Frances found it difficult to assert herself. As a girl, her tendency had always been to back down; to give way. During the shoot of her debut feature, a decade – more – in the making, her husband Joel often left cute Post-its around the house urging her toward self-actualisation. ‘Manifest!’ they said, and: ‘Demand your vision!’ They were ironical but also sincere. Joel – working-class, son of a nurse – had climbed the ladder at his corporate law firm, and credited pure bravado with getting him to the top. Often, a prophet-like intensity shone from his pale green eyes.
Frances longed for Joel’s self-assurance, but also knew it wouldn’t work if she met the world in the same way. The men on set all wanted different things from her: Cosmo, her DOP, wanted 100% devotion; Max, her lead, wanted to push her around; then there was the line-producer, the gaffer and the editor, already sending her exasperated emails before the shoot had even wrapped.
This was why Frances took such comfort in Jacquetta, her assistant, who made almost hourly checks to see if Frances was eating, hydrating and getting enough sleep. Jacquetta even re-stuck Joel’s Post-its on her laptop when the strip of adhesive had worn away. Yes, Jacquetta cared. It was touching how much Jacquetta cared.
Just today Frances had ended up in a disagreement with Cosmo. He had insisted on dimmers, when the lighting for this scene should be harsh.
‘Was he psyching me out?’ she asked Joel that evening. ‘I was only reminding him of his own lighting scheme. The one he came up with.’
Joel was macerating greens in the blender. ‘Men are programmed for resistance,’ he said. ‘We’re terrible.’ The loud pneumatics of the Magimix temporarily stopped them from speaking. Frances watched the kale and spinach pulverising into what looked like the fluorescent lunar gloop infesting the Lunar Republic set. Frances had always found Joel’s assertiveness such a turn-on. ‘Of course he was psyching you out.’
‘But why?’
‘We smell it in the air. The vulnerability. The opportunity to misbehave.’
