Chapter 3
ANYA
By the time Monday morning rolls around I’m running on four packets of biscuits and nerves. Rosie is absolutely no help whatsoever. Saying ‘ You’ll be fine ’ and ‘ Stop getting crumbs in my duvet ’ when I huddle in my temporary bed with a packet of cookies contemplating the best way to answer the phone; ‘Hi’ is too casual and ‘Good Afternoon, you have reached Anya Bonnet’ too formal.
I call into work claiming the flu so that I can have the whole day to panic but it’s not until four pm that my phone lights up with a call.
I freeze and stare at the screen for a split second before picking it up so quickly that it nearly flies out of my grasp.
I clear my throat as I press answer.
“Hello, Anya speaking.” I cringe.
“Hello, this is Devon from Accordance . We are looking at you for a PA position. I have it here that you studied for three years at the University of Thornton with a first in Film/TV Production – is that correct?”
“I—yes—”
“And you have had experience on multiple short films on the festival circuit but nothing mainstream or commercial?”
“Well no but—“
“And you have directed two short films, one going on to win three times at local film festivals?”
I’m quite proud of that one. “Yes.”
“And you speak fluent French?”
“Oui,” I reply with a jaunty tone.
“Do you have a French passport?”
“Yes.”
“And do you have a base in Paris?”
“Uh—” I stumble. My aunt has a place in the sixteenth arrondissement but I haven’t spoken to her in years. I don’t even know if she still lives there. I can hear the silence stretching down the phone and my opportunity running away with it. “Yeah, yeah, I have a base.”
“Okay, we will need to do some more checks but that all sounds great. We will contact you in a few days with the contract details.”
Wait, what?
“Wait, what?” I ask, incredulously. “Are you saying I have the job?”
“Well yes, this all seems in order. Do you have any questions?”
My mind goes blank. I know I had questions but what were they? “So I have the job? Just like that?”
“Yes,” Devon says, “The contract and details for your role will be sent to you by the end of the week.”
“Uh—th—thank you!”
“Goodbye.”
What. The. Actual. Fuck. Did I just get a job on a Gwendoline Marcs feature film in a five-minute phone call? I check the time on my screen – scratch that three minutes and twelve seconds. My stomach soars and I laugh incredulously.
I sent a text to Rosie full of exclamation marks and ring my mum immediately.
“ Salut , mon petit cabbage .” Mum chirps down the phone.
“Mum I got the job!” I screech.
“What job?” Mum exclaims, matching my energy even without any information.
“A job on a Gwendoline Marcs feature!”
“Gwendoline Marcs! Wow!”
I laugh, “You don’t know who that is do you?”
“Well no, but you do.” Mum says. “Go on, tell me everything.”
I stumble over my words telling the whole story from the demented smoke machine to Rosie’s text to the call with Devon. Mum interrupts with the appropriate exclamations.
“So when do you start?”
“I don’t know yet, I’ll get the contract in soon.”
“I’m so proud of you, cabbage.” Mum had been calling me cabbage ever since I was a child. She used to say the French term of endearment until I was old enough to know what it meant. I used to be so cross that my mum was calling me a root vegetable that Sabine Bonnet started to just call me Cabbage just to wind me up. And it stuck.
“Uh, there is one thing.” I play with the end of my hair.
“What?”
“I told them I have a base in Paris.”
Silence.
“Why did you say that?”
“I don’t know! I panicked.” I pull at my lip tentatively. “Do you think Aunt Claudette will let me stay at hers?”
I hear mum’s sigh down the phone.
“Please?” I ask. My mother and her sister do not have an easy relationship. I’ve never really known why they don’t get on but I always know to approach the subject gently.
“Mum,” I say quietly.
“I’ll text her,” she huffs. “But if she says no then you’re going to have to start searching.”
I pump my fist. “Thankyouthankyouthankyou.”
Later, after I’ve been to visit Steve and put in my notice, I’m opening a bottle of supermarket prosecco when a text comes through from mum.
Mum: Claudette is ‘summering’ in the Alps so her apartment is all yours.
The bottle pops and I feel like an Formula 1 driver, basking in my victory.