Inglourious Romance -- Chapter 11

Jobs

Amaya hated parting with Christoph but she had a job to do, and he of all people could understand that. But the production manager certainly had made a point to bomb their conversation. That really sucked, but she was glad she got to see Christoph, even if only for a short few minutes. She showed the production manager her choices of storyboards to show Quentin, all done in traditional media since they were essentially sketches, although the ones with Christoph were a little more detailed. She really liked drawing him, especially his hard jawline and his eyes -- he had the handsomest eyes.

She returned to finish painting the set, which only took about another hour to find all the white spots, fill them in, and repair the worn places from it being moved around so much. Then she went to her drawing board in her makeshift cubicle to start drawing a storyboard for an ending scene of the movie. Pitt and Novak were supposed to pin Christoph down and carve a Swastika into his forehead, so there were some facial close ups. Her laptop sat at a small desk with a Wacom plugged into it. Next to the laptop was another crane made from purple paper, some unfolded origami paper in various colors and patterns, her dog-eared instrument rating test booklet, and her Kindle on top.

Amaya sketched out the boxes for the scenes, and then she began sketching in the faces and the actors’ relative positions to one another. She felt herself growing tired, despite being such a night owl, but she felt she really needed to get this done so Quentin could start planning the shots for the last scene as soon as possible. She sketched in Christoph’s face, using the pictures she had taped to the top of her drawing board of all the actors in their costumes.

After a long while, Amaya rubbed her eyes and put her pencil down for a moment, her hand sore from grasping the pencil. She rubbed the soreness out of her hand and then crossed her arms on top of the drawing, resting her chin on top as she struggled to keep her eyes open. She needed a Red Bull, but since she didn’t have one, she needed a nap. Finally, she closed her eyes and easily dozed off.

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Christoph, too, was disappointed that their conversation was cut short, but he understood that she was a busy body just as he was. The production was slowly reaching its climax, and with that said, people were getting busier and deadlines were nearing. Christoph parted with Amaya finally to leave and finish up the scene that Quentin wanted to do.

The filming itself didn’t take long. Quentin only wanted a few extra takes with Christoph’s and Diane’s scene at the cinema together, filming it with different camera angles, different expressions and actions. He and Kruger also rehearsed the strangling scene, and Quentin came up with the idea that instead of Christoph strangling Diane, the director himself would do it to really make it authentic. When filming was finished for the evening, everyone began packing up and retreating to dressing rooms.

Quentin approached Christoph, a black beret on his head and put an arm over the smaller man’s shoulders. “That was awesome, man. Hey, look, if you want, we can take a load off at this real nice bar down the road. You’ll like it, I promise."

"I don’t know, Quentin, tomorrow is—"

"Don’t worry about it! Come on, drinks are on me!"

Unable to argue, Christoph smiled and nodded his head in agreement. Besides, with Amaya busy, he had nothing better to do, and getting to know Quentin a little more seemed like a good bit of fun. Christoph told Quentin he’d change then meet him shortly. He left the set and headed to his changing room where he got into khaki pants, a blue button shirt, and a navy sports coat over that.

Christoph left the dressing room and went along the hallway to catch a familiar sight of red hair in the corner of his eye. He stopped, backed up, and looked into the room to find Amaya with her head down on the drawing board. He approached her quietly, seeing that she had fallen asleep there. Christoph looked down at the concept pieces she was drawing and smiled at seeing the last one she was working on was of himself in character as Hans Landa. It looked particularly more detailed than the rest, and he was impressed at how beautifully she managed to capture everything about him, right down to the prominent scar on his chin.

Glancing at the time on his watch, Christoph knew he had to leave to meet Quentin. He did not want to wake her, for she was sleeping so soundly and so peacefully. He remembered that she had been putting in some long hours as well. Impulsively, Christoph pulled off his sports coat and draped it over Amaya’s small shoulders. He made one last admiring glance at her before leaving her to finish her nap.

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It was a long while before Amaya woke up from her ‘nap’. She had meant to just rest her eyes and doze for about 30 minutes, but she wound up sleeping for about an hour instead. The long hours and drawing and re-drawing storyboards were finally getting to Amaya. Even a Red Bull was hardly enough to keep her going these days, and deadlines were drawing dangerously close.

She lifted her head from the drawing board and glanced around. As she sucked in a breath and stretched her arms, she swore she smelled a very familiar scent that could only belong to one person: Christoph. That’s when she realized that his sports coat was draped over her shoulders. Instinctively, she glanced around for him and strained her ears to see whether she could hear him talking somewhere. All was quiet.

Amaya brought her hand up to her shoulder and touched the material of his coat, a small smile stretching across her lips as she did. God, he is just…so sweet, she thought.

She shook her head and pulled his coat off her, carefully folding it over the arm of her chair. What in the world compelled him to do something like this, she did not know. Perhaps it was another one of those old world quirks of his; he seemed to be quite full of those. Her next thought was how she was going to give this back to him without anyone seeing. She sighed. It seemed quiet, like most everyone had gone for the night; there was no time like the present.

Amaya stood and took the coat into her hand, but before she left, she glanced at her purple origami crane next to her computer. Impulsively, she grabbed it and stuck it into the inner breast pocket and smiled in quiet appreciation. Then she made her way to his dressing room where she draped the coat over the back of his chair. Then, she returned to her cubicle to finish her storyboard for Quentin to look at tomorrow.