Abigail watched Justin Rider kiss Cynthia Gold. Each embrace was deeper and longer, the couple reluctantly breaking apart before being drawn together again. The whole scene was perfect. Lighting spotlighted the couple, and hid Abby in the crowd. Vicariously Abby lived the embrace, feeling Justin press her against his svelte frame, his hands warming the small of her back. She suppressed a sigh.
“Cut,” yelled the second director, “and that is a wrap folks.” The couple stayed kissing a little longer, Cynthia grasping Justin’s coat label to maintain contact.
Ignoring the lingering affection between his stars now the movie was in the can, the director, Luke Benson, grabbed the mike from the second director and added, “First, I like to thank all you extras for your work. Detroit has been awesome to work with.”
Luke climbed on one of the chairs, making his tall frame visible to everyone on the closed street doubling as a set. “Second, don’t forget to turn in your vouchers. You will be getting an invite to the wrap party. Finally, I want to see you all at the wrap party tomorrow night. We couldn’t have pulled this off without you – now go home and sleep.”
Taking one last look at her Hollywood crush, Abigail was startled to see Justin staring at her. She had talked to him one day when sleet had delayed shooting. He had been awesome, going around and visiting all of the extras. Having worked several movies, Abby knew most stars avoid this. Just too many people to get to know everyone all the time; they had to save pieces of themselves. They gave so much away all the time.
Justin had talked to her about her knitting and she had given him the cat hat she had been working on. She couldn’t believe it when she had seen the kitten ears poking off his head on days when he was on set, but not in makeup yet. The movie was been shot in late fall, to take advantage of the long nights, and Detroit was cold. She was glad she had given him something he could use. She waved happily at him and his dimples flashed back. He picked up her hat from the back of his chair, waved it a second, and tucked it on his head.
(words 387 – originally appearing at Sunday Fun on Breathless Press 2/24/2013 (original photo copyright unknown), republished new blog format 5/13/2018)