A Photo Is Worth A Thousand Blushes

6a - Angels and Vampires

Pizza managed to materialize in the dressing room while I hid behind the dressing screen to change back into my satin robe. I did not question where the food came from; I was just grateful it was there. The smells alone had my stomach grumbling loud enough for the guys to laugh at me.

Kota and North took the time to do the heavy lifting and get the sand box out of the garage before they joined us for pizza. Ms. Christine allotted us an hour for a break, but we decided that as soon as we were finished eating, we wanted to get a jump on setting things up for the next set. Gabriel managed to get back into his jeans and electric blue t-shirt without me noticing. He could have simply snapped his fingers and magicked his clothing into place for all I knew. I heard when Luke sneaked behind the changing screen because he asked out to the room if he could keep the swimming trunks. Gabriel informed him that they were his to keep. Apparently Gabriel had a nice shopping trip preparing for this job.

Luke, in a faded t-shirt that advertised a retro line of fruit soda pop with faded jeans, grabbed my hand and led me back downstairs. Before we finished descending, I noticed the ground floor appeared like a completely different room. The large bay doors were open, allowing for the natural sunlight to flood in and illuminate everything in the studio that was previously cast into shadows. All the secrets the darkness his from us was now reveled to our eyes.

"Wow," Luke said. "This place is a lot smaller than I thought it was." He wasn't kidding. "Come on, Sang. Help me sweep out all this sand."

We grabbed brooms and methodically pushed the grains of sand that managed to escape the box when Kota and North hefted it out. Sand managed to settle in impossible corners and around nearly immovable props. We swept sand out of places where I could not logically figure out how it got there to begin with, pushing the piles out the bay doors and into the driveway. In the deep corners of the double garage, props and other equipment were stacked together in a twisted fusion of Tetris and a jigsaw puzzle. I was afraid to disassemble any of it in fear I could not get it back together.

"Luke?" I asked as I manipulated a smaller pile to consolidate with another nearby. "This is where you did that first flip, right?" I asked him, indicating the space I was standing in. In the darkness earlier, the area appeared much bigger than it was when illuminated.

When Luke looked over and inspected for himself, I could see the blood drain from his face. "Yeah, that's it." His focus was on some sections of picket-like fence leaning against a large trash can, the tips rather pointy and pointed mere feet from where he stuck his landing from the backflip.

"If you didn't catch yourself where you did, Luke…" I did not want to say the part of skewering himself like a kebab out loud.

"I need to apologize to North," he gulped.

I nodded frantically in agreement. I wanted to apologize to him too. North most likely saw the sharp hazard when he and Kota were first bringing in the sand box that morning. It was now no wonder why he got upset when Luke flipped without warning. He probably had similar concerns when he overruled the poses that had Gabriel and Luke trying to toss me around. As much nagging as North could do that seemed to merely ruin our fun, he was simply concerned for everyone's wellbeing. We had to be reminded of that every once in a while.

Ms. Christine came in through the garage bay doors right as Luke and I were sweeping the last grains past the threshold and onto the driveway. She did a double take upon recognizing us, and I realized just how silly it must have looked with me being barefoot and clad in nothing but the light, satin robe. "I need to frame the business card to your agency," she said as she pulled down the big metal doors with Luke's assistance, cutting the sunlight off from the studio once more and leaving us in relative darkness. "For most of the pros I've worked with, the closest thing to a broom they have ever held was a makeup brush. Are you sure you guys are being paid enough for all this labor you're including?"