Running

Having cancelled her job interview, Ellie took a step into the unknown

- Geraldine Ryan

Just before six the next morning, Ellie mounted her bike and sailed along the deserted Cambridge streets to the unit base for the movie.
‘Think of the unit base as the HQ,’ Ben had explained. ‘Everything you need to put a film together is located there. But in trailers, not offices.’

Catering, he’d added, was the most important trailer of all. And keeping the tea urn going would be one of her many jobs.

‘You do know how to make a good cup of tea, right?’ he’d teased, as the two of them were leaving the pub the night before.

She joked that her tea-making skills were second to none but she couldn’t say the same about her cooking. Fortunately for her – and even more fortunately for the cast and crew – cooking was not in her remit. All she would be expected to do on the food front was take orders for sandwiches and make sure they were delivered to the right person at the right time.

Just as she was reminiscing about her previous evening with Ben and wondering if he’d enjoyed it as much as she had, her phone rang. Only Mum would think of calling so early, was her first thought. Her second was to let it ring out. She didn’t have the headspace for Mum right now, although she knew a text would soon follow.

Ping! She was right.

After locking up her bike, she opened the text with a sinking heart… Good luck with your interview today, she read. Let me know how you get on. Mum xx

‘Hey!’

It was Ben, striding towards her. Sliding the phone back into her pocket, Ellie shut off all thoughts of how she would explain to her mother that she’d changed her mind and wouldn’t be attending her interview after all.

‘We need to get a shift on!’ Ben said. ‘Come and help me pack the tea table.’

‘Sure,’ she murmured, putting his gruff manner down to the early hour.