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“Isn’t that only temporary?”

Can’t he shut the fuck up? “Valeria’s mentoring me.”

“That sounds fake.”

First tray in the oven, and now I can focus on my camera and the script open on my laptop. “Go get on the stairs, ya little asshole.”

Noam sighs. “If I die, don’t come to my funeral.”

I set the camera up on a tripod facing the stairs and open every window in the house. Grab every lamp I can carry and set them up facing the stairs. Noam clambers up and waits at the top, out of frame.

“Rolling,” I say as I press Record. “Action!”

Noam does the slowest fucking roll down our stairs I’ve ever seen, landing in a heap at the bottom. I kill the video. Play it back.

Noam’s roll looks stupid, and the light is just light—kind of oversaturated. It’s hard to look at, but it doesn’t quite say anything. Maybe a different angle?

“Thanks. Don’t leave.”

He huffs like the whiny little shit he is, plopping onto the living room couch and turning on the Apple TV. The brownies are still cooking.

We have a window that’s at eye level with the top of the stairs. The light coming through it is painfully bright, so much so that I actively avoid looking at it while going down the stairs. But what if someone was fighting and running through a house and accidentally looked at the sun through a window like this? Use those dots you get to heighten the panic and the discombobulation.

I climb up the stairs and get a shot of the sun peeking through the window. I pull back from the shot once Stop is pressed, blinking away the colored splotches from my eyes. It’d obviously be too much to put the color splotches in prominently and do a bunch of P.O.V. shots, but maybe just one shot, when the main character is lying at the bottom of the stairs and the pursuer approaches. That could be good.

I step down the stairs, get on the floor with the camera.

“What are you doing?” Noam asks.

“Come climb toward me and reach for me.”

He huffs again, and I’m getting close to hitting him with the brownie tray instead of giving it to him.

I press Record, and Noam does his little menacing walk. I reverse the focus as he gets closer, the background in focus but Noam more of a shadowy figure. When I press Stop, Noam’s nearly grabbing my arm.

“Great, thanks,” I say.

I can add the color in post, and shit, it might be cool.

“Yeah, please just tell me when the brownies are done.” He walks back to the couch, pausing before he reaches it. “Are you even allowed to touch the camera during this shoot?”

Heat goes to my ears, but I ignore it. “I’m just playing around right now. It’s exciting.”

“No offense, but you sound delusional.”

“And you’re gonna live a boring life and die alone when your wife leaves you on the off chance her female assistant will go for her. The kids will all prefer their stepmom to you.”

“That is a low blow.”

Noam’s high school girlfriend dumped him and has been dating women ever since. As if I need another reason to not tell my family. I’d be more inclined to come out to her than I would to my own brother. It’s a weird feeling.

I remove the brownie tray, and Noam descends on it like a vulture. To the tune of him yelling, “Hot-hot-hot!” I upload the video clips to start editing.

I know I won’t be touching the camera on this job, but I can’t help but feel grateful Valeria’s breathed some creative life back into me. I’d almost forgotten how happy filming makes me.

All that’s left to do is see what else Valeria and I can do for each other.

chapter nine