with me. I mean, who am I to think I can do this? Be an assistant to one of the most famous and successful film directors in America? The man who directed Tangled Leashes, the ensemble comedy about a bunch of couples who meet at a dog park? I even overheard Dungeon Master Rick talking about how that one made him cry, and the only other time I’ve heard of him crying was when his black Lab ate the D&D miniatures he had spent weeks painting.
Sure, I’ve seen every single one of Tommy’s movies, but what if he needs me to do something I can’t do? Or what if he asks a question I don’t know the answer to? What if I look incompetent in front of one of the most famous directors in the country?
What would Nora Ephron do? I ask myself silently. Although I love her sweet and sad romantic comedies, I also love her indomitable spirit. Once I saw an interview with Meryl Streep where she talked about how when Nora was a young writer, she tried to get a job at a magazine and was told she couldn’t be a reporter because reporters were men. And did she turn around, go back home, get into bed, and drown her sorrows in whatever the time-period-appropriate version of Netflix was? Hell, no. She became an incredibly important and celebrated writer and showed those assholes what was what. If Nora Ephron was here, she would march onto that set and she would get shit done.
And just in case thinking about the ever-present spirit of Nora Ephron isn’t enough, I think about my mom. Because she would love this. She would want to know everything about what it was like to be on the set of a romantic comedy, and she’d have a million questions for Tommy about Tangled Leashes, and what it was like to work with Julia Roberts, and if Billy Crystal was as nice as he seemed.
For a moment, I allow myself to imagine what that would be like. To come home at the end of the day to her, to curl up on the couch and talk about everything that had happened. A bloom of sadness unfurls so quickly in my chest that I almost gasp.
Because she’s not here, and she’ll never know. And I have to do this, because she’d want me to. And also because, in the five years since I graduated from college, I’ve done exactly nothing to get closer to my dream of working in movies. To do that, I’d have to move somewhere, which means I couldn’t stay here and be with Uncle Don, and there’s no way I’d ever leave him all alone. A movie that’s filming right in my own neighborhood? It’s fate, like a gift Mom sent me from the afterlife.
* * *
• • •
I was worried about finding Tommy Crisante on set, but it turns out it’s pretty easy. For one thing, he’s standing in the middle of the blocked-off street. And for another thing, he’s incredibly loud.
“Hi, Tommy? I’m Annie,” I say, approaching him as he talks to a young guy in a headset and a black jacket.
He cups a hand over his ear. “You’ll have to speak up, sweetheart. I can’t hear for shit. My ears got blown out when I did all those action movies with explosions in the ’90s.”
“Um.” I push back my shoulders, brush my hair out of my face, and force myself to be louder. “I’m Annie. Don’s niece?”
Tommy’s eyes light up and before I even know what’s happening, he’s hugging me. “Donny’s niece? Am I ever glad to see you!”
His hug squeezes the air out of me, and I barely manage to choke out, “I’m, uh, happy to be here!”
“How’s Don? Aw, you look just like him!” Tommy says, holding me at a distance.
I hope I don’t look like Uncle Don, since he has a gray ponytail and a slight potbelly, but I don’t contradict Tommy. “He’s great. We live a few blocks away.”
“When he called me, I thought, ‘This! This is a sign!’ My assistant quit last week to work for an underwear model. What’s he got that I don’t?”
I’m not sure if he really wants an answer to this, so I open and close my mouth a few times, but he keeps talking.
“Come on,” he says, guiding me toward a crowd of people. “Let me introduce you to the cast.”