Chapter 24
24
MINNIE
Now
Minnie examined her nails and noticed white edges starting to wear through her oxblood red tips.
Shit.
It’s not that she had to look perfect – Veronica Valla seemed like the type of assassin who might have chipped nails – but Minnie wanted to look slick and put together, so she could feel her most confident. As the clock kept ticking, she doubted herself more with each minute.
What’s going on?
By 3p.m., Minnie had almost stopped caring about her lines. She was furious to have wasted a day in Paris sitting on a sofa and it felt less and less likely that she was going to meet Wim Fischer or Viola Rubin today, if ever. Minnie knew this happened. Auditions were often delayed. Curveballs thrown. But never had an audition felt less like an audition and that she’d turned up to the wrong thing on the wrong day. She rubbed her legs, cold in the air con of the hotel atrium, the temperature jarring against the sunshine outside, as wealthy and well- dressed guests arrived for meetings or bookings from the side-street entrance, a floral canopy off a busy street in central Paris.
Minnie looked at her phone and sighed as obviously as she could. Her manners were waning. It was 3.04p.m. and she had only fifty-six minutes before she was due to meet Jesse, and only 9 per cent battery. She had asked three times at the desk if anyone was coming for her, and the bald man – who had been for his lunch and come back – told her that someone would be with her soon.
She started to panic about getting to the Jardin du Luxembourg in time. Would she find it? Would Jesse wait if she were late? How would she cope alone in Paris without any charge in her phone? She had to get back to Gare du Nord by 8p.m., with or without Jesse.
I should have got his bloody number.
Minnie typed Jesse Lightning into the search box on Google again, to see if she could message him on Instagram, and saw the battery life drop to 6 per cent.
Dammit.
She put her phone to sleep and looked up, frustrated now at the lackeys and the journalists.
This is just rude.
Everything felt very strange; everything felt a little off. She’d been to enough auditions to know she was not best placed to get this part. But then this was Wim Fischer. Enfant terrible of Hollywood. He could do what he wanted of course.