Chapter One #2
I can feel the eyes of the women in the lobby following me, burning into me.
I want to turn and assure them that this must be a fluke, an outright mistake.
Or maybe it’s not and they’re calling me back to tell me they’re not sure how my name ended up on the list for an audio drama when I have no prior experience and I can go home now and stop wasting everyone’s time.
Haniya’s heels click pleasantly down the long hallway of doors.
She still hasn’t looked up from the tablet, is still typing.
The air-conditioning is freezing in here—much too cold for a fairly mild June in Colorado—and now I’m deeply regretting not bringing a sweater.
My hair is well past my shoulders, and it’s thick…
but not thick enough to function as a makeshift poncho.
Everything about this is giving me the kind of anxiety that feels like I accidentally swallowed a large chunk of ice and there’s nothing to do but wait for it to melt.
“Here we are,” Haniya says, like she can sense I’m about to bolt.
“Would you like some water? Juice? Tea?” She opens the door and keeps it propped open with the hand not holding the iPad.
“Catarina will be right with you and she said to make yourself at home in the meantime. Look around, get a feel for the room if you’d like. ”
“Thanks.”
“Was that a yes to tea?”
I nod, hoping my smile doesn’t look like my ice-in-throat anxiety feels.
And then she’s gone, leaving me to examine the recording room, the booth with a music stand and a light clamped to the top, a printed set of instructions on navigating the mic that hangs from above, and a small table with a bottle of water and headphones beside it.
It’s a nice setup, to say the least. The room is professionally built for acoustics, nothing like my walk-in apartment closet in Texas that I lined with Ikea rugs to record my podcast.
But just seeing the microphone, the headphones, is enough to bring it all back: The burn in my back, the way I would hunch over my laptop for hours totally absorbed in recording and editing and posting.
How I would dream, the way I felt more in touch with other people through working on my show in that cramped closet than I did in the middle of a crowded mall or the busiest of grocery store aisles.
I built my own little world in those twenty-five square feet.
And then…I signed it away, too taken in, too stupid to remember that I should never ask for more than what is normal. A smart woman would have kept on going, grateful for the podcast she had without the promise of more.
I shouldn’t be here. I should learn the lesson life has repeatedly tried to teach me before it gets a chance to take another swing.
But I couldn’t ignore the godforsaken email that mysteriously showed up in my inbox. The email had said “competitive salary.”
That’s why I’m here.
If I keep telling myself it’s about the money and not reclaiming some sense of self, not thinking I can get back to the same joy I found in my recording closet and that one time in college on a stage that wasn’t mine to begin with, then maybe the inevitable disappointment won’t feel so much like another ice cube swallow.
The door opens again.
“Juniper!” The woman is smiling from ear to ear. “It’s so good to finally meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” I say, but the words come from my autopilot brain.
She is acting like she knows me, which—unless in addition to being out of the correct timeline I am also out of my mind—is weird, because I’m certain we’ve never met.
“I’m Catarina. I’ll be directing this project and also handpicking the voice actors. I am a big fan of your podcast,” she says. “I can’t tell you how many book recommendations I’ve gotten from On the Same Page. ”
Oh.
“And it’s such a cool interview vehicle to ask people to describe their most favorite books without ever mentioning the title or author until the very end,” Catarina continues. “How did you come up with it?”
There’s the anxiety again. James Freakin’ Neely might as well be standing in the corner of the room with that smug look on his face while I stutter and try to find the words.
“A friend from college,” I finally say, but “friend” comes out sounding like “frand” in my distress.
A great way to start my audition for a job that requires I read clearly and confidently.
Not to mention my answer is a total lie. We were not friends. We weren’t exactly enemies, either. We were a good memory that turned sour before it finished forming. We were both of us a step too far in the wrong direction, already passing each other by before we could even say hello.
And yet I feel a minuscule flare of anger just hot enough to melt any ice left in my throat.
“But he just asked me the question,” I tell Catarina, smiling in what I hope is a confident, charming kind of way. “The opposite, actually. He wanted me to tell him about my least favorite book. I had the idea to turn it into a podcast and make it the primary interview question.”
