Page 32 of A Loser by Christmas
“There’s no time.” My blurt sounds all kinds of strangled. I clear my stupid thick throat and start over. “I didn’t realise, but it’s after five already. You’ll be late for your evening thing.” I’ve seen it blocked out on his schedule. “I know you have a prior commitment.”
He pulls out his phone again. This time he places a call and speaks up over the piped music. “Robin? I’m running late. Get started without me, yeah?” He slides his phone away. “There. I’ve got time.” He leans in close. “Show me?”
The warmth of his breath coasts my ear, and every Christmas light around us brightens. I’m a little bit dazzled. I must be to set aside doubt, at least until we exit. It surges back in a hurry when we walk up Regent Street together. He matches my pace, walking right beside me when I know he could stride ahead if he wanted. Calum stays close, moving at the same speed as this tide of shoppers who slow our progress, even though I know they’d get out of his way if he showed them his icy game face.
He doesn’t.
Calum keeps in step beside me. We’re shoulder to shoulder, our hands brushing. Maybe that brushing creates sparks—I’m hot all over until we reach the black-and-white frontage of Liberty of London, where the pavement is blocked completely. There’s no way through, which leaves more time for overthinking.
Tourists take photo after photo of a Christmas window display while I have a sudden and secret panic about this switch in focus. About the spotlight being on me. Panicking now seems pointless—hundreds of thousands of people used to watch me chase after the truth behind other people’s stories.
Yeah, but they were strangers.
I didn’t tell them my own story or have to watch their reaction to it.
Maybe my panic isn’t quite so secret. Calum’s arm comes around me, which I hope no one catches with a camera. He’ll have no choice about going back to the US earlier than he wanted if anyone videos him pulling me into his side. I almost say so, only his arm does stop my nerves from skipping like a speedboat. Besides, our contact barely lasts for a few too-short moments. His arm drops as soon as I stop at a side street.
He asks, “This way?” and it would be so easy to walk in the wrong direction. I don’t even know why I want to. As urges go, it’s a blast from the past that I haven’t felt since making myvery first upload. I’d hesitated then about following a different path from the one mon père wanted. I came so close to pressing Delete. To quitting YouTube before I’d even started, so sure I’d be a failure and would have to sail home aboardla Sylvie.
You got your shit together then.
Get it together again right now, Juno.
I drag in a deep breath to do that. “Oui.” That comes out as if I’m breathless. So does the French that follows. “We’re here.”
He’s quiet then. Calum follows me into a building, where he takes another turn to wait in line. He blinks when I’m kissed on both cheeks by a curator I’ve met before, who chats in my mother’s tongue on the way to a display space where he leaves us. That’s where Calum turns in a slow circle once we’re alone. “What did he say?”
“The curator? That they’re closing soon.”
Calum squints. “He knew you. Kept saying your name. Not Valentin.Juno.” His frown lines pay a return visit. “Something about this exhibition. I didn’t know you took still photographs as well as video.”
“I don’t.” It is a decent guess given that this room is lined with headshots. “He was talking about my, uh.. There’s a...”
I snag his hand, and he lets me. More than that, Calum threads us tight together here where no one can out him before he’s ready. He doesn’t let go, not even when I show him why I don’t need a Christmas bauble.
I walk us both down that line of headshots, but he keeps glancing at the far side of this display space where a silver cup gleams. I don’t look at that shining trophy. Or at Calum, who has already won a much bigger version. I fix my gaze on the line of photos.
“These are contest winners. Documentary makers.”
Each one of them got to kiss that silver cup like Calum once kissed his, although not on an open-top bus. Ticker tape didn’train down like confetti on these past winners. Their celebrations happened in a film institute building.
Now I face the very real possibility of never lifting that cup to kiss it for myself, and it isn’t easy. “This is last year’s cup winner. His contest entry was challenging. Confronting, but it wasn’t divisive.” I move along to the next photo. “Neither was her entry, the year before. Both of their work united two nations, and both of their entries raised the bar for this contest. That means mine needs to be even better.”
Calum glances at the silver trophy again. “Thisis the same contest you’ve entered?”
I nod. “There are four entry requirements. Each documentary needs to be relevant in both France and England with no language barrier for viewers in each country. The visuals need to tell the whole story from start to finish. Mine is about small-boat crossings.”
“Like you filmed with Reece?”
“Yes, but my focus was on who supplied the boats. Because some fuckers are making them to order, and they have to know what they’re used for. The media calls those boats small, but they really aren’t, and they aren’t constructed in British or French boatyards. I was gathering evidence of where that trade originated when I met Reece.”
“You said there are four rules. What are the others?”
“The second is that each hour-long entry must be unique. I can’t recycle any previously seen footage.”
“So you can’t reuse any of your channel content?”
“Non.”
