CHAPTER 6
Last night, Dana had been eating dinner with an actress who had been auditioning for Bray, and this morning, Dana would be auditioning for the same part.
Bryce had caught her just as she had been about to get into her car to head home for the night, and while doubled over from running to catch up to her, she had asked Dana if she belonged to the union.
Dana hadn’t been sure what she’d been talking about at first, so Bryce had explained.
Dana hadn’t known what to think then, feeling bad because she’d spent the past thirty minutes helping someone else try to get the part, and Grace seemed nice enough; not exactly the most talented actress in the world, but nice enough, at least. Dana had also felt stunned and excited and scared and nervous and a lot of other things all at once.
“You’re doing this,” her sister had stated the moment Dana had told her over the phone as she’d driven home.
“I said I would, Lainey. I don’t need you to tell me to do it. I need you to tell me I can do it.”
“Of course, you can. You’re an actress. You’ve auditioned before,” Lainey had argued.
“Yeah, for local stuff. Community theater. Never a movie like this.”
“They asked you.”
“Because they lost their actual Bray at the last minute, and it sounds like the other two candidates were duds, so it’s not like they have much choice.”
“So?” Lainey had said. “It doesn’t matter why they asked. They asked, and you’re going to kick-ass, break a leg, or whatever else they say. Just talk to Bryce. Have her help you. You’re playing her, after all.”
“I can’t use–”
“Yes, you can. Everyone does. Use your friendship with the writer and the woman you’ll be playing to help you get the part.”
“I just meant that I can’t because she’s slammed busy, Laine,” she’d replied. “She’s still on the set right now and will be there before me tomorrow, I’m sure.”
“Okay. Well, call Sophie. She can help.”
“I need to go home and rehearse. Bryce gave me a few scenes they want me to read tomorrow. I’m reading alone, so thank God for that because I don’t know if I can audition with Samara Barber first,” she’d said.
“Still being a bitch to you?”
“Well, she’s not exactly being nice to me, and Bryce and Sophie aren’t the ‘will they, won’t they’ kind of couple. There’s not that kind of tension that just boils over until they admit that they like each other and go to town for hours and hours before they come up for air.”
Lainey had laughed and said, “I guess you’re right. But what does that have to do with you playing this part?”
“I don’t know. I can’t stand her, and she can’t stand me. I think it would take some pretty brilliant acting on my part and hers to pull this off, and I’m not sure either of us is that good.”
“What? You think you’re going to end up going to town on one another one day?”
Dana had laughed loudly and said, “Uh… No. I think she’s about as straight as they come. I’m actually wondering why she even wants to do this movie. Hey, I just got home, and I need to start practicing.”
“Want to hang out tomorrow night?” Lainey had asked.
“Sure. Your place?”
“Let’s go to the bar and get some dinner.”
“I’ll text you,” Dana had said before hanging up.
◆◆◆
She woke up the following morning having gotten very little sleep, despite trying to get a full eight hours and wake up well-rested.
She went to her kettle, which had just boiled, to make herself some tea with honey because it helped her voice on stage, and while she didn’t exactly need to project, it was what Dana knew, and this was her routine on audition days.
Taking her first sip way too soon, though, she burned her tongue slightly and hoped this was the end of her bad luck for today.
She still had to get Samara’s breakfast over to her, which she really wasn’t looking forward to, but then, she’d be able to walk into that room and audition for a role in a movie. A real movie. Her dream.
Thinking about that on the drive to set had her tapping her hands on the steering wheel and trying to gather herself because she couldn’t let her nerves and fear get in the way of today.
It was too big a chance to mess up, and she guessed Bryce had gone out on a limb to get her this shot.
She didn’t want to let her down. Dana pulled into a spot near catering and headed that direction, finding her boss outside, setting chafing dishes on the mobile food warmers.
“Hey, I’m here. Just going to clock in, and I’ll get her food taken care of.”
“I’ve got it,” he said. “Made and delivered five minutes ago. She got in earlier than we planned for today.”
“Oh. Really?” Dana asked.