“That’s lovely! Lovely.” Catarina clasps her hands together, her silver bracelets jingling around her wrists.
“I’d love to pick your brain more, but I’m so glad you could come in and read for me today.
I know all of this is a bit unorthodox, but this is a big production.
” Catarina widens her arms in emphasis. “There’s a lot of money behind it, a lot of investment from the publisher, and we’re looking to cast our Arabella fairly quickly because obviously she and William will have the most lines. ”
I blink.
Blink again.
One more time for good measure, but no, I do not appear to be having some sort of maladaptive daydreaming episode.
Did she really just say…Arabella and William? As in, The Meadow ? Surely I misheard. Surely this is my brain still kicking around the rock of “that one time movie stars came to Tatum” anecdote and not actually —
“Sorry,” I say. “What?”
Catarina looks momentarily confused at my less-than-eloquent response, but then snaps her fingers and grins.
“Oh! You didn’t know you were reading for The Meadow, did you?
Did Haniya not have you sign the NDA before you came back here?
It’s all very hush-hush until the cast is finalized.
The publicity team wants to do a big social media movement while recording to harness that sweet, sweet millennial energy and try to rope in Gen Z, and”—she leans toward me conspiratorially, like we’re friends—“I think you’ve got the perfect vibe to play Arabella and carry out the social media component if your podcast is any indication.
I saw it got picked up by Pod-Smart Productions, by the way.
Huge congrats! Can’t wait to hear the new episodes. ”
She’s going to know sooner or later, so I start to say, “Oh, actually, I won’t be—”
Haniya saves me from explaining my epic screwup by knocking on the door and opening it in one swift movement.
“Ms. Green.” She smiles at me like the savior she doesn’t realize she is. “I have a couple of documents for you to sign for me if you don’t mind. And Catarina? The repairman is here to address the issue with the speakers in rooms two and four.”
“Got it,” Catarina says, turning back to me. “Of course today of all days we have connectivity issues. In the crossfire of the crossed wires, if you will. Please make yourself comfortable, and we’ll be back in a jiff, okay?”
Haniya hands me another tablet before they both leave in a flurry of chatter and smiles. When the door closes behind them, it’s hard not to feel the weight of the last ten years all at once.
The Meadow, by Jennifer Sullivan. The. Meadow. By. Jennifer. Sullivan.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
I turn to the iPad before I have time to freak out.
The NDA looks standard enough from what I know of NDAs, which isn’t much.
I read the entire thing, though, word for word.
I made the mistake of skipping the legal jargon when I sold the podcast to Pod-Smart because I was young and stupid and trusted them when they said everything was laid out just as we had discussed over that one very nice steak dinner.
I must be slightly older and only slightly less stupid now, though, because instead of bolting for the door, I sign the damn document promising not to disclose that this audition is for The Meadow.
When I hit Submit, a document appears in a new tab as if summoned by my compliance: Audition Script—Female.
When I click on it, I’m surprised to see that it’s a scene directly from the third book in the Meadow series, Ember.
And it’s…a whole choice. The kind of choice that makes me blush even in the privacy of the booth.
I get why they picked it: It’s one of the heightened-emotions scenes, one where Arabella and William are clearly… close, to put it lightly. Arabella wants to have sex with William when she’s still human. And she’s willing to leverage anything to get it.
William is a vampire, but—as he states multiple times throughout the series— that part of his humanity is still alive and well.
It’s not that he doesn’t want to have sex with her, quite the opposite.
He’s just worried that if he does, he’ll lose his grip on his oh-so-stellar control and hurt Arabella in the process.
Way to throw us in the deep end for auditions, Catarina.
I read it through on the iPad like I’ve done dozens of times before when reading from the pages of my worn hardback or from my phone screen in doctor’s office waiting rooms, but then I stop myself and begin to reread it with an eye toward what it could sound like, what it should sound like.
Of course there are the Meadow movies, just as famous as the books if not more so.
And while they are very faithful adaptations that I adore in their own right, they’re not the books.
Movies never are. There are always those scenes that get left on the cutting room floor, the ones that play out beautifully in your head but not so much on the screen.