Evolution Of A Woman

But for all her aches and pains, she was still excited to be on the road. She found herself looking at the passing scenery more than the highway ahead of her. She had traveled I-15 many times before on family trips and such, but it seemed like an entirely different journey this time. It was the first time in her life that she was moving out of her home state, Montana. She had just graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and was starting a new job in Santa Monica at a movie special effects company. Even though she was 30 years old, she felt like her life was just starting. It all seemed a little surreal. Hell, she never figured she would even live to see 30.

This long drive by herself had given Liz a lot of time to let her brain amuse her. There was the tape player in the van and the scenery, but other than that, it was pretty boring. And when Liz was bored, her mind wandered in all directions. Today it had wandered into the past, where she marveled at how much her life had changed over the past years.

The low point in her life had probably been her senior year in high school. She had gotten into a fight with her parents, who didn’t like her longhaired, unemployed biker boyfriend. She promptly showed them by moving with him to the big city of Billings, where they were going to make lots of money and live happily ever after. The reality was that they ended up living in a trailer park by the city dump, surviving off the $400 a month that her parents scraped together to send them. Her boyfriend managed to always have a good excuse for not having a job. Consequently, they ended up pawning everything she had that was worth anything. Tony’s only valuable possession was his guitar, which they couldn’t pawn because someday it would make them lots of money. To try and make ends meet, they frequently dumpster-dived to scrounge anything useable: clothing, cooking utensils, even parts of a broken display from behind K-mart to make a bookcase. Tony’s friend Carl moved in with them for a while, supporting the three of them by shoplifting food out of grocery stores. She had a flash of herself, taking a shower in their 20-year-old trailer, in March, with no heat in the house. She remembered her hair freezing in ropes as she tried to dry it. The vision sent chills down her spine.

Through all of this, Liz kept going to high school. Even now, she didn’t know how she managed to do that. Maybe even back then there was a grain of knowledge down deep that said how fucked up this way of living was, and the only way out of it was to get through school and graduate.

The following May she graduated, with honors no less. The ceremony was held in the civic center downtown, because her senior class was over 500 students. She remembered sitting in a folding chair, in the middle of that huge field house, surrounded by her classmates, and feeling totally alone. Later she always regretted doing her senior year in Billings instead of finishing school in her hometown, with her friends, some that she had known since kindergarten. Whenever she talked about it, she always referred to it as graduating with 500 strangers, with a noticeable amount of sadness in her voice. She had never made any friends at school in Billings.

A few weeks later, as the weather was getting warmer, a group of Tony’s friends, Tony, and Liz decided to float down the Yellowstone River. The river was muddy and fast, full of spring runoff. Being 18 and immortal, they decided to float it anyway. The rushing current had undercut the banks, and bushes and entire trees had fallen into the river. As the group waded into the water with their inner tubes, they had to paddle franticly to get out beyond one of those snags. Liz had managed to miss the top of the tree by about three feet, her arms aching with exhaustion. Unfortunately, one of the girls immediately behind her wasn’t so lucky, and was swept into the middle of the tree, throwing her off her inner tube, pulling her underwater and trapping her in the branches. Everyone that was in the water scrambled to land, and the group gathered at the bank by the downfall, unable to get to her because of the strength of the current. It took rescuers a week to recover her body.

Two weeks later, Liz and Tony split up. She had called her father up, looking for more rent money because they were about to be kicked out of their third place in six months. He said he would give her money if she moved into a place of her own. That small grain of knowledge must have poked up its head again, because somehow she gathered the courage to tell Tony this and say she was getting her own place. He took his guitar and left, stopping only to jump up and down on the hood and trunk of her Dodge Dart. Looking back on it, she realized just how much courage that took to go her own way. She had never lived on her own before, never held a job before, wouldn’t even drive in Billings. Whenever she needed to go somewhere, Tony drove them. She never had her own friends. Her friends were his friends. She never had a self before. She had always been an appendage of someone else. But she did it. Liz and Tony would proceed to get back together, break up, get back together, and break up again. And in between bouts with Tony, she would go out with an assortment of men just like Tony. It never dawned on her how screwed up her life was. She thought everyone lived this way, because it was all she had ever known, and she surrounded herself with similar people. So she just kept repeating her mistakes. She went to the vo-tech for a while, then moved back to her home town of Bozeman for a while, then moved back to Billings and went to the vo-tech for a while, then held a job for a while, then moved back to Bozeman for a while. She figured each time she moved that it would make her happy, but it never worked. She never understood that saying, “No matter where you go, there you are.” It was totally over her head.

