Just three short days and it all felt so familiar. The actor’s tantrums and the director’s perfectionism driving the rest of his crew to the edges of nervous breakdowns. Of course really the days hadn’t been short, they had been ridiculously long, twelve hours at the minimum, sometimes stretching into the fifteen hour realm. Tina and Kate sat at the hotel bar, they were tired but aware of the fact that tomorrow was the first of three scheduled night time shoots. Kate thought that as they were going to be afforded the luxury of a later start the next day they should take advantage of the fact by having a drink or two.

For three days she had marvelled at Tina’s ability to organise, motivate and to achieve the goals that she had set for the day, but right now she was seeing a different side of her boss. Maybe it was the fact a drink or two had turned into three or four or maybe it was because Tina’s cell phone had just rang. Just like it had done at 9pm everyday so far this week. It was like clockwork, the first time Tina had looked at the caller ID, since then she hadn’t bothered. Either way she ignored the call.

“Can I ask you a question?” started Kate, tentatively

“OK”. Tina already knew where this line of questioning was going but she knew that Kate was smart and if the situations were reversed she would be lining up the same line of inquiry.

“Who would call you at 9pm everyday and why don’t you want to talk to them?”

“Technically that’s two questions but as I’m not quite sure what I would have done without you this week I’ll try to answer both. The person calling me is Bette Porter and I don’t want to talk to her because….shall we get another drink?”

There goes that habit of starting a sentence but not finishing it again thought Kate to herself. This time however, emboldened by the alcohol, she wasn’t going to let Tina off the hook quite so easily.

“Tina, both you and I know about the strength of the industry rumour mill. You can create fact out of fiction if you tell the right thing to the right people at the right time. You were the head of development at Alphaville, you left to have a baby and now you’re back. The name Bette Porter went around the office as the reason for your return to the fray.”