Definitely not someone Sergei would trust with an entire film soundtrack.
She flopped back in the seat, knee jiggling, and let the raucous sounds of the bus drown out her sigh. Over the top of the seat in front of her, she watched Sergei and Brinley, the music coordinator, lean their heads together to converse and then break apart laughing.
Now, Brinley?
She was leading-lady material. A tailored, tasteful, bobbed-brunette transplant from New York who had a different statement necklace for every outfit. A woman who walked into a room and got the job she applied for, because she dressed for it. Because she exuded confidence and expected her due.
And Brinley had Hannah’s dream job.
Two years ago, Hannah had purposefully asked her stepfather to find her a low-level position at a production company, and he’d tapped Sergei at Storm Born. At Hannah’s request, her stepfather had asked his casual acquaintance to be discreet about their connection, so she could be just Hannah, as opposed to famed producer Daniel Bellinger’s stepkid. She had a bachelor’s in music history from UCLA, but she knew nothing about film. If she’d leaned harder on her stepfather’s name, she probably could have landed a producer position, but where was the fairness in that when she didn’t know the industry? It had been a choice to learn from the sidelines.
And she had. Being in charge of boatloads of paperwork and record keeping meant she’d had a lot of opportunities to study Brinley’s cue sheets, synchronization contracts, and notes. No one technically knew she’d taken a quiet interest in that side of the production company. Hannah still lacked hands-on training, but two years later, she was ready to move up the ranks.
She observed Sergei and Brinley with a hole in her stomach.
They were behind-the-scenes talent, but approaching them was just like walking up to the lead actors. Still, she was growing weary of holding Christian’s straw and getting slurped on.
A salt-air breeze filtered in through the cracked bus window. While it jolted her with nostalgia, kissing her skin with welcome wherever it touched, it also told Hannah they were really close to Westport. If she wanted to make the slightest step toward progress, she needed to act now.
Hannah rolled her shoulders back and shoved the baseball cap into her tote bag, ignoring the curious looks from cast and crew as she picked her way up to the front of the bus. Her pulse ticked in the base of her neck, moisture fleeing from her mouth. When she drew even with Sergei and Brinley, they smiled expectantly. Kindly. As in, Kindly explain why you’re interrupting our conversation.
Not for the first time, she wondered if Brinley and Sergei were secretly seeing each other, but the gap of pleather seat between them—and the rock on Brinley’s finger from someone else—spoke to them being just friends.
Fact was, the two of them had to work closely. Coordinating music for movies was an intricate process, the score often crafted in postproduction. But Storm Born had their own way of compiling the track list that would play beneath the dialogue or during montages. They created it while the filming process took place, relying heavily on the mood of the moment （read: Sergei’s whims）。 And they tended to use music that already existed and trimmed it down accordingly, rather than creating music to fit the film.
Hannah couldn’t dream of anything better than summing up a distinct moment with the right song. To help weave together the atmosphere. Music was the backbone of movies. Of everything. One line from a song could help Hannah define her own feelings, and the opportunity to put that passion to art was something she spent every day wanting.
Ask them. The bus is almost there.
“Um . . .”
Oh, good opener. A filler word.
Hannah dug deep for the girl who’d been brave enough to pitch Westport to a room full of producers and talent. She was starting to think her nostalgia for this place had spoken on her behalf. “Brinley. Sergei,” Hannah said, making herself look them both in the eyes. “I was wondering if—”
Of course the bus chose that moment to stop.
And of course Hannah was too busy adjusting her clothing and twisting her rings and generally fidgeting to catch hold of anything that might prevent her from sprawling sideways down the center of the row. She landed hard on her shoulder and hip, her temple connecting with the floor. A truly humiliating oof launched from her mouth, followed by the most deafening silence that had ever occurred on planet Earth.
No one moved. Hannah debated the merits of crawling under one of the seats until the world had the decency to end, but thoughts of hiding vanished when Sergei hopped across Brinley and stepped over Hannah’s legs, bending down to help her back to her feet.