Liz was always looking for something external to fill that empty space inside of her. And she never could find it. By the time she was 22, not much had changed. She had moved some more, held some more jobs, lived with some more guys, and gone to school some more, never finishing anything she started, but continuing to search.

Then her whole world got turned upside down. Her mother, who had struggled with alcoholism for as long as Liz had been alive, finally was persuaded to go to treatment. Liz went with her father to the treatment center, where they had a “family week”. Family members went to meetings, thinking they were going to discuss how sick the person in treatment was. They ended up finding out how sick they themselves were. This was the first ray of reality that got through the cocoon of denial around Liz. She began to realize how sick she really was, that not everyone had all this chaos and crisis in their lives. She felt like a plant that had been pulled out of its soil, its roots dangling in the air, the only world it had ever known ripped rudely away.

She began to go to counseling, to learn how to live life differently. It helped some, but she was still struggling to deal with life. Part of her problem was her denial over her own alcoholism. She always swore up and down that she would never become an alcoholic like her mother and grandmother. She assumed she had a choice in the matter, that it was just some moral flaw to be overcome with willpower. That belief stunted a lot of her growth. After about six months of laboring, her counselor suggested she go to treatment herself. It pissed her off that everyone was calling her an alcoholic, until it sunk into her brain that it wasn’t a putdown, it was just a disease, like being a diabetic. That knowledge helped her get past the majority of her problems and straighten out her life. Later on she was even able to laugh about the situation. Since she and her mom went to the same treatment center, they always joked about getting a family discount.

That was four years ago. Since then, she had slowly been getting her life together, learning to deal with life on life’s terms. She had always felt like she had been struggling her way upstream. Now she had learned to turn around and enjoy the ride that life gives you. She had been engaged when she went to treatment. When she got home, she tried to make the relationship work, but it unraveled on her. Looking back on it, she was glad, because it wasn’t a real healthy relationship. That was one step in the right direction. Another was to get a job and hold it for a while, instead of getting pissed off at everyone around her and taking off. That was fairly hard, but as she held different jobs, she discovered that she stayed longer and longer at each one. Another thing she did was go back to college, mainly just to see if she could actually finish something that she started. And she did. One semester early, as a matter of fact.

Her life now was the best it had ever been. It was hard to believe. She had managed to rack up quite a bit of debt in all her years of screwing off. Slowly she had paid it all off. Sometimes it felt like water eroding stone, but she finally had done it. She had of course gathered new debt with her student loans, but at her new job at CFX, she was going to be making twice as much as she ever had in her entire life. She was very careful when starting school to pick a major that, when she finished, she would be able to find a job making enough money to pay off her loans. She was very paranoid that she would finish school and make the same as before, only now having $40,000 worth of student loans to pay. So she was very careful to do as much research as possible to make sure she didn’t screw herself. She may have beat a dead horse about it a little, but she preferred that instead of jumping blindly into something, which had been her pattern in the past.

There were many other pieces of evidence that Liz’s life had improved. She was on speaking terms with all her ex-employers. When she did leave jobs, she left on good terms. She had many friends, her own friends. She lived in a clean apartment, and had lived in the same place for 3 years, which was a record for her. She paid her bills on time. She didn’t have to be afraid of who was calling her on the phone or knocking on her door. If she met someone on the street that she recognized, she didn’t feel that panic of trying to remember how she knew them, for example, if it was a man, trying to remember if she had slept with him some drunken night after the bars had closed. She had had that happen to her one time before she quit drinking, and it was a humiliating experience.

The largest piece of evidence of how her life had improved was how she felt on the inside. She now felt comfortable in her own skin. She could look at herself in the mirror and not feel ashamed. She could look people in the eye. She no longer had that empty space inside her that she had always tried to fill with external people, places, and things. She liked herself. And how she felt on the inside showed on the outside. She was happy. She smiled a lot. She enjoyed life, and didn’t take it too seriously. She would often tell jokes and strike up friendly conversations with complete strangers. Before, she had seriously considered suicide. Now she looked forward to life. She was a totally different person, and she liked who she was.

She also spent a lot of time going to local AA meetings. Everyone always talked in AA about when moving to a new area, hitting the meetings first to start meeting people and making new friends. It is never good for an alcoholic to isolate, and that was one of her patterns in the past. It would be too easy for her to just sit in her apartment for two weeks and do nothing. So she went out of her way to find as many AA meetings as she could, and start building up a new network of friends. She was happy to find that they were the same people that she left behind in Montana.

