But he had definitely earned back my desire.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The weeks seemed to fly by. Between class, work, and the movie, I was the busiest I had ever been. More than that, I was the happiest, and I looked forward to every hour I spent shooting the movie, interviewing people, and editing the footage with Noah. In just three weeks, we shot ten hours of interviews with Miss H, plus another ten split between a few of her life long acquaintances. I had gone through and catalogued hundreds of photographs, plus loose pieces of paper, ticket stubs, Playbills, and other souvenirs from her years in show business.
I kept my distance when I was around him, but only with a lot of effort. He was magnetic, the way he effortlessly made me laugh and made my heart pound with excitement. Noah had come back to work at the theater two weeks after we started the movie, and we were around each other more or less all day every day, minus class time.
Even Chris began to come around on him. She was skeptical, but he showed no signs of flaking out again, and things were healthier than ever between us. She wasn’t happy about it, but she eventually stopped asking if I knew what I was doing and accepted that he would be around.
But things couldn’t keep going that way, even if I wanted them to.
I looked over his shoulder at Miss H’s smiling face as he replayed the same clip over and over again, frowning.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“I don’t know, the cut seems too abrupt.”
He played the clip for me, which featured a long panning shot of a photograph of Miss H as a young child. The shot cut to the primary interview with her, smiling and saying something about her mother. I had to admit, it looked a lot like a Ken Burns documentary, which was what we were going for.
I shrugged. “Seemed okay to me.”
He gave me a look. “Maybe to the untrained eye.”
“Don’t start with me.”
I collapsed into a heavily padded black armchair and crossed one leg underneath me. Noah bit his lip, which was a look that I knew meant he was frustrated. It was one of my favorite looks of his, one among the many of the enigmatic Noah Carterson. I looked around at the room and shook my head, still amazed at how strange it felt to be in his apartment for the first time.
He lived a few blocks to the north of campus, but still close to the athletic fields, in a totally renovated brick-fronted building. His place was a duplex, with two bedrooms upstairs, and a kitchen and a living room downstairs. His whole first floor was the size of my entire apartment, not to mention it was all modern architecture and clean lines, plus brand new stainless steel appliances. It was comfortably furnished but still tasteful, and when I asked him about it, he laughed and admitted that he had a decorator.
We were working in his second bedroom, which he had converted into an office with a nice, large black desk, multiple expensive computers and monitors, plus a nice leather couch and the armchair I was sitting on. Usually we met in the computer center on campus, but it had been packed earlier, and we decided just to work at his place.
And I’m glad we did. I was learning so much about him just by being around his stuff. Apparently, he had a thing for the movie Blade Runner, based on the huge poster on the wall. There were a few pictures from his childhood scattered around the place, too, which I had never seen before. I wanted to explore his place so badly, but I didn’t want to violate his privacy, either.
“This isn’t happening,” he grunted, frustrated.
“We’ve been at it for two hours, maybe we should take a break.”
He swiveled around in his chair and looked at me, sighing. “Yeah, okay. Break time. Shall we adjoin to the bedroom?”
I grinned. “No thanks. How about you ply me with alcohol instead.”
“Gladly.”
He stood and walked toward the door, and I followed. We descended down his spiral staircase onto the first floor, and he walked into the kitchen. I followed, softly padding along his hardwood floors. He pulled out two wine glasses and grabbed a bottle of red from a full wine rack mounted on the wall. He popped the cork, poured two glasses, and held his up for a toast.
“To making movies,” he said.
I clinked his glass and we drank. It was really good wine, surprisingly delicious, especially considering I was more of a white wine girl.
“I’m surprised that toast was so tame,” I said.
He shrugged. “After a glass or two, it’ll get dirtier.” I gave him a look and he smiled, sheepishly. “I’m just kidding, I’m not getting wasted.”
I sighed and shrugged. “How long have you been here?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Since freshman year. My dad more or less forced me into this place when I first moved out here.”