The Editing Suite

A Short Story by Ashley C. Cantave

 

I’m in an editing suite late after school again. Every day this week, I’ve spent an hour or two in my favorite suite—suite two—working on a project for my school’s television and film club.

Despite what may come to mind when you think of the average high school AV club, it’s an honor to be part of this group. In fact, after football players and cheerleaders, our club’s members are considered some of the coolest kids in school.

It’s all because of a short film a few members created four years ago. It won first place at a film festival that year, and ever since then, hundreds of students at our school vie for a position in the club, though it’s only open to sixty members total—twenty sophomores, twenty juniors, and twenty seniors.

There are no freshmen because students can’t start applying until the second semester of their freshman year. Club members have to participate for an entire school year.

I’m a sophomore, and somehow I managed to earn a spot in the club. Typically, the only sophomores who get in have connections to students who are already club members and can vouch for their work ethic.

If that had been my only chance to get in, it never would have happened. I didn’t know anyone in the club when I was a freshman. I think learning about TV production at my middle school was what moved my application to the acceptance pile.

My job is to edit the school’s weekly talk show. It airs every Friday morning, and today is Thursday. As I check the clock now, I see that it’s precisely 5:10 pm. The student engineer on duty today will be leaving at 5:30 pm. That means I have only twenty minutes to get this done.

Normally, it takes me two or three hours total to finish my editing. But we’re airing a special program tomorrow to get kids excited for the spring dance in a couple of weeks. So, the editing process has taken more time than usual.

“Another late afternoon, Lily?” Jim asks as he leans against the doorframe of the suite I’m in. When the studio is quiet like it usually is this late in the afternoon, I like to leave the door of my editing suite open.

My heart skips at the sound of Jim’s voice. He’s a junior, and he has been the engineer on duty every day this week. He’s also the boy I have a huge crush on. He has curly brown hair and beige skin, and his dimpled smile makes me melt every time I see it.

Fortunately for my necessity to focus, I can’t see any of that right now because my back is toward him—although, I don’t really need to see him to picture him. I’ve pretty much memorized him by now—voice, face, and all.

“Uh, yeah,” I say, making a slight modification to the clip I just inserted into the project. I then play the clip and look back and forth at the two monitors in front of me, making sure everything looks smooth.

“For the amount of effort you’ve put in this week, I think they should pay you.”

I laugh. “Yeah, if only.” I pause to focus for a second. “I promise I’ll be done by 5:30.”

“Hey, take your time. I want tomorrow’s show to be good, too.”

“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”

“Because there’s this girl I’ve kind of been dying to ask out, and I think inviting her to the dance would be a good start.” I wince. Of course he likes someone else. And of course he has to tell me about her. “If she likes the program tomorrow, I’m hoping that when I tell her about my part in it, she’ll be impressed.”

“I imagine she’s already impressed by the fact that you’re in the television and film club.”

“Yeah, but after tomorrow, I can tell her that I personally supervised, not only the filming of the show, but the editing process, too.”

“I guess.” I say nothing as I concentrate on a few final details.

“Well, I’ll let you get back to work. Just come find me when you’re done.”

“Will do,” I say.

I know it may seem that I was pretty nonchalant throughout that conversation. But, really, if I hadn’t been working so hard to get this project done, I’m sure Jim would have been able to see the deep disappointment on my face.

And if he had seen it, he would have known the cause instantly—the deep longing I have for him in my heart.

I finish working at precisely 5:30 pm. After I place the DVD of my work in the TV executive’s drawer, I tell Jim I’m done, then I grab my backpack and start heading out.

Right before I leave, Jim says, “I’m sure the show will be great tomorrow.”

I smile faintly. “Yeah, I hope so.” Then I turn and leave before I confess my feelings for him then and there.

This is not the time to make a confession like that. True, we are practically alone. The only other person in the studio is one of the club coordinators, and he’s in another room. In theory, this would be an ideal time to make such a confession.

But Jim has also just revealed that he’s hoping to ask someone else to the dance. So, that makes this a less-than-ideal time for telling him. And I’m starting to wonder if there ever will be an ideal time.