When she started her job at CFX, being freshly out of college, she began on the bottom rung. That was fine with her. She was happy just to be in the business, in that atmosphere of high-end computer graphics. It was fun creating something that people would believe in out of a bunch of ones and zeros. So she spent a lot of her time in a cubicle, punching code, creating software. She took every opportunity to learn something new, work her way up. She figured if she showed enough energy and interest in learning that they would promote her. And it worked.

One of the project supervisors, Bob McCleary, approached her one day about being on his team for an upcoming movie. They would be flying out to the location of the shoot in about three weeks. It was a simple project, not much in the way of special effects, so it was a good job for her to cut her teeth on. It was still grunt work; she wouldn’t be much more than a gopher, but she would be a gopher on the set.

She asked him where the location was, visions of Egypt and Europe dancing in her head.
“The part that we’re involved in is being shot in Montana,” Bob answered. He gave her a puzzled look when her jaw hit the floor.
“What?” he asked.
She shut her mouth, then grinned. “Are you kidding? I’m from there!”
Bob looked at her blandly. Her grin faded a little.
“Is it a problem that I’m from there?”
“No, I don’t care where you’re from. Just do the job that we ask you to, and you’ll be fine.”
“No problem!” she replied.

For the next three weeks, she, Bob, and the two other members of their crew, Chris Howard and Jamie Vega, reviewed the project. Chris and Jamie had been on a couple shoots before, so they knew most of the procedures. Bob had been in the business a long time, and was an old hand at this. Sometimes Liz felt like she was learning so much that her brains were going to leak out her ears. But when she went home every night, she went home with a grin on her face.

The four of them grabbed their luggage, then picked up the keys to their two rental vans at the counters. And wonder of wonders, all of their equipment was there, waiting to be claimed. They filled the two vans with everything, then Bob and Liz jumped into one van, and Jamie and Chris got into the other. They drove the 30 miles over the pass to Livingston, Bob leading the way. The shoots were going to be outside of Livingston, so the special effects crew had rented a four-bedroom house in town. Bob noted in passing that all of the actors and other crews were also staying in town.

Forty-five minutes later they were pulling into the driveway of an old bungalow type home in the middle of town. It took the four of them the rest of the afternoon to unpack and check all the items, making sure all the fragile computer equipment had survived the flight. By the time evening fell, they had had a pizza delivered, eaten, and were ready to start their jobs the next morning on location. Liz hardly slept a wink that night.

The van eventually left the highway for a well-groomed dirt road (after only a few wrong turns by Bob), which dissolved into a private driveway to a ranch where many of the shoots were supposed to take place. They drove past the main house, a typical turn-of-the-century ranch home, through an open gate, and followed a trail up into the hills. By the time they pulled into the make-shift parking lot, Liz could see the group of people and equipment gathered at the top of the rolling hill. It reminded her of an anthill that had recently been kicked. There were people going in all directions, some carrying lights, some carrying cameras, some just running. It looked like chaos, but she supposed it was an orderly chaos. Liz, Chris and Jamie got out of the van and started pulling out their own equipment, while Bob hiked up the hill to the director. Liz assumed he was the director. He was the man waving his arms the most.

It took the four of them a couple hours to set up their computers and other equipment, as well as confer with the director and all the actors about the scenes to be shot. Liz took orders from everyone, ran errands, and moved items from one place to the next, until everyone was satisfied. She was beginning to wonder if there weren’t too many cooks in this kitchen. She had moved the same camera back and forth three times before everyone could come to an agreement. She was breaking a sweat. “Who needs aerobics?” she muttered to herself. However, it was still a goodnatured complaint. She did it more because it was expected of her, not because she was unhappy. You’re supposed to bitch when you are doing manual labor.

