Five Minutes

Paint It, Black

It was surprisingly nice outside. Nice and warm; the sky cloudless and a magnificent - but practically blinding - shade of blue.

Ralston donned a pair of sun glasses and a baseball cap. It looked like he was trying to be obsolete, unnoticed, but his main intention was to shield himself from the brightness.

Across from him sat Elle, also sporting glasses, her blond hair tied up into a messy bun.

"I hope you didn't think I was being creepy asking if we could meet up at your place," Ralston said.

They weren't actually at Elle's condo; they were seated up on the roof deck of her building.

It was a welcoming deck; it had a built in fireplace located before outdoor couches and a garden bed surrounding the edges.

Elle drank a cup of her coffee from her mug, then gagged. "Why do I always think coffee black is a good idea. Yuck!" She placed the mug in the coffee table. "And it's not creepy! I'm glad we get to hang out. We haven't seen much of each other these past a few months."

They hadn't seen one another since filming wrapped. And it was a while before they would begin promotion for The Postal Worker. It would have its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Although with his actions as of late, Ralston wasn't certain any gain any further exposure for it.

He never considered how the crew and cast of his film might suffer as a result of his behaviour. Not until now. And he felt incredibly guilt.

Although Elle didn't seem to hold any resentment towards him for it. Either that or she was concealing her anger well.

"So what is it? Are you planning to offer me more roles?" she asked jokingly.

"No," Ralston replied. "I mean... I got that new gig recently..."

"You should cast me as the lead," she said, turn laughed.

"You haven't even seen the script."

"If you're directing it has to be great."

He smiled at her. "Thanks," he said, but it wasn't even a beat later that the smile dropped from his face.

Elle must have noticed something was wrong. The expression on her face turned into a frown.

"The reason I wanted to talk to you... in person... was.... You worked with Daniel Sanders seven years ago."

Elle purses her lips. "Makes sense now why you didn't want to meet in public."

"If you don't want to talk about it-"

"No," she said, cutting him off, her features softening. She shook her head. "It's fine. I don't mind."

"Did you have a good experience working with him?"

She smiled at him meekly. "This feels like a magazine interview or something."

"Sorry." He really did feel bad; he wouldn't pressure her into disclosing any information if she wasn't ready to do so.

"It's okay," she assured him, that strained smile still on her face. "He was... nice to me."

"He never did anything to... He didn't make you ever feel uncomfortable?"

"No..." She trailed off, looking away from him like she was deep in thought, reflecting on something.

"No?" Ralston repeated.

Elle glanced up, which made Ralston realize she was avoiding eye contact. "Well... a few months after we were finished shooting Matheson he offered me another role." Then she looked down. "My agent set up a meeting with him for it, and the whole thing went pretty okay until he kissed me."

"He kissed you?" Ralston asked. It wasn't surprising, this was the reason he'd come here to talk to her. But hearing her saying it out loud disgusted him. How old had she been at the time? Nineteen?

"I should have pushed him away faster than I did. I was just so shocked. When I finally did and asked him what he was doing he started apologizing and saying he'd been having problems in his marriage or something."

"Did you tell anyone?" Ralston asked her.

"Yeah... I told my boyfriend and he broke up with me."

"I'm sorry."

"It's... whatever. It was years ago." She said it like she was dismissing its seriousness. Maybe she thought it was her own fault the way Veronica had.

"It was still fucked up," Ralston said. "He shouldn't have broken up with you."

"You think he should've beaten that shit out of Daniel the way you did?" Elle asked, grinning at him.

Ralston glanced down, embarrassed. "Oh... you saw that."

"I think a lot of people did," Elle told him. "He deserved it."

Ralston raised his eyes to look at her again. "Veronica pressed charges against him."

"So... you want me to, like, testify against him?" Elle asked, scrunching her freckles nose.

"Yeah."

Elle was silent for a moment, then pressed her eyes shut and shook her head. "I can't do it."

That was a response Ralston had half expected but he had also been hoping that his expectations were wrong.

He didn't even know what to say. She obviously wasn't ready to come forward so what could he say? He wasn't going to coerce her into doing it; that was cruel. She needed to come clean when she thought it was the right time for herself.

"I'm sorry, Ralston," she said, opening her eyes, staring at him apologetically. "I hope that your wife wins her case, but I can't go on that stand for her."

Ralston nodded his head. "I understand." He forced a smile to show her it was okay. He couldn't be angry with her for being afraid. Maybe she'd spent all these years trying to bury that part of her past. And he made it resurface. He hadn't considered that.

"You should probably go," Elle said. "It was nice seeing you. We'll catch up again in January, right?" She was smiling at him - another contrived grin.

He left with conflicting emotions. Defeated, perhaps a little. But the thought that Elle might follow the case and sense victory once Daniel was behind bars made Ralston more determined. She was obviously not over the incident despite saying it was whatever.

Ralston had wondered before how many people fell victim to Daniel's predatory behaviour, but now he wondered if he had assaulted someone on set, or after wrapping, of all his films. That was over forty movies, and that was under the guess that it was only one victim. What if it was more? That meant he could have assaulted over a hundred people and they were all too afraid to say anything.

Ralston really hated Hollywood.