Why Trees

A ten-minute coffee break was called on set, time Laura used to continue her keen, proprietary staking out of those lives she might still be permitted to lead, and those which were no longer possible. She saw the assistant in her puffer coat handing steaming coffees to the crew, indicating that filming would soon begin. Then her more threatening significance, only somewhat obscured by the bulky outerwear: thin wrists emerged from the sleeves, chin-length hair dyed crimson poured from the hood along with a face that was young and patient, ringing with good cheer. Laura, a few weeks away from turning thirty, could not be quite that young again, but she could still wait patiently for the professional milestones that would one day accrue to her, be gracious and charming on her way up, even feign laughter at her co-workers’ compulsively genial remarks before they all headed out for the weekend. Although these co-workers, if you could even call them that, were always rotating in and out of the short-lived gigs that she was also rotating through, and so they hardly seemed worth the trouble.