Page 5 of July Skies
Someone snorted. It was probably Wayne.
“What do you want me to do about the cars?” he pointed to the business vans, the old pickup trucks, and the beat-up compacts that typically littered these humble little towns. Granted, this was the first time they encountered a town where most of the trucks had gender-non-conforming lesbians hanging their arms out of the windows, but Dahlia thought that was part of the charm. “Are we doing backing shots or filler stock right now?”
“Stock.” Dahlia took a peek at the camera and nodded. “Good. Half trees and building. Half street. I want those cars ambling by. Every time we transition between topics and interviews, we better get a rippling view of small town life.”
“But gay, right?”
Dahlia narrowed her eyes at Wayne. How did he always read her mind so well? In another life, they would make good partners for a short-lived but rambunctious marriage. Except Wayne was a little younger than Dahlia liked. If she liked boyfriends at all, anyway.
There was a reason she had set aside a dating life to completely focus on her work. One of those reasons was seeing how quickly the guys on her crew devolved into all manner of roughhousing, like they were feral animals who couldn’t control their need to jump, claw, and sometimes bite each other on the shoulder. Dahlia wished she could say this was her first time ever seeing something like this. In actuality, it was about par for the course on every all-male crew she ever worked or hired.
These guys got bored, fast. Usually, filming in small towns meant they flirted with the locals and occasionally came out of it with a new short-term girlfriend. Not likely for that to happen here in Paradise Valley. If they tried flirting with any woman, they were likely to get shut down so quickly their balls would retract into their bodies.
Dahlia rather looked forward to seeing that.
Establishing shots of Main Street were completed by lunch of their third day in Paradise Valley. The sun had been the right amount ofoutthat she figured they might not have to come back on a rainier day to get other views. Wayne was keen to get some shots of city hall before they put up the stages and booths for Fourth of July. First, however, Dahlia suggested they get lunch at the café. It was either that or wait for the food truck to amble by, and God only knew how greasy that was.
They packed up the equipment into their van, ensured it was locked, and walked two minutes down Main Street to hit up Heaven’s Café for lunch. While Dahlia had assured her crew there would be plenty of opportunity to cook their own meals and save out-of-pocket money that way, she also couldn’t deny that sampling a town’s soul was eating where all the locals went.
For brunch and coffee, that place was Heaven’s. When Dahlia stopped by the day before, she wasn’t as enamored with the place as Karen might have expected. Yet that wasn’t because it offended her any. It was simply… predictable. Of course a town like this had their preferred, cozy café where everyone could get a decent latte and talk about the next Butch Ball in the fall. The corkboard was filled with local events, missing pets, and offers to teach guitar. The music was always soft or alternative rock, with the occasional classical tracks streaming across the stereo. The rotating artwork focused on either town life or lesbian attitudes. For every picture of downtown, there was another of a shapely woman highlighting her womb.
Yawn.
Now, a place like Frankie’s Deli wasreal.That was a woman hustling at a gig one could find in any town. Frankie didn’t concern herself with rainbow flags, community events, and the delicate tummies of the townspeople. She was busy slicing meat, making sandwiches, and keeping her shop clean. While Dahlia admitted there were an equal number of men in both locations, she definitely noticed a change in personalities. She wondered if it would be the same going from Wolf’s Hill Dive to Paradise Lost. Sure, there may be men in Paradise Lost, but were they anything like the guys at the other dive bar? That would be the kind of anthropological study to entertain Dahlia. If she had the time, anyway.
They sat at the front table by the window overlooking Main Street. The guys scoped out the menu while Dahlia stared at a photograph of Angela Davis hanging on the other wall. Two seconds later, she pulled up the demographic statistics she had on hand for Paradise Valley and confirmed some of her latent suspicions.
“You ever notice something about Oregon?” she asked the guys when they were quiet enough to listen.
Wayne looked up from the two-sided menu. “It’s rainy?”
“It’s got beavers on everything?” Aaron chided.
Kurt, who usually kept to himself, added, “You can drive for seven hours in any direction and still be in Oregon?”
“I mean about the people.”
They glanced around the café, as if that would solve the riddle. “If we’re talking stereotypes,” Wayne began, “we can either go with passive-aggressive or weirdly nice.”
“I thought those were the same thing?” Kurt asked.
“No, that’s not what I’m talking about.” Dahlia didn’t expand upon her thoughts. If her crew couldn’t pick up what she was thinking, then she’d wait a little while longer for it to click. If it ever did. Sometimes her crews weren’t the brightest people on the planet. Other times, they caught on to things long beforeshedid.
She had a feeling that Paradise Valley turned a few things on their heads.
“Hey.” Heaven, dressed in a pink gingham apron and with her frizzy hair pulled back into a sensible ponytail, greeted Dahlia with a smile. “What can I get you and your friends?” She kept one eye on the three men sitting at the table up front. They had almost forgotten to return the menus to the container at the front of the shop.
Dahlia had memorized most of their drink orders, but wrote down what foods they wanted. Wayne and Kurt asked for sandwich sets. Aaron wanted a cup of soup. Dahlia decided on a salad and scone. By the time she finished ordering, a small line had formed behind her.
“It might take up to ten minutes for those meals,” Heaven warned Dahlia. “The coffees will be right up. By the way…” she waited for Dahlia to pull the company credit card out of her wallet, “weren’t you in here yesterday with the mayor? Thought you look familiar.”
Did it help that Dahlia wore a white T-shirt that said HIBISCUS FILMS on the front? “Yes, the mayor took me on a tour yesterday. We’re a film crew doing a small spot on the town. We’re doing establishing spots along Main Street today, so if anyone comes in here freaking out about us, do us a favor and let them know we’re good?”
Heaven chuckled. “Give me more info than that, and I might tell them you’re the second coming of Melissa Etheridge. Or, you know, domea favor and make sure my café is nice and easy to see in some of those shots.”
Dahlia shared that chuckle and knowing look.Shrewd businesswoman. I like it.Maybe Heaven had established the premier lesbian hangout spot in town through no accident. It certainly changed some of Dahlia’s perceptions of this brightly-lit café.
“…After we’re through with Main Street, I think we’re supposed to head to that park with the playground equipment.” That’s what Dahlia caught Wayne saying when she returned. “I’m guessing we’ll want to hit it when there are actual kids playing, but that means…”
