Page 71 of I Did Something Bad
“Sorry!” I say.
I rush over to the adjacent one, which is, yep,alsooccupied.
Stepping back to command my first place in queue, I try not to squirm too much, but the hideous gurgling sounds now coming from my gut make it clear that nature is about to call regardless of my ability to stay still.Just one minute,I plead with my body.Please, please, please.Once I hear the familiar sounds of digital candy being crushed in one of the stalls, I know two things: one, neither of them are going to be done in one minute, and two,Ido not have more than one minute.
The only other place on set with a bathroom that I can access is Tyler’s trailer, which I have a key to because that’s where I leave my stuff. So that’s where I sprint for, like a hurricane is on my tails and that trailer is my sole source of shelter.
I flush after a few minutes because while I might not be sleeping with Tyler, I still don’t want him knowing what my shit smells like. Right as the water bowl refills, I hear the front trailer door click, and my ass cheeks inadvertently tighten once more, this time with trepidation and slight embarrassment.
Should I call out? What do I say?Tyler? Hey, it’s me, I’m taking a shit, FYI.But it’d be weirder if I sat here and kept pooping covertly, right? Do I cough loudly?
“Sorry to cut into your lunch break, but I thought you guys should be looped in. I had a long call with Legal this morning.”
Yasmin’s voice screeches my train of thought to a complete stop. Idefinitely don’t needherknowing I’m taking a shit. Guess we’re going with covert pooping.
“About?” Tyler asks.
“Apparently, the police have been in touch.”
“What? I thought that was over,” May says. “They haven’t been here since last week.”
“Has there been a new development?” Tyler asks. Maybe it’s because I can’t see his face so my auditory senses are heightened, or maybe it’s because I know him better now, but I can parse the tension in his voice.
“No,” Yasmin answers. “Well, at least no developments in the sense of no new connections to us.”
“So then why are they still contacting us?” Tyler asks. “We’ve answered all their questions.”
Yasmin lets out a long exhale. There’s pacing, and then the sound of someone (presumably her) settling down on the leather couch. “Look, I’m going to lay it out. The cops weretactfulabout this part, but from what Legal understands, the Australian embassy isn’t going to let them close this case without finding the culprit. One of their citizens dies in Yangon and the police back off simply because it was near a film set? It’ll look like they were lenient and lazy at best, and intentionally looked the other way at worst.”
“But they have no evidence to prove it was any of us,” May scoffs. “They’re fishing in the middle of a desert. They can’t arrest anyone.”
“No, they can’t,” Yasmin agrees, but her voice doesn’t make it sound anything close to good news. “But theycanrevoke visas and filming permits, and we’ve barely shot a quarter of the scenes we wanted to do here. It doesn’t help that the Shwedagon Pagoda scene is both a key oneandone that we can’t do in a lot, and I don’t want to jinx it and even startthinkingabout rewriting such a significant portion of the script, but if they put up enough red tape—”
Tyler barks out a laugh. “On what grounds? Those lawyers get paid literal thousands of dollars an hour and they can’t even—”
“Obstruction of justice—”
“But it’snotobstruction of justice—”
“They’re not our only problem.”
“What?” comes May’s voice. “What else?”
“The studio is getting… antsy.”
“Antsy?” Tyler echoes.
I imagine Yasmin nodding. “One of my friends who works there told me that there was a closed-door meeting. Rumor is they’re considering pulling the funds.”
“What?!” May yells.
At the same time, Tyler shouts, “Like fuck they are!”
“Okay,” Yasmin’s tone takes on one of a mediating parent, “it’s still talks, but they are worried about what might happen if this leaks to the press. The authorities are doing a good job of keeping it a secret so far, and I know everyone on set has signed NDAs, but someone is going to talk at some point. And if I had to guess, the studio’s drawing up a cost-benefit analysis right now to see if they should cut their losses early.”
“You cannot—” comes Tyler’s low grumble, but he’s cut off by a phone’s ringtone.
“Hello? Yeah, I can talk, one sec.” Yasmin’s voice drops. “I need to take this. I didn’t want to worry you guys, but like I said, I thought you should know. We’ll circle back later.”