“Yes. She wasn’t scheduled to get here until nine, but she just showed up, had her assistant call, and requested her breakfast early, so I took care of it. Dry rye toast, vegan eggs scrambled, and green juice.”
“Sounds flavorless,” she replied.
“I’d imagine so. She instructed light salt, so I only added a pinch. I’m sure I’ll either be hearing about how that was still too much or not enough.”
“Well, I was going to deal with her and then go do that thing I texted you about last night.”
“You can go now, if you want,” Josh replied, closing the warmer door. “Will you be back to serve lunch?”
“I should be. It’s just a quick thing, so probably thirty minutes or so.”
“Great. I’ll see you later, then,” he said.
As much as she didn’t want to have to deal with Samara just yet today, Dana had been looking forward to having at least another fifteen minutes before she went into that room to read for a role she felt wholly unprepared for.
“You’ve got this. This is what you’ve wanted your whole life,” she whispered, trying to psych herself up as she walked toward the building.
Looking around, she caught sight of Samara leaving her trailer and heading in the same direction.
She slowed her pace so as not to catch up to her and watched her open the door and disappear inside.
Dana assumed that she was going into a different room.
Maybe they were using more than just one and were doing wardrobe fittings or something.
She pulled open the door herself and took a deep breath, holding her script in her hands and rolling it up and flattening it out like she’d been doing all night.
Then, she walked into the open door and saw Reed, Bryce, the casting director, Faye, and none other than Samara Barber sitting behind the table that had been there yesterday. Dana swallowed hard.
“Hey, Dana,” Bryce greeted. “Come on in. We’re just getting set up.”
“Yeah, okay,” she replied and walked farther into the room, not knowing where to stand.
“You have your sides?” Faye asked.
“Uh… Yeah.”
She held up the script she’d been given.
“Great. I’ll be reading Stella’s lines.”
“Even though Samara is here?” Dana asked.
“I’m just observing this morning,” Samara replied.
Dana nodded, trying to play it cool but feeling even more nervous now than she had been before.
“We can get started whenever you’re ready,” Faye told her. “We’ll run through it casually at first and see how you do. Then, I might ask you to go again and do it a little differently.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’m ready whenever.”
“Let’s start with Bray telling Stella that she’s beautiful,” Faye instructed.
“Okay,” Dana repeated and took a deep breath before she began. She looked straight at Samara to deliver the words, since she was there, and said, “You’re beautiful.”
“Thank you,” Faye, as Stella, replied plainly. “So are you. Sexy.”
“Sexy?” Dana said.
“Yes. I like this.”
The script called for Stella to run her hand through Bray’s short hair, and Dana kept staring at Samara, even though Faye was doing Stella’s line. Samara stared back at her inquisitively.
“So do I,” Dana said as Bray and squeezed the script she still hadn’t needed to refer to in her right hand as she stared at Samara, mustering all the courage she had to hold her gaze. “You can keep doing that for the rest of the night, if you want.”
“So, what do you do?” Faye asked.
“I’m a food blogger.”
“A blogger?”
“Yeah. I got a job out of college as a fact-checker for an online magazine and met someone who had a side hustle as a blogger. She taught me a lot about it, and then, she quit her day job at the magazine because she was able to support herself,” Dana said.
“With blogging? There’s money in that?”
Dana laughed how she had heard Bryce laugh the day before, and said, “There can be. But my guess is you knew that. You were teasing me, weren’t you?”
“Yes,” Faye said. “But you do it full-time now?”
“I do. It started on the side, but it took off. Now, I do it full-time. It’s mostly just me writing about the food I eat.
I have some recipes out there that I like to cook, but that part of the blog is pretty new.
People like my takes on restaurants. I sometimes just pack up my car and drive for as long as I can stand and stop off at the first restaurant I see, which could be a dive, a barbecue joint attached to a gas station, or the fanciest place in town.
Then, I go home, and I write about it. I make enough to get by, but I’m not at the A-list level of food bloggers or anything. ”
“So, no sugar mama for me, either?” Faye said with no joking in her tone.
Dana tried to not let that throw her off, so she laughed again and said, “No, but my goal would be to get that kind of visibility on the blog and have a comfortable life. I don’t care if I get rich or anything; just comfortable is fine with me.”
