“Hey,” she said as she approached.
He wrenched his mind from the past and focused on the present. Maya stopped at the porch stairs and held out her tablet.
“I brought over a copy of that video Mayor Marsha mentioned. I thought it would give you an idea of how I work.”
The video she’d claimed to know nothing about? Curious, he thought as he stood. Why had she pretended to be confused and why the change of heart? He thought about asking, then decided it was probably a chick thing and he was better off not knowing.
“Let’s take a look,” he said, and headed inside.
The cabin was simply furnished with an open floor plan. The kitchen and living room were up front with a half wall dividing the sleeping area from the rest of the cabin. The only separate area was the small three-quarter bath.
Del walked to the square dining table by the window and sat down. Maya handed him the tablet, but instead of sitting next to him, she hovered just behind his right shoulder.
“Just push the button,” she told him.
“Nervous?” he asked without turning to look at her.
“A little. It’s my work.”
Which implied it had significance to her. He got that but, “It’s not like my opinion is going to make a difference.”
“You’re the subject. Of course I care what you think.”
Good to know, he thought as he glanced at the screen.
The frozen picture showed him just after he’d jumped from an airplane. He pushed Play and the piece started.
It was about two or three minutes long with Maya providing the voice-over. The footage was all stock stuff, easily available on the internet. There were clips from other interviews he’d done while he’d still been involved in the sport and later, when he’d transitioned to entrepreneur.
When the video ended, he turned to look at her. “This wasn’t for your TV show.”
She gave him a nervous smile. “No. You were famous, but not that famous.” One shoulder rose and fell. “Unless we were talking about your love life. Then you made the show.”
“At the end,” he said absently, thinking that his relationship with Hyacinth—a world champion figure skater—had captured the media’s attention, if only on the periphery.
“I did some freelance work,” she added. “Pieces like this that could be used on local morning shows.”
He turned back to the tablet and tapped the screen to watch it again. This time he turned off the sound and studied the pictures. She’d taken ordinary shots and woven them together into something greater than the individual clips.
She was a good editor—better than good. He’d taken some video himself and tried to edit it, and the results had been dismal.
“Nice,” he said, pointing at the screen. “I like what you did here. You cropped the shot differently. Or something.”
She pulled up a chair and settled next to him. “You’re right. The action was great, but you weren’t at the center of the frame. I moved you as best I could. The line of sight is better, too.”