he was physically there but miles away mentally. Reliving his good old days as a stunt man? Probably, since he’d returned to it as soon as he abandoned us. In retrospect, there were other signs that he missed it. He was always doing jump kicks in the air and flips and martial arts moves. In that way, he reminded me of Denver and Austin, two of my brother’s best friends. Oh, and he loved to drive fast—a fact that made Mom crazy.
When I was done with the paperwork, I handed it all back to Tina. “Your father texted,” she said, and I winced slightly. It was easier to think of him as Mac, the stunt coordinator that everyone knew and loved, rather than my father. He may have been that once, but he definitely wasn’t anymore. He didn’t deserve to be. “He’ll pick you up at seven-thirty to take you to dinner.”
It wasn’t Tina’s fault that Mac left when I was little. “Thanks. Are there any good restaurants around here?”
“He’ll probably take you to Moab. It’s over an hour away, but there are more selections there. Don’t count on a good bottle of wine, though. It is Utah after all. But Mac’ll make sure you get a good meal.”