Liz had a free moment, so she bent over and touched her toes, relaxing her back muscles and listening to her spine crackle. She was just beginning to enjoy it, when she heard someone speak up behind her. “Excuse me,” the voice said. She stood up too quickly and the world spun a little. She waited a moment for her head to clear. Liz felt a little embarrassed being caught off guard. She turned around and saw a man smiling at her. He was much taller than her, and very good-looking. He was obviously in costume, because he was dressed in black flowing robes and had tattoos across his cheeks and forehead. “Hi,” she replied, smiling a little. “Sorry, you caught me slacking off. I’m Liz, by the way.” She held out her hand to be shook. He was a little taken aback by her friendliness and casual demeanor at first, but then his smile broadened and he took her hand. Liz noted that he had a very nice smile. Cute dimples under all that makeup. “My name is Oded,” he replied, and let go of her hand. “You work for Bob, right?”
“That’s right. What did you need?”
“Well, I had a question for him, but I didn’t see him around. Do you know where he went?”
Liz looked around the area with a little surprise. “No, actually I don’t. He was just here a minute ago…”
Oded had followed her gaze around, then turned back to her. “Can you answer it?”
Liz laughed. “I’m not much more than a glorified gopher. I can give you an answer, but no guarantee that it’s the right one.” Her comment startled a laugh out of him.
“Well, from what I understand, I’m supposed to go running along the top of the hill.” They both turned to look the length of the hilltop. “There will be a big prehistoric bird flying through the air above me that your company is going to put in later digitally. It’s going to dive down, and it knocks me to the ground, right? So where exactly am I supposed to fall down? Are you going to have markers or something for me to follow?” About halfway through his questions, Liz started to chuckle. He looked at her with a crooked smile. “I’m sorry,” she said, covering up her own smile with her hand. “This is all just a little surreal for me yet.”
“What is, the tattoos on my face or the large imaginary prehistoric bird?” This time she laughed out loud.
“All of it! I’ve only been at this job for about six months, and this is the first time I’ve been on a set. I feel a little bit out of my element.”
“Well, forgive me for saying so, but you do seem a little different than everyone else around here.” She looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “In a good way,” he added, touching her shoulder lightly with his hand. “You never can tell what people are thinking in this business. It seems like everyone has got an agenda. It’s not all bad, but it does take some getting used to. I’ve only been doing this for about a year or so myself, so I’m still trying to figure it all out.” He paused. “But you seem pretty genuine.”

“Thank you. I like to pride myself on being honest, but I can also be brutally honest, if I’m not careful. But I’ll keep the agenda thing in mind.” There was an awkward pause between them. “Anyway,” she said, maybe a little too loudly. “I can’t answer your question. Sorry. I would think we would set up some markers for you, but that’s just an assumption on my part. You’ll have to track down Bob.”

“Ok, then, I guess I will. At least you didn’t just throw an answer at me,” Oded said, smiling. Liz laughed. “I was being polite. I am known for giving bullshit answers quite often. Just be warned the next time you ask me something.” He returned her laugh. They paused. “Well, it was nice meeting you.” He touched her hand briefly again. “Hopefully I will talk to you later,” he said.
“Nice meeting you, too,” she replied as he walked away.

“Sure. By the way, one of the actors, Oded, was looking for you. Did he find you?” Bob began to make adjustments to the camera that was set up next to him. “Yeah,” he replied without looking at her. She shrugged at his aloofness, blowing it off. She was beginning to realize that most people from big cities were like that, and that it was nothing personal, so it didn’t bother her too much.

A while later everyone on the set had their ducks in a row and were ready to shoot. Liz stood on the sidelines and watched all the people do their little parts. It was very interesting to her. She enjoyed people-watching, seeing how one person interacted with another, and how people interpreted and communicated with each other. However, she found herself watching the man that introduced himself to her, Oded, the most. He seemed to draw her attention. He was very charismatic in his acting, and his persona tended to overshadow all the other players in the scene. She saw that he put a lot of effort into his acting. She could tell he was fairly new at this, because he didn’t always hit his cues or was a little off, but his potential was very evident. Off camera, he asked questions and advice, making the best of what he did. Liz didn’t consider herself an experienced movie critic, but she did believe that this man loved his job, was very talented, and was out to make his mark on the world in a big way. One time, while she was watching him, he looked over at her and caught her watching. He smiled that attractive smile again, then turned back to the woman he was talking to, pointing to the open script in his hand. She found herself blushing, which annoyed the hell out of her. She hated to blush, but because of her complexion, it didn’t take much to turn her cheeks red. Everyone told her what a beautiful complexion she had, but to her it just meant that she couldn’t lie worth shit.

However, she continued to watch him. She found herself physically attracted to him, which didn’t surprise her too much. His long, dark, wavy hair was swept back from his brow. He had a moustache and goatee, which seemed to be a popular trend, but he added an exotic twist to it by having his beard trimmed to a fine line that ran from his sideburns to his goatee, shadowing his jawline and accentuating it. But it was his eyes that caught her attention most of all. He had deep, dark eyes that were very expressive. When he was shooting an intense scene, Liz noticed that his eyes almost snapped with electricity. She thought it was that more than anything that impressed her about his acting. When he had that look, it knocked her back two steps.

