4. Summer
"Hey, I heard Egon had a heck of a time cleaning up those geranium petals from the lab after you and Ray were done shooting last time," Winston said. He and Janine were on the rooftop. Winston had some pretty rocking ideas for his Summer set - it wasn't as heavily styled as Ray's set had been – all Winston required by way of props were a lounge chair, a bottle of beer, a bucket of ice, and he was good to go. Wardrobe wasn't that huge a concern either – Janine was wearing an oversize Ghostbusters t-shirt tied at the waist, dark blue denim cut-off shorts and huge bumble-bee sunglasses. She'd made modifications to the shirt's collar so that it hung asymmetrically and showed off her collar bone.
Winston took a more relaxed approach to shooting too – he didn't try to pose Janine into any unnatural positions or give her motivation. They just talked. It hardly felt like work to Janine. She was just leaning back in the lounge chair with a cold one while Winston made conversation and snapped her photo.
Not that the previous shoot with Ray hadn't been enjoyable. Ray had put a lot of thought into his concept for Spring, and it made Janine feel like a real model in a high fashion editorial for Vogue magazine. It had almost felt glamorous. Even the geranium sequence had been pleasant.
"Ask you a question, J," Winston said. "What's up between you and the Egghead, man?"
"What do you mean?" Janine said, knowing exactly what Winston meant. They just never talked about it until now.
"You want him, he wants you, but you all you guys do is dance around each other. That's some fucked up shit right there," Winston said. "Egon wants you so bad, it's not even funny." He laughed, shook his head. "No, actually it is pretty damn funny."
Janine shaded her eyes with her hands and sat up. "What?" she said. "Egon never notices me!"
"Wrong," Winston said. "He always does, Janine. He just doesn't want you catching him noticing you. There's a very subtle yet very big difference." He scratched the back of his ear. "I don't think Egon knows you've got some serious deep feelings for him so he's being evasive on purpose."
"I don't believe you," Janine said. It was one man's word against what she'd been observing for years. And what she'd been observing was that Egon wasn't observing back. It would take more proof to convince Janine otherwise. She wanted to believe Winston more than anything, that Egon wanted her too, but she'd walked down that road before and knew that hope was a dangerous feeling to flirt with. It was hard enough reading mixed signals, but reading no signals? There was a word for that – delusional.
"Believe what you want," Winston said, winding up the camera. "It don't change facts."
Shortly, a mysterious antenna-like device reared from the fire escape behind Janine. Egon appeared, carrying the antenna in one hand and what appeared to be a modified PKE meter hanging from a hook attached to his belt.
Winston shrugged at him. Shorthand for "What the fuck, man? I'm trying to work."
"Just putting some equipment on a test run," Egon said, walking around the roof deck. Winston and Janine paused to watch him. Once Egon had passed behind Winston, Winston tilted his head towards Egon and signaled to Janine by widening his eyes. More shorthand. This time, Winston meant to communicate - "Now you see what I'm talking about?" Janine gestured back at him, her hand whirling in front of her face, her expression twisting with incomprehension. Egon turned his attention to them. Winston and Janine froze. "Carry on, people," said Egon. As soon as he had his back turned, the non-verbal battle of face signals resumed between Winston and Janine, with Winston forcing Janine to acknowledge the living, breathing evidence that Egon was going out of his way to be near her in a look that signified, "The roof? Seriously?" In turn, Janine just wanted Winston to quit it and resume shooting so that they could get off the rooftop already.
Egon, oblivious to the wordless debate happening a few feet behind him, adjusted the PKE meter by his hip. Whatever that thing was supposed to do, it certainly wasn't helping him pick up the signals that were so obviously being thrown his way.