The next day, the show airs during the second period of the day, as usual. I’m happy to note that my fellow students, who are usually moderately engaged in the show, today seem riveted.

In preparation for the dance, in lieu of the regular talk show, five bands are doing a sort of Battle of the Bands competition to see who’ll be playing live the night of the dance.

All five bands come from our school, and I was impressed by their performances while I watched the recording of this part of the competition and throughout the editing process. Now it’s nice to see the other kids as intrigued as I was.

Today is the first day of the three-episode competition. On the next two Fridays, the school will air the next two episodes, and the winner will be declared at the dance the day after the last episode airs.

I take it as a good sign that, after the show ends, the teacher has a hard time getting her students to focus on the lesson. All the other kids want to do is talk about the competition and the dance. And since they know I edited the show, they beg me to give them inside information, which I have to deny them.

 *****

Television and film club meets every day after school. That Friday, the head coordinator congratulates us on that morning’s show, telling us ticket sales for the dance quadrupled from what they were only one week before.

He attributes that result to our hard work, but he also warns that we can’t let this incredible success keep us from doing our best work on the upcoming shows.

I only vaguely hear what the coordinator is saying, though. I rarely hear these announcements before we break up into separate groups because this is the only part of our club time when I get to see Jim.

When we split up, Jim goes off with the other engineers while I join the group tasked with producing the talk show. So, I’m usually subtly (but often not-so-subtly) focused on him at this time, as I am today.

And so I’m caught off guard when everyone starts applauding and staring at me. My friend next to me elbows me as if letting me know I missed something, though I’m still not sure what.

“I told you it would be great,” Jim says, leaning toward me from the table next to the one where I’m seated. That’s the only clue I have that the class is congratulating me for my editing of the show.

I smile shyly and give a slight wave, hoping my brown skin hasn’t turned uncharacteristically pink. And then I admit to myself that the way Jim is staring at me now makes me wonder if there’s more to the attention he pays me after school than him just doing his job. I want to believe that’s true, but I don’t want to let my imagination run away with me.

But I really want to believe that’s true.

 *****

The following week, Jim is again the engineer on duty one day when I’m editing the next episode of the show. He leans against the doorframe of my editing suite and sighs.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” I say, struggling to focus on my work. And the struggle intensifies when Jim enters the room and sits in the empty seat beside me.

“Need any help?”

I swallow, desperately wishing I could say yes but knowing that would be a terrible idea. No serious work would get done with him helping me, and I want to be out of here before his shift is over.

“No, I’m fine,” I say. “I’m almost done.” Actually, I have about an hour more of editing to do, but that’s essentially the same as almost done, right?

He nods. “Well, before you go, I was wondering if I could talk to you about something.”

Now he has my attention. I turn to him. “What about?”

“What do you do when you like someone but they don’t like you back?”

I stare at him for a second. Is he talking about me? I’m not going to assume he’s talking about me, though I really hope he is. “Uh…I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know who you’re talking about. I don’t know the details of the situation.”

“It’s that girl I told you about. I asked her if she wanted to go to the dance with me and she told me she and her friends are going to the dance together.”

“I don’t see how that means she doesn’t like you.”

“If she liked me, she wouldn’t be going to the dance with friends. That’s the kind of thing you do when you can’t get a date.”

“I still think you’re reading too much into this. Maybe she doesn’t feel comfortable going to a dance with a boy yet. Why don’t you just tell her how you feel?” Why am I giving my crush advice on another girl? What the heck is wrong with me?

He shrugs. “Maybe.”

We sit in silence for a moment. He’s staring at his shoes. I’m staring at him. And the advice I’ve just given him almost prompts me to tell him how I feel.

I can hear the words “I like you” in my head. They sit there for a while. Then they make their way to my tongue. But just as I open my mouth to speak, he looks up at me.

“Anyway, I should let you get back to work. Let me know if you need anything.”

I swallow the words I had intended to say. “Yeah, ok” comes out instead—without any trouble, I might add.

He gets up and leaves. I put my elbow on the desk and lean my head against my hand for a moment. Why is it so hard for me to say those words?