That day was a long day. It was late June in Montana, so it didn’t get dark until about 10:00pm. The director wanted to make the most of their time, so everyone on the set ended up working at least a 12 hour day. Liz was exhausted. Her day was filled with bursts of physical labor, moving equipment and running up and down the hill to the vehicles and trailers. By the time the sun was starting to set, the director decided to call it a day. Liz and the rest of the special effects crew packed up all their equipment, lugged it back down the hill, and threw it into their rental van.

It was fully dark by the time they got back to their bungalow. Liz promptly took a hot bath, grabbed something to eat, and collapsed into bed.

Several times during that week, she found herself watching Oded, and a couple times he came over to talk to her, asking her questions that she thought someone else was perfectly capable of answering. The attention was flattering, but it also made her very nervous. She felt the little sparks of electricity that seemed to pass between them. And something between them had clicked. Ever since moving to LA and taking this job, everyone she met she seemed a little awkward around. There was a rhythm to language, and it seemed like she was just on a different beat than everyone else. When she would talk about something or tell a joke, they didn’t seem to get it. She chalked it up to the difference between big city people and herself, a small town woman. But she didn’t feel that awkwardness between her and Oded. They immediately fell into the same rhythm. And that was what made her nervous. When she was attracted to a man, it was usually a bad sign. Men tended to make her life complicated. The type of men she picked never helped, either. She hadn’t gone out with anyone in a long time, and most of the time she didn’t miss it. Her life was simple and serene right now, and she was always afraid of screwing it up. That was a pattern of hers in the past. If something is going too well, screw it up with a little chaos. So she was pretty leery of men. But Oded had caught her with her guard down. This was one of the few periods when she missed the aspects of a man in her life. She couldn’t decide if that period was loneliness or just her looking for chaos. These thoughts had been on her mind all week, because she was afraid one of these days Oded might ask her out, and she was trying to figure out how to deal with it. She was still trying to figure out what to do when that moment arrived.

It was the end of shooting on Friday. Liz and the special effects crew were once again packing all their equipment and loading it in their van. On one of her trips back up the hill, she noticed Oded walking toward her. He was still wearing his costume and makeup. His long stride made the bottom of his robes flare outwards. With that gait it didn’t take him long to reach her.
“Hello again, Liz,” he said.
“Hi Oded. How are you doing?” Outside she sounded cheerful, but inside she was in a panic.
“I’m fine. How about you?”
Liz put her hands in the small of her back and stretched. “Well, my butt is dragging but I have had a lot of fun.”
Oded laughed. “Yes, me too. It’s been a long week.”
There was an uncomfortable silence. Liz stood there, looking at Oded expectantly. “Well,” he said, and cleared his throat a little, “I was just wondering if you would like to go out to uh, dinner, or something.” He blushed a little and played with his watchband nervously. She still didn’t know what to do. So to give her some time to think, she played dumb.
“What, tonight?” she asked with a little sarcasm.
“No, not tonight,” Oded replied. “Tonight I am going to get out of this outfit, go home and go to bed. But maybe this weekend, since we get a couple days off.”
“Well good. Because tonight I am going to take a hot bath, get something to eat, then go to bed myself. I’m not used to all this physical labor. I’m used to sitting in a cubicle with my computer.” Her tone was brisk, but she smiled a little. She couldn’t help it. He smiled back, waiting for her answer. There was a bit of silence. Liz sighed.

“You noticed I danced around the question, huh?” Oded nodded, still smiling. Liz lowered her head and rubbed her temples, as if she had a headache. Christ, she thought to herself. It’s just a date. It’s not like I have to marry him. Quit overanalyzing things! This is not that big of a deal. Liz blew out her held breath and gave in. “Oh, alright. I guess I can do this.”

She looked up and saw the hurt look in his eyes. It took her a second, then she realized how that sounded. “Oh, shit, Oded. I’m sorry,” she exclaimed. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like that.”
“You know, if you don’t want to go out, you can just say so. It’s ok.”

Normally a remark like this would send up a red flag for her, because a remark like that would be reeking of martyrdom and manipulation. Instinctually her ire got up, then she realized that he wasn’t being a martyr, he was just stating a fact. He would live, whether she accepted or declined his offer. She admired that, but she still felt like an ass for hurting his feelings, and tried to explain herself.

“No, I’m really sorry. I would like to go out to dinner. It’s just that it’s been a long time since I’ve gone out, and, well, I’m a little rusty, and, you see…” She stopped. “Oh, God, it’s a long story and it has nothing to do with you, it’s me, really. I would enjoy going out. Really.” She realized she was stumbling over her words, but she felt so bad that she was powerless to stop. She hated to hurt people. Oded seemed to pick up on how badly she felt and relaxed.

