Chapter 7 #2
He picks up his glass and takes a sip. ‘I suppose I knew this when I met you,’ he says carefully. ‘That I’d always be in your shadow.’
‘If you don’t want to help me, Jackson, I’ll be on my way,’ I say, turning. Ready to leave.
‘Wait, Amelia.’ I turn around. ‘I didn’t say I had a problem with that.’
And the way he says it is so slow, so unbelievably sexy, that for a second I forget we’re acting. An image appears in my mind of Avi – bursting into my trailer. Almost shirtless. Oh, my God. Where did that come from?
‘And cut!’ Alessandro shouts, rushing over to us.
I look at Avi, a little panic rippling through me.
‘This was excellent, estella mia,’ Alesandro says, grabbing my hands. He looks from me to Avi, delighted. ‘So, bambina,’ he says. ‘Shall we get this show on the road?’
‘Sure,’ I reply, feeling more confident now than I did before.
Maybe, just maybe, I can do this, I think.
Something pulls me to look up, just as Alessandro is walking back over to his screen.
And I catch something in Avi’s eyes – something that looks like nerves, or fear.
Which doesn’t make any sense at all. Because he’s done this a million times.
I’m the one who should be scared.
But, strangely, in this moment – I don’t feel it.
I feel determined.
My senses narrow to a point, waiting for my call. Through ‘rolling, set, camera, lights’, each team is called to their respective duties one by one. And so when Alessandro calls ‘Action!’, my cue, I’m ready for it.
Avi and I start trading lines – the chemistry just as it was before. The rapport emerging again. And I feel it. Like a warmth permeating my whole body, spreading across my limbs.
But then something happens. I look at Avi for a second too long between lines. And some of the hurt from our confrontation earlier spills out. The edges of Jackson fading away – until he’s Avi. Who put that stupid bunch of sunflowers in my trailer and reminded me how much he hurt me.
And I go cold.
I become suddenly aware of the room around me. The cameras, the people. And after a few seconds I come back to my body to find that it’s just me. Lara. In a room full of people who are relying on me to do a good job.
And I can’t remember my next line.
Fuck.
I’m corpsing. I have no idea what I’m supposed to say. An appropriate term because I would probably rather be dead than doing this on my first day on-set, in front of all these people.
But I’m choking, silence falling while I try to remember the line I memorised. That I recited in the car this morning. In my trailer. During rehearsal just now.
I stare at Avi while I falter helplessly for a few more seconds, groping for words. His expression turns concerned, which sends another flash of heat across my skin.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I look out in Alessandro’s direction to a sea of faces, their expressions frozen as they wait for me to speak.
But I can’t speak. My voice is gone. Amelia is gone. The line is gone.
Everything is gone.
Oh, God.
‘Cut!’ Alessandro calls from my right and a boulder the size of a car lands on my chest.
‘Lara,’ Avi says quickly, as Alessandro approaches. ‘Lara, it’s fine. It’s just first day nerves—’
‘Stop talking.’ I choke, placing my hands on my hips and bending over. ‘Please.’
He obeys, but still looks at me with a level of concern that makes something twist in my chest. Because he’s not allowed to look at me like that.
‘Amelia mia,’ Alessandro says, his expression still calm – though I think I see a hint of something underneath it that turns my stomach. He’s worried. And why wouldn’t he be? I’ve been on-set for five minutes and I’m already failing. ‘Shall we try the scene again?’
‘Y-yes,’ I manage to say. ‘Let’s.’
Eventually, after a couple more failed takes, Alessandro calls a break – for us to go to the green room and regroup while they see to the sound issue from earlier.
I wonder if he’s just making up an excuse to avoid embarrassing me, but dismiss the thought.
Their time is far too precious, far too expensive, for that. I hope.
David leads us to the green room and I can hear Avi breathing a few paces away from me. I move quickly, heading straight over to the coffee table. Pouring myself a cup, my hand shaking.
‘Lara…’ Avi’s gaze is drawn to my hand. ‘Can we talk?’
I take a breath, ready to say something – anything – that will make him leave me alone. That will allow me to regroup before we’re called back to set in a few minutes. But before he can say anything, someone else walks in.
Sienna Marsh, in the flesh.
I almost drop my coffee.
Somehow – even in her costume of a torn-to-pieces dress, with dirt smeared on her face – she’s still the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.
Fuck.
‘Oh my goodness,’ she says, in her mellow Californian accent. It’s like honey and sunlight all at once, bright and smooth and perfectly toned. ‘Lara, right? It’s so wonderful to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.’