I’ve been talking for a long time, and those three words are not particularly difficult to say. But when you’re a shy sophomore talking to your crush when he’s talking to you about his crush, some of the basics of vocalization escape you.

If I could relive that conversation, I would say, “You know, Jim, since we’re talking about confessing our feelings, there’s something I need to tell you.”

“Yeah?” he would say.

I would take a deep breath, then say, “I like you.”

“Oh,” he would say. “I like you, too.”

“You do?”

“I do.”

“But what about that girl you were just talking about?”

“What girl?”

“You know, the one you asked to the dance.”

“Oh, her. No, I made her up. I just needed an excuse to talk to you and that was the first topic that came to mind.”

“Pick a different one next time, will you?” I would say, smiling.

“Will do,” he would say. And then he would kiss me, right there in editing suite two. It would be wonderful and beautiful and magical all at the same time. Wouldn’t that have been great?

Instead, I’m left to imagine the amended conversation and picture the kiss over and over. But no matter how many times I replay that kiss, it never gets old.

 *****

On another late afternoon a week later, Jim again leans against the doorframe of my editing suite. I’m editing the final installment of the competition.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hello,” I say.

He now enters the room and sits in the empty seat beside me. “So, listen…” He pauses. I act like I’m still working, but I’m concentrating too hard on what he’s about to say to do any real editing. “I did what you said. I told that girl I like her.”

I can’t pretend anymore. I turn to him. “And what did she say?”

“She likes someone else.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well…at least I tried. I told her. Now I can stop wondering how she feels.”

“Yeah, exactly.” I stare at him as he stares at the floor. And then I hear the words in my head again. I feel them work their way to my tongue. And then I hear myself say, “Jim, I like you…like, as more than a friend.”

Why would I do that? Why would I tell him that I like him when he clearly likes someone else? What was I thinking? In his hands, that kind of information could be dangerous. I know that. And yet, I told him anyway. What a stupid thing to do. He could never be interested in me that way. Seriously, what was I thinking?

As all these thoughts jostle around in my head, Jim looks up at me and kisses me. And this is real. He kisses me in the editing suite where I’ve imagined him kissing me time and time again—in suite two, my favorite suite. And it’s wonderful, beautiful, and magical, like I always imagined it would be.

“Sorry,” he says after pulling away. “Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why not?” I wonder, now afraid he only kissed me because he imagined I was someone else—probably that girl he’s been talking about.

“I should have probably said something before I kissed you. The thing is…I like you, too, Lily.”

“You do?”

He nods. “Yeah, I mean… you’re one of the only people I can really talk to. Even while you’re hard at work, you’re a better listener than most of my friends.”

I smile. “Thank you.” I pause. “But then why did you spend so much time talking to me about this other girl?”

“Um…that’s kind of hard to explain.” He rubs the back of his neck briefly. “I guess it’s because I felt safe talking to you about her. My friends…they’re just not the most understanding people. Since I wanted real advice, I talked to you.”

“Even though you liked me?”

He nods. “Yeah, I know it’s crazy. It’s just that…I guess I never really thought you would like me back. I mean, you’re so smart and focused and you have these mad editing skills.” I smile. “I didn’t think I had a chance. I wasn’t even sure you would want a boyfriend. So, I tried to go after someone I thought I had a chance with.”

I nod. “I think I get it.”

“Ok, good,” he says, clearly relieved. “But what about you?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you liked me, why were you giving me advice on another girl?”

Uh oh. I hadn’t thought of that question in any of my amended conversations. I’ll just have to think of an answer quickly. “Uh…that’s also kind of hard to explain. But I guess I was just trying to be a good friend.”

“I think I get it,” he says, smiling. I nod again, grateful to have said something even remotely coherent. “So, um…did you want to go out sometime?”

“Yeah, I would like that,” I say without hesitating. I’m very surprised at how quickly all my words came out after making my confession. It seems it was only that one phrase that was taxing my vocalization skills.

“Cool,” he says. And then he smiles at me, and I smile back.

Love is a game, like everyone says. It’s a crazy, mixed-up game and the rules aren’t always clear. But as with all games, if you don’t play, you can’t win.

Copyright © 2021

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Last updated: February 4, 2022