“Ok, then. How about I come pick you up around 6 o’clock on Saturday, and we’ll figure out a place to go?” he asked.
“That sounds good. If I give you directions, can you find my house?”
Oded gave that crooked grin again. “Come on, this is a small town! I think I can do this without getting too lost.”
“Ok,” Liz replied, holding her hands up and smiling. She then quickly went through her pants pockets. “I don’t have any paper on me. Come down to the van with me. There’s some in there, I think.”

They turned and walked to the special effects crew’s van. Bob, Jamie, and Chris were still up on the hill packing up equipment. After some digging, Liz found some paper and a pen. She sketched out quick directions to her place and gave them to Oded.
“Six o’clock tomorrow evening,” she reiterated.
“No problem.”
“Is this going to be casual or formal?”
“In Montana? I think everything is casual here, isn’t it?”
Liz could have zinged him by remarking that she was from Montana, but for once decided to bite her tongue. She had already stuck her foot in her mouth once today, and once was enough. She just nodded in agreement and smiled instead.

Liz used the toilet, put in her contacts, brushed her hair carelessly, and went into the kitchen, where Bob, Jamie, and Chris were sitting around the kitchen table, waiting for the coffee maker to be done. They all mumbled good mornings to her.

Chris reached for his lighter, a cigarette in his hand. As Liz sat down at the table, she said, “Hey, Chris, do you mind doing that outside? I would really appreciate it.” Her contacts soaked up cigarette smoke something terrible. She had already explained this to him a couple times that week and asked if he would mind smoking outside, but he seemed awfully forgetful. She didn’t know if it was intentional or not. But like most smokers anymore, Chris didn’t let her request bother him. Or at least didn’t show it.
“Oh, sure, Liz. I keep forgetting.”
“Thanks.”
He picked up his lighter and pack of cigarettes and went out the back door, where there was a small patio.

There was silence in the kitchen for a while, except for the perking and spitting of the coffee maker. Everyone appeared to be still half asleep. When the coffee maker was done, all three of them grabbed a cup from the cupboard and helped themselves. They all doctored their drinks whichever way suited them, then sat down at the table again. There was a moment of silence. Liz took a cautious sip of her coffee. Suddenly Jamie asked, “So, are you and Oded going out on a date?” Liz coughed as her coffee went down sideways.
After she got her composure, she asked, “Excuse me?”
He smiled, maybe a little evily. “Come on, you think this is the first time romance has started on the set? It happens every time. The only question is who’s it gonna be.”
Liz got defensive. “You know, I really don’t feel comfortable talking about this. That is a little personal.”

Jamie opened his mouth to add fuel to the fire.
“Jamie,” Bob warned. “Don’t go there.” Jamie looked at him, with that evil look still in his eye. “Let’s not start a war, alright? Whether or not they have a thing going, I’m sure neither of them will let it interfere with work, right?” Bob said, looking directly at Liz.
“Right,” Liz replied. She realized what she was admitting, and added hastily, “If we were having a ‘thing’.” Neither Bob nor Jamie looked convinced by that added remark.
“The important thing is the job at hand, because there is a lot of time and money involved, even if it is a low-budget project.” Liz nodded.
Jamie turned his evil smile on Bob. “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to crack a smile once in a while, cut loose, have a little fun.”
With a deadpan look on his face, Bob replied, “Cutting loose is not in my contract.” He paused. “Unless it is to cut an employee loose.” Then he returned Jamie’s evil smile. Jamie’s smile dropped off his face. Liz thought that maybe Bob did have a sense of humor, it was just a little too dry for Jamie to catch. She bit her lip to hide her own smile.

The four of them spent the rest of Saturday getting on each other’s nerves. Jamie and Chris paced around the house, bored out of their minds and bitching about how there was nothing to do in these backwater locations. She had tried to strike up conversations with them days before and discovered that this bunch didn’t want to talk about themselves, so she knew that they didn’t realize she was from this area. She just bit her lip to keep a sarcastic remark from jumping out. Bob sat around with his laptop, working. He was probably 10 to15 years older than Liz, Jamie, and Chris, and was used to working on location. He had managed to find something to pass the time.

But Liz found herself going a little stir crazy as well. She called her mother, who lived in the area. Liz had called her when she got into town, but had been working so late during the week that she hadn’t had time to talk to her since. So they chatted on the phone for quite a while, catching up on the last six months. Liz promised to come visit her the next day.