You have? I think. And then I can’t help it – I gape for a few seconds. Because until now, the most up-close I’ve come to her face was when it was plastered over the wall in a perfume advert at Piccadilly Circus Tube station. Seeing her in person is surreal.
‘It’s… nice to meet you too, Sienna,’ I choke out eventually, trying to sound like I really mean it. Because she’s being perfectly nice, but her sudden appearance – after my complete and utter failure just now – is making me feel like I might have swallowed a few wasps.
‘I heard about Roman putting a rat in your trailer this morning,’ she says, her expression sympathetic. I glance at Avi sharply and he looks a little sheepish.
‘What an asshole,’ Sienna says. I turn back to her and she looks genuinely annoyed. I hesitate for a second, surprised by this response. ‘I’m so sorry he did that.’
‘Uh… thanks,’ I reply.
‘Of course,’ she says, placing a hand on my arm and looking at me conspiratorially. ‘You have any trouble with him, you let me know, okay? We used to summer together as kids, in the Hamptons. I know things about that man that would make your toes curl. I can handle him if you need.’
The use of the word ‘summer’ as a verb startles me and for a second I’m thrown.
The offer is kind – kinder than it needed to be, given we’ve just met.
But as she looks at me, some resolve moves through me.
I’ve felt out of my depth since I arrived here this morning and this is one thing I want to do for myself.
Besides, I’ve already watched Avi ‘handle’ Roman for me and I want him to hear this.
‘I think I’d like to handle him myself,’ I say. ‘But thank you.’
And despite my friendly demeanour, I expect her to falter at this – to find it offensive, even. That I’m turning down her offer of help so decisively. But she just steps back, looking a little impressed. ‘A woman of her own mind,’ she says. ‘I like it.’
‘Anyway,’ she adds. ‘I have to get to the other set.’ By which she means a separate sound stage, where she’ll presumably be filming today. ‘I just wanted to say hi. But I’ll see you around, okay?’
I nod and she wafts away in a cloud of what smells like a floral perfume – a little incongruous, given her current get-up – squeezing Avi’s arm as she passes. I watch her go, a million feelings rippling through me, unable to think of much more than how she moves with such grace and ease.
I arrived today determined to prove that Alessandro had made the right choice casting me over Sienna.
And instead, I’ve done the opposite.
Then Avi locks eyes with me. And my heart starts hammering against my chest.
Shit.
‘Right!’ David appears so suddenly it makes me jump out of my skin. That man is stealthy. But in this case, it’s incredibly welcome. ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news. The sound issue from earlier is persisting, so we can’t film again until tomorrow. You’re going to have to go home.’
I get back to the hotel by lunchtime and find myself with absolutely no idea what to do with myself.
I expected to be on-set all day. I planned for it.
So being stuck in a hotel room feels wrong.
I have this pent-up adrenaline, this intense desire to prove myself after my terrible start, and nowhere to put it.
I spend an hour re-reading my script, and fight the urge to leave my hotel room and go for a walk to burn this off.
I might run into Avi and I don’t want to talk to him right now.
I pull out my phone to find a text from Alison. Have a great day, movie star! And I smile in spite of everything.
Thanks, I text back. Hope you’re having a great day too. Love you.
She doesn’t need to know about this fiasco.
After I hit send, someone knocks on the door.
I tense up, thinking it will be Avi, but when I open it I find someone else.
Sienna.
Oh, God.
‘Hi,’ she says warmly. She’s no longer in her tattered rags from earlier; now she’s in an impossibly chic pink two-piece outfit. ‘I just wrapped and wanted to stop by.’
‘Hi,’ I reply. Fighting a sudden urge to adjust my dress, which I got at a charity shop for ￡5 a few weeks ago, and which has a rip in the hem that I’ve been meaning to try to sew up.
‘Can I come in?’ she asks. And I am not sure how I feel about company right now but I step aside to let her in, still more than a little starstruck by her presence.
I’m struggling to wrap my mind around the fact that she’s actually in my room right now.
Not to mention the fact that she might be coming for my job, if I can’t get my shit together.
‘I’d offer you a cup of tea or something,’ I say lamely, for lack of anything else to say. ‘But I’m not sure I have a kettle.’
‘Oh, don’t worry. I’ve never understood you Brits and your obsession with tea. It just tastes like dishwater to me,’ she says flippantly. ‘Though I did have an Earl Grey at the Savoy once that was just about bearable.’