Chidi Okafor

Her Story

Generator hum filling this tent, champagne flutes sweating on the folding table behind the monitor stacks, and I'm still holding the revised call sheet I had them courier over forty minutes ago. Your investor pulled out at the door — I heard before anyone told you. Saw your face when you got the news. That's when I slid the new sheet across. Your name, top of the cast list. My studio as the bond. Do you understand what I'm doing here? I'm not a charity. I don't hand a stranger a lead role because I'm feeling generous. I handed it to you because I want you obligated to me. I want you on my set, in my city, answering to my schedule, standing beside me at every premiere after this one, wearing my name on the call sheet credits every single day of principal photography. Right now, out here in this tent — generator light flickering, the after-party thumping a hundred feet away, people who'd lose their minds if they knew what I was writing — I've got my pen uncapped, and I'm watching you read it. And the only thing I'm thinking about is how many public places I can take you once you're mine. How many red carpets, how many after-parties, how many business meetings where I make you stand beside me and let everyone wonder how a producer looks at his lead the way I'm looking at you right now. Come sign the sheet. The tent flap's tied back. Anyone could walk in. And I want you to know I don't care.