When she got off the phone, she discovered she was still bored. She sat in front of the TV for a while, flipping through the channels. That didn’t do anything for her, so she went in her bedroom and read a book for a while, hoping to take a nap. There she discovered that not only was she bored, she was getting nervous. Oded kept popping into her head at odd moments. That was not condusive to sleep.

Laying on her back on her bed, her book forgotten, she also discovered that there was a lot of other things going on in her head. She was surprised to find that she was scared to death. She didn’t know if she was scared of him, or scared of herself. Probably both. She rolled over onto her left side. She thought of calling him and cancelling, then realized she didn’t have his number. That put her in a panic. She sat up. She was committed, whether she liked it or not. Groaning, she flopped onto her back again. She tried to compare Oded to previous guys she had dated. However, she couldn’t seem to get any sort of perspective on it. She hadn’t dated anyone since before she got sober. So most of the guys she dated she picked up in a bar. She had also gone out with guys she worked with, which had created real soap opera results. She had a flash of herself and a married man she had been having an affair with, having sex on the desk in the manager’s office in the basement of a Sears auto service center. Sex among the tires. She definitely did not need to do that again.

She thought that maybe a lot of her fear was based on the fact that she was afraid of losing herself in a relationship again, becoming just another appendage. Whether Oded was a good guy or a total asshole, she didn’t trust herself to not get absorbed in the relationship. She liked having a self, her own likes and dislikes, her own friends, her own life. She was afraid that she would throw it all out the window for a man. Liz realized she wasn’t getting anywhere with these thoughts going around in her head, and tried to get some sort of control on the situation. Her counselor had taught her a trick to do when she was facing a dilemma, or what she thought was a dilemma. She mentally brought up a sheet divided into two columns, a pro column and a con column. Fact #1: Oded was very good-looking. That definitely went in the pro column. On the other hand, she had had a habit of going out with good-looking guys, and it always ended up in disaster. She found that the looks were about all there were to them. Other than that, they were either fairly dull or self-absorbed. They also tended to take things for granted. So the fact that he was good-looking could also go in the con column. Liz rolled over to her right side. Fact #2: He had some sort of a funny accent, so he was definitely not from where she was from, and probably not even from the U.S. What could she have in common with someone who didn’t have the same background? That went into the con column. She rolled onto her back, her hands clasped across her stomach, thumbs twitching. Fact #3: He was an actor. That was a large red flag. She didn’t really know any actors yet, but most of them had a reputation for being conceited, or overbearing, or addicted to some substance. She definitely didn’t need that. She put that in the con column, not realizing how judgemental her thoughts were. Fact #4: On the other hand, he seemed to understand what she was saying, and get her off-beat jokes. She put that fact in the pro column, reluctantly. Her reluctancy made her realize that she was tearing him down. She sat up, scrubbing her face vigorously with her hands, as if to scrub these racing thoughts from her brain. “Oh, fuck,” she moaned to herself. “This is not working.” She finally decided on an old standard: if all else fails, say the Serenity Prayer and let it go. She obviously wasn’t handling this whole situation very well, so let it go and let God handle it. So she mumbled the prayer to herself.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Then she said it again. And again. And a few more times. After she repeated it half a dozen times, she felt her shoulders start to loosen a little and realized that it was working. Her mind wasn’t racing nearly as bad as it was before.

She also realized how big of a deal this date had gotten to be to her. It didn’t need to be that big. It was just a date. If she found that she was attracted to him for the wrong reasons, she would have to trust herself that she would have enough knowledge and self-esteem to nip it in the bud. And she thought she could do that. It might be awkward, with them both working on the same location, but it was ok. She could be adult about this, and hopefully he could too. Feeling a bit calmer, Liz got up off her bed and went back out to the living room to flip through the TV channels and wait for 6 o’clock.

By the time Liz had to start getting ready for her dinner date with Oded, Chris and Jamie had gotten out of their showers and the water heater had had time to recoup. Bob had come back in from the patio and was watching the local news on the TV. He had turned down Chris and Jamie’s offer as well, saying he was going to stay at the house and enjoy the peace and quiet. Liz was just gathering her shower items and headed for the bathroom when Chris and Jamie left.

