Chapter Six
Catarina’s lips are pinched.
It’s only our third day of recording and my director’s lips have shrunken to half their size since I started reading this scene where Arabella realizes she’s falling in love with William even though she knows he’s a vampire.
It’s a hard scene. Well, they’re all hard scenes to me, because I’m simultaneously having to pretend to be both Arabella and someone with the kind of skills and nerve to record an audiobook in the first place.
But this scene is especially challenging because it’s charged with emotion and the kind of angst that wants to slip into maudlin but—as Catarina has stopped to tell me twice now—I mustn’t let it.
I know I’m new at this, but surely it’s far too early for this amount of contemplative, dissatisfied lip compression from the other side of my booth.
If someone had told me two weeks ago I’d be so closely analyzing the lip-to-lip-pucker ratio of a woman I hadn’t met yet…
Okay, I might have believed them because life is weird, but I would have had questions.
Catarina looks up from her version of the script when she realizes I’ve lost my place and stopped reading.
“Sorry,” I say. “Sorry.”
It’s the first time I’ve seen Catarina anything less than chipper.
“I think you might be overthinking it,” she says. “Your delivery is—and forgive the pun because I know you just read a lengthy metaphor on trees—coming off a little wooden.”
Oof.
“We need Arabella to feel in awe of her own emotions,” Catarina continues.
“She’s never felt a love like this and it’s taken her aback, but she’s charging through the uncertainty because she wants to be with William.
I think the best way for that to come through in your voice—in her voice—is not to slow the words down so much but instead to vary the speed at which you deliver some of the lines.
One moment she’s contemplative, the next excited. How does that sound?”
I swallow.
“I get it,” I say.
Catarina fully removes her headphones so I follow suit.
“I think we’re due for a break anyway,” she says.
And she’s smiling away the pursed lips, yes, but it’s not lighting up her eyes.
She drops her gaze back to the papers on her own stand, shuffling them around and scratching what sounds like a very long note on one of the script pages.
“I need to make a few calls,” she says. “It shouldn’t take long, but we can pick up where we left off when I get back if that sounds good to you? ”
“Sure,” I say weakly. “Sounds great.”
Which it doesn’t. I don’t, anyway. Sound great, that is.
I’m not sure what a possum playing dead sounds like, but I’m guessing it’s not all so different than the long sigh I groan out the moment the door closes behind Catarina and I’m left alone in the quiet of the recording booth.
I decide “break” for me constitutes grabbing another water bottle from the mini fridge in the corner and sliding my back along the closest wall until I’m seated with my eyes closed and my head tilted against the foamy soundboard material.
She’s calling the executives, I know it.
She’s calling Genie and the powers that be to tell them I’ve gotten laryngitis of the vocal cords and the brain, and all that inflammation can’t possibly be good for the project and it’s really best if they let me go now.
Lose the contract, I imagine her saying. This girl is clearly defective.
Intellectually, I know it’s been less than a week and that every job has an adjustment period, but this job only lasts eight weeks.
I’m nearly one-eighth of the way through this entire assignment.
One-eighth might as well be one-fifth in Juniper math world, and isn’t that nearly 20 percent?
And I might as well round that up to a quarter, which means I’ve only got 75 percent of the allotted time to make the audio right and the social media component work, which I need to talk to James about and that’s going to be a treat.
I bet James isn’t being babysat by Catarina. I bet they just put him in front of a microphone and say, “Go be William. Be brilliant,” and he does it.
I take out my phone and wonder if I should text my dad or Serena to vent even though they’re probably both busy with their normal-people, respectable jobs.
I then spend another two minutes contemplating where a woman solidly in her thirties falls on the pathetic scale if those are her two best options to call in a time of crisis: her best-friend-by-default or her dad.
I’d probably spend at least another four minutes considering signing up for one of those swipe-right apps made for friendship instead of dating, but the door opens beside me and I scramble to my feet expecting to find Catarina holding a pink slip.
But of course it’s James Freakin’ Neely. Of course.
Because of how I angled myself when standing, we’re uncomfortably close, nearly toe-to-toe.
My nose is filled with the scents of coffee and bodywash and him.
