FRAGMENTS: And So It Has Come To This

3.

Not having Richard and Vivian to talk to was definitely not how Dawn imagined spending her last two days on the set.

With her leading man, the interaction was limited to the scenes. Even then, his words were sparse, letting the director do the talking, and just agreeing to do whatever. They had quite some time to kill. They were shooting at a "forest", and then at the hospital, and he didn't move away whenever she sat beside him. But he rarely looked at her, his eyes always on his phones -- checking on home and on official business, looking at tweets and online shopping sites, and yes, finishing that Logos Quiz game they restarted together. (Yes, she snooped. And yes, he looked at cheats with items he knew she could remember.)

With her manager, it was mostly business. Of course, Vivian wasn't irresponsible, attending to her every need, with the occasional "Are you okay? What do you need?" But there was no more laughing at an anecdote shared with Janet and Mavhic over the breaks, no more remember-when's or I've-been-meaning-to-tell-you's to keep her energy up over the lull while set-up was ongoing. She didn't even get any additional scolding over all that Richard drama. Which was probably worse.

As the shoot wore on, with the cast back indoors -- at a hospital -- Dawn felt herself close to tears, and knew that she needed to get at least one of them to talk to her.

"It's bad enough as it is," she said as she closed the door of the room where Vivian was. "It's bad enough that he's not talking to me."

Her manager looked up from her phone, staring at her for a long moment. Dawn kept her back pressed against the door, her hand gripping the knob. A long moment... then she turned back at her phone, scrolling through behind-the-scenes photos, deleting most of the blurry ones.

Dawn grunted, every bit like a kid who didn't get her way.

"I didn't think it was that important! Not much to say on the matter, kasi wala namang --"

Vivian held up her hand and Dawn's thoughts faded along with her voice. "If it really didn't matter, then why are you so flustered?" the manager said matter-of-factly. Oh, how Dawn hated it when her friend was right. And when she used that tone on her. "And keep your voice down, may makarinig pa sa'yo."

"Can you just stop going all smart-ass on me for once?"

"No, kasi ako na lang ang ganu'n between the two of us right now."

Fights like that were hard to come by, but when they did -- and when she was wrong -- Dawn knew it was so easy to lose. Vivian went back to scrolling through Twitter, as if uninterested in whatever argument her talent was putting together in her head.

There was no longer any. Dawn sat on the edge of the bed that Vivian was occupying. "This is when I most need you, you know," she said quietly. Vivian remained seemingly uninterested and like Jacobo when told he'd have to face the wall, Dawn nodded, sullen. Not getting her manager to make peace would mean forcing herself on Richard and she wasn't sure she had the energy for that. He was proving to be the tougher cookie this time. It would've been funny -- he wasn't the type to stay mad at somebody, least of all Dawn -- if only it wasn't happening for real.

She stood up, reaching for the knob, when Vivian spoke.

"You should've told me. That's what we do. That's our system and it has worked for us for twenty years. If you wanted to proceed sa harutan n'yo ni Goma, you could've just said so."

Dawn smiled, back pressed against the door again. "I don't think that's how you operate."

"Kaya ko namang mag-adjust," Vivian replied, sitting up. "Para saan pang naging magkaibigan tayo, 'di ba? Gusto mong humarot, sige, I will cooperate. Guard the door for you, lock the gate, drive you to your meeting place and --."