After she got out of the shower, she went into her bedroom to figure out what to wear and let the bathroom de-fog a little. She was chagrined to find herself unable to decide on what to wear. The knots in her stomach and her shoulders were back, no matter how many times she said the serenity prayer. She had already decided earlier that she was going to suggest a certain restaurant that she liked to Oded. It was a place famous for its steaks, and she hadn’t had a good steak since leaving Montana. It was also pretty casual and not trendy at all. It was about the lowest-stress place she could think of to go. She didn’t need any more stress than she had already heaped upon herself. But she still couldn’t decide on what to wear.

She pulled out everything in her closet. Unfortunately, when packing back in LA, she hadn’t expected to be going out on any dates, so she only packed work clothes and a few other items. She had left her outfits that she felt the most attractive in back home. Then it dawned on her that he had only seen her in her work clothes, and sweaty and somewhat dirty to boot, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. But she still wanted to impress him. “Oh, fuck it,” she mumbled to herself. She picked out her newest pair of jeans and a short sleeved summer sweater that she had thrown in her luggage at the last minute. She dug out a pair of loafers that weren’t too badly scuffed and called it good. She then went back into the bathroom and spent a great deal of time getting her makeup and hair ready. She finally quit, as it was as good as it was going to get. Eventually everything turned out the way she wanted, and she had fortunately thrown in her favorite perfume, which always made her feel more attractive.

By the time she was ready to go, she was starting to feel more confident. Liz kept giving herself pep talks and saying the serenity prayer, trying not to climb the walls. It was getting close to 6 o’clock, so she grabbed her purse and went out to the living room, where Bob was still sitting. The windows in the living room looked out over the street, so Liz could see when Oded pulled up. She wanted to be up and out of there as soon as she saw him. The silence in the living room was killing her. Bob just kept watching the TV as Liz sat on the edge of a recliner, her knee twitching nervously.

Liz kept looking at her watch. First it was 5 minutes after 6, then ten. She began to get all sorts of paranoid thoughts, him changing his mind and standing her up being at the top of the list. Bob occasionally glanced at her, observing her bouncing knee, but didn’t say anything. Liz was about to scream.

Finally, at quarter after 6, a tan Audi pulled up in front of their house. Liz could see inside the car, and saw all that dark hair, knowing it was Oded. She sprang out of the recliner, threw her purse over her shoulder, and almost ran for the door. “See ya, Bob!” she said over her shoulder. Bob just waved, but by then the front door was already slamming shut behind her.

Liz bounded down the front walkway toward the Audi. Oded was halfway out of the car when he saw her coming up. “I was going to come get you,” he said. “That’s alright,” she replied. By now she was at the passenger door. “Let’s just get out of here.” Oded shrugged, got back in the car, and unlocked the passenger door for her. She opened the door and fell into the seat.

“Are we in a hurry?” he asked, looking at her. Liz took a deep breath and looked at him. Then she let out her breath. “No, I’m sorry. The guys have just been giving me a bad time about going out.” She jerked a thumb back at the house. “I’d kind of like to keep this on the Q.T., if you don’t mind.”
“That’s fine with me, but I don’t know how realistic that is.”
“Yes, I know, let’s just not add any fuel to the fire, ok?”
“Ok.” Oded paused for a moment. “Sorry I’m late.” He looked a little chagrined. “I got lost.”
She looked at him without saying anything. “Somehow I took a wrong turn, and before I knew it I was on the interstate. I don’t know how that happened. The streets aren’t marked very well around here, I have discovered that. Anyway, now that I’m here, do you have any ideas on where we should go for dinner?”
“Actually, there’s a steak place on Main that is really good. I wouldn’t mind going there, if that works for you.”
“That sounds good. How do you know about it?” Liz smiled, relishing the moment of zinging him maybe a little too much.
“I’m from here,” she replied.
Oded looked at her with a raised eyebrow. God, she couldn’t get used to his good looks.
“Excuse me?” he asked. “Where here?”
“Actually, I grew up just over the hill, as us locals say, in Bozeman.” She pointed west.
Oded thought about it a minute. “And you didn’t say anything when I made the crack about casual in Montana yesterday?” Liz just smiled. He cringed a little. “Or that remark about getting lost in a small town? You were just going to let me keep digging a hole?” Liz kept smiling. He looked at her a little while longer, then finally broke into a grin. He put the car in drive and pulled out onto the street. “You are kind of cruel, you know that?”
Liz laughed. “I know, but some things are just a little too much fun to resist.”
“Ok, local, so how do we get to this restaurant?”
She grinned at Oded again. “Well, first of all, you’ll have to turn around, because you’re going the wrong way.”
Oded threw her a dirty look, then flipped a u-turn at the next intersection.