I wouldn’t begin to know how to describe the him smell—sandalwood or cedarwood is customary, I know, but this is somehow simultaneously clean and not —but the bodywash…
“You smell like strawberries,” I say, the surprise of it momentarily distracting me from my despair and the shadows. “Why do you smell like artificial fruit?”
James wrinkles his forehead.
“I do not.”
I lean forward until my nose nearly grazes his worn denim jacket. He looks very LA casual today in sweatpants and tee and plain cap. Effortlessly cool.
“You do,” I confirm after a good whiff.
James sighs, and it’s so exasperated that it would almost, almost make me laugh if I didn’t know that Catarina was going to show up any second to fire me.
The thought sobers me, and I don’t think my expression changes, but it must because James stops rolling his eyes and instead everything on him softens…like he’s just stumbled across a dying possum in its final moments. And now he’s Just James and concerned.
I hate that.
“ Don’t, ” I say.
He tilts his head. “Don’t what?”
“Pity me.”
“Pity?”
“Catarina sent you in here, didn’t she?” I ask. “To soften the blow?”
James turns to close the door behind him with a heavy clunk.
“I’m lost,” he says. “Soften the blow of what?”
“Firing me.”
And now I can’t tell what his face is doing, but it’s not good.
“She fired you? Juniper, she doesn’t have that power. You have a contract, and she would have to get approval from the whole lot of them, anyway. You must have misheard.”
“She hasn’t yet,” I say. James’s face instantly relaxes. “But I suck at this. I thought this was going to be a ladder out of my career pit, but now I’m pretty sure it’s actually just going to dig the hole deeper.”
Whoever is in charge of evolutionary developments deserves a talking-to, because surely crying is not an appropriate response to stress or frustration.
And yet here I am—again—tearing up because it’s all much too much and having Just James standing there like a casualwear model and looking concerned and caring isn’t helping me make sense of the last three days, the last few weeks, the last decade.
I turn my back to him.
“No,” I say. “No, you don’t get to see me cry again.”
There is a long pause. For a room designed to absorb sound, I can hear James’s every shuffle, every arm movement as denim grazes denim like he’s not sure what to do with his body and has settled for moving his hands in and out of the jacket pockets.
“So it’s been a rough day, then,” he finally says.
“Rough month, ” I answer. “Rough everything.” I wipe at my traitorous eyes. I don’t ever want to see the infographic of Number of Times Juniper Cried in James Neely’s Presence. “And that’s the worst part, actually. It’s not that rough. I’m just whining about it.”
I’m still talking to the room and not to him, but I’m on a roll and I’m worried watching his face to do the sad-for-dead-possum thing will cause me to really lose it.
“My life is fine,” I say. “It’s not perfect, but it’s fine. Good, even.” I cough to force down the sob in my throat. “So why can’t I be happy with fine?”
Another pause.
“I get it,” he says, almost a whisper.
I’m in control enough not to scoff, but just barely.
“Sure,” I say, and I glance at him over my shoulder knowing full well my eyes are already pink and swollen.
“ You get it. Because you know what it’s like to have to wonder where your money is going to come from, what direction or even category of job you’re going to get next.
Because you know what it’s like to move back home because you literally can’t afford to make it on your own.
” The scoff finally breaks free. “Not to suggest that celebrities aren’t humans or whatever, but—”
“I’m not a celebrity,” James interrupts, and there’s an edge to his voice. A hardness that butts up against the definitely strawberry scent still accosting my nose.
“You’re not not one,” I say, turning to face him. “You’ve met Jimmy Fallon. You’ve been to award shows. You’ve walked a red carpet. What would you call all of that?”
“Torture.”
I roll my eyes. “I’d call that famous.”
“I’ve got a dedicated fanbase,” James concedes, “but that is not the same as celebrity.”
“And what is your definition of celebrity?” I ask. “What qualifications have you not met?”
“Longevity.”
He says it so quickly, so succinctly, I know he’s thought about this at length.
“You don’t think you’re going to have a long Hollywood shelf life?” I ask.
“I plan to throw myself off the shelf entirely,” he says, and there’s that sharp edge in his tone again. “I’d love nothing more than to be a Hollywood one-hit wonder who is never viewed by the public masses again.”