Page 95 of Friends with Benefits

“Tyler?” Each student is wearing a sticker with their first name, last initial, and pronouns. “Can you explain what Foley is? For anyone who might not know?”

“Sound effects,” Tyler says simply.

Annabelle, a kid with chipped pink nail polish and a wrist full of friendship bracelets, raises her hand and adds, “They’re sound effects that are recorded live and added during post.”

During post.

These children.

“Postproduction,” Evie clarifies for the few scrunched expressions of the nonindustry kids, then asks a few follow-up questions that confirm most of Theo’s students do, in fact, have a basic understanding of what her job is and how it works. It’s impressive. One student, Jeremiah, says it kind of sounds like ADR for the not-dialogue sounds. Evie needs to know how Jeremiah knows what ADR is. She didn’t learn the industry term for dubbing until college.

His answer?

“I was in a Disneyland commercial when I was a kid.”

“Tell usone more time, Jeremiah.”

“Mrs. Theodore literally asked!”

“Jeremiah!” Annabelle gasps in unison with Sierra and Kaia, the two other girls at her table.

“That’s so patriarchy of you,” Sierra says.

Kaia crosses her arms. “Yeah. She has a name, turd breath.”

“Kaia.” Theo’s voice is gentle but stern. Evie knows she’s not cut out to work with children because she’s trying not to laugh. “You cannot call Jeremiahturd breath.”

“Can I call him sexist?”

His eyes shift from Kaia to Jeremiah. “If he continues to call Ms. Bloom Mrs. Theodore? Yes.”

“Evie works, too,” Evie adds.

Jeremiah’s cheeks are pink. “Sorry, Ms. Evie.”

“We’re cool, Jeremiah.”

Evie pivots from the original presentation (as it would be insulting to these kids) and jumps straight to the first activity. She asks everyone to split into groups of three. It almost breaks them. “Six groups of three. One group of four,” Theo chimes in from behind his desk, preventing the minor catastrophe that nearly occurred because twenty-two isn’t divisible by three. Her eyes flicker toward the sound of his voice, then linger while he pushes the sleeves of his sweater up to his elbows.

She blinks.

Directs her attention back to the students. “WhatIlove about Foley is that it’s a sort of magic trick. This box”—Evie places the prop box on her lap—“is full of household objects that we use to reproduce various sounds. You’re going to use them today to create your own sound effects. But first, we’re going to start with a quick activity to warm up our ears…”

It’s a simple exercise.

Everyone will close their eyes.

Evie will make a sound using objects in the box.

Then the kids will write down what they heard and their minds will be blown over and over again when the object that’s the source of the sound is revealed. So simple. Evie starts with an easy example to build confidence. Begins by dropping a set of keys onto a tile surface. Six of the seven groups write down variations ofshattering, broken glass,etcetera. But the seventh group? Milo, Jeremiah, and Tyler? They answerkeys falling on the floor, ruining the reveal. Evie assumes it’s a fluke. Maybe she slightly jingled the keys before dropping them. Or someone in that group has alien ears. Except it happens again. And again.

Umbrella.

Gloves.

Rice on a cookie sheet.

It’s the specificity of that last one that sends the classroom into chaos.

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