“Me too,” Faye said Stella’s line and then added, “Okay. Let’s stop there for a moment and move ahead a bit.”
“You don’t want me to redo any of it?” Dana asked.
“No, not necessary,” Faye replied.
Dana nodded and looked over at Bryce, hoping to get some kind of signal. Bryce gave her a smile, but Dana didn’t know her well enough to read it.
“Take it from the dance part,” Faye instructed.
“Sure,” Dana said, knowing what she meant.
“You don’t need your script?” Samara asked.
“No,” she replied and, keeping her focus, said, “I want to dance with you, but I don’t want to lose this seat.”
“I’m not really a good dancer; definitely not to a song like this,” Faye said as Stella.
“It’s just holding on to the other person and moving to the music,” Dana said with a little confidence building now. “I’d lead.”
“Maybe another time. It’s a great seat, after all, so I don’t want to lose it, either. Besides, I’m worried that if you see me dance, you’d leave me on the dance floor for someone else.”
“I don’t think that would happen,” Dana said the next line as she focused intently on Samara’s bright blue eyes.
“You know what? I think we’re good for now,” Reed said out of nowhere.
“Sorry?” Dana asked, having to force her eyes off Samara and back to the rest of them. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No, nothing wrong,” Faye replied. “I think we have enough for now. Will you be around the rest of the day if we need you?”
“I’ll be in catering, yeah,” she said.
“Okay. I’ll send a PA later, maybe. We have a few video auditions we asked for last night that are rolling in now, so I’m going to watch those, and then, we’ll let you know the next steps, okay?”
“Yeah, okay,” she said.
Dana hadn’t known about the video auditions, but she should have expected that they weren’t just going to rely on her being good enough when she had no real experience.
“Hey, I’ll walk you out,” Bryce added.
“Cool,” Dana replied and walked anxiously out of the room, with Bryce following quickly behind.
Her adrenaline was through the roof, and she knew she needed to calm herself down because if they only needed her for six minutes, she wasn’t getting the part and shouldn’t be getting used to this high that she always felt when she got a chance to act.
“Hey, great job in there,” Bryce said.
“It lasted, like, six minutes,” Dana replied. “Shouldn’t I have read more? That’s just when they meet and really start getting into it.”
“Honestly, I don’t think you need to. At least, not now.
You killed it, if you ask me. I’m not trying to tell you that I know you’ll get it, so don’t see this as a guarantee – we have at least ten videos that we need to watch – but you really did great.
And I love how you stared at Samara like that.
Badass. Even when they were doing chemistry reads with her, they had a hard time actually looking at her.
Vanessa didn’t, but Grace and Cynthia both did.
I think they’re intimidated by her. Anyway, that was great. ”
“Why didn’t she just read Stella’s lines with me? Does she think I’m some rookie and not worth her time? And why would she be sitting there if that was the case?”
“What? No. She’s the one who gave us the idea to have you read,” Bryce said.
“Who?” Dana asked as she stopped walking.
“Samara,” Bryce replied with a laugh. “The woman we were just talking about.”
“Samara Barber?” She pointed back toward the building they’d just left. “That Samara Barber? She told you to let me read? Why?”
“Because she thought you might be good at it, I guess. She was right. After we watch these other auditions, we’ll see where we stand, okay? It’s likely we’ll want you to read with her, even if we still want to see a few more people. You’re here and ready to go, so it’s smart to move you forward.”
“That’s good to know, I guess. Now, I have to go back to my real life, where I’m on the catering staff and help get lunch ready for everyone.”
“If we don’t have our Bray pretty much decided on by tomorrow, we’ll be moving on with other scenes with just Stella and her friends until we can get her.
Reed is reworking the schedule now with the crew, trying to make all the location changes work, so can you let Josh know that for me?
We might need to make some changes to catering. ”
“Oh, sure,” she said, feeling like the audition had been a fluke.
She was being asked to relay a message to her boss, which was what she should be doing, not auditioning for a role she had never had a chance of getting.
“Great. I’ll talk to you later. Really good stuff,” Bryce said and patted her on the shoulder before she turned and walked away.