Julie

It was the end of a bitch of a day.

Daniel had left the alternate script in Petra's office, I wanted to twist his head off and make him feel like the corpse he would be if his mistake was discovered.

"no doofus, tomorrow we're going with the coffee cup ending" I hoped my verbal assault was enough to make him keep his shit together for the next time he'd think about screwing up.

"Ok Jed, I messed up..."

He looked despondent, maybe I'd gone too far.

"Don't worry, I'll head over there and see if I can get Petra's PA to make us a dozen copies for the AM."

I pointed at arbitrary B-list star's trailer and looked Daniel in the eye.

"yeah, I know, I don't get it either" He looked even more nervous.

Arbitrary B-lister was in his trailer and hadn't surfaced in an hour, he needed to be out of there and last time I passed the front door I heard vomit noises coming from within.

"Get Sandy to wake him up or we're going to be paying a butt load of overtime to all these hacks"

"Ok Jed, got it"

"He has to go home, you got it? - get Sandy, ok?"

"Ok Jed, I got it"

I blindly turned away from him and headed over to Petra's office, Petra who would take a chainsaw to me if she found out just how my guy had destroyed two hours of production work. On the other hand, she can have her chainsaw fun, but in all fairness I kind of liked what came out of the screw-up even though most of us were confused, you know, art out of madness. Daniel was an accidental genius.

Stupid interns.

Or genius interns.

Daniel was a screw-up, but what he put together for us laid the seeds for something great that unfortunately due to guidelines, restrictions and union rules would never be seen.

I walked across the lot.

The proximity alert was way too late as I rounded a corner and bounced off someone. She recovered quickly, 5'9, slender blonde with her pixie like face done up like she was going on some audition, which she probably was.

Julie?

Her eyes were the same color as mine.

Her hair was perfect.

The collision bounce was timid and we'd reacted quickly. Even after the recovery I still felt my hand brushing against hers, like we'd been elastically connected all along. Quite unconsciously I looked down over her white lycra-cotton tank top and felt the way it contoured under, around, and over her small breasts. Tracing up, the crew neck revealed she'd been tanning her shoulders, her collar bones defining the start of her neck.

I knew her, or at least I remember her.

Julie.

Sigh, Julie the one that tormented me, my best friend forever.

Her pointy chin was the ledge that supported her thin lips. She was cute, but not classically beautiful. Her nostrils were maybe a little too large.

Her eyes were a gorgeous shade of blue, like the Mediterranean in July.

The collision was over, we'd bounced, but we were not recoiling. We had both rescinded the retreat order and held the closeness. She recognized me just as I recognized her, and at the start of that first breath after the faux disaster there were only two people in world that were in this moment with this level of return.

We stared into each others eyes remembering fifteen years ago, or was it twelve, or did she count to parties we'd strayed into and make it four? We lost touch, I turned into more of an asshole, and she got married or something.

She always had a damn boyfriend.

I realized I was holding my breath and my heart was beating a million beats to the sound of some yet undiscovered African tribal war drums.

The corners of her mouth subtly turned up, and her teeth appeared. Her eyes refreshed and the brightness inside upped the intensity.

I breathed out and she followed.

Quietly and with no sense of anxiousness she opened her mouth.

"Hi, how are you?"

I clenched my teeth and then returned her smile. I took another breath and held her gaze. I tried to remember the last time Julie and I had shared a moment or a space.

"Fine...", I held the sentence in mid-air and the next half a second reminded me that we'd never had anything, but often and for a long time I'd wanted more from her.

"How are you?"

She gave me her knowing smile.

"Fine"

We stood for another minute in silence, and I'm sure she had a million things to say but as surely I was, she was standing there before me drinking in my presence in a way that I'd never seen her do before.

I knew her.

I knew her very well.

She knew me.

We'd experimented with tequila before.

She had aligned my first row of coke.

Julie was here, so much time had passed and I'd put her to back room of my mind and she was the first element in my back room that refused to be put away. I'd ignored her memory out of necessity for so long, it was just the way things were.

Her smile turned to a grin and she raised and eyebrow and motioned with her head to follow her, and I did.