Chapter Fifteen
Carrie greeted me with a coffee from craft services before I had even made it to my trailer.
‘You know I can get my own coffee?’ I asked her, smiling, despite the ungodly hour.
‘I wanted an excuse to be here when you went in your trailer,’ she said, her eyes glowing with delight.
‘Why?’ I frowned, taking a sip of coffee and pushing open the trailer door to find . . .
Flowers, on every surface, as far as the eye could see.
Which, in a trailer, is not that far, but still.
Flowers on the table, flowers on the work surface next to the sink, flowers on the windowsills.
Glass vases were overflowing with wildflowers that looked as if they had just been picked from a meadow and expertly arranged for my delight.
Shades of cornflower blue, the zingy red of a poppy, a spray of gypsophila, all harmonised to create a sense of abundance and natural beauty.
A card in a powder-blue envelope was lodged in the middle of a huge lilac hydrangea.
I knew the erratic scrawl on the envelope immediately. A little nervously, I opened it.
Dear Emily,
I’m so sorry for yesterday. I know these flowers won’t make it up to you, but I wanted you to know how serious I am about being sorry, so please accept them as a symbolic gesture that cost me a ton of money. But for real, I’m sorry. Thank you for putting up with me.
Josh
‘I think we’re going to have to move these before Lou gets here with my costume.
There’s barely enough room for me in here as it is,’ I mumbled, slipping the card back into the envelope, not knowing what else to say.
Clearly I wasn’t the only one who had spent the night regretting how things had gone.
‘Isn’t it incredible?!’ Carrie gasped, outwardly expressing what I just couldn’t bring myself to. ‘It’s like the proposal scene in Gilmore Girls or something.’
I swallowed hard at that. ‘Yes, they’re beautiful.’
‘They’re from Josh, right?’
I nodded, a little too overwhelmed to be able to speak. Was it possible that, although delivered in the heat of the moment, I had been right to say what I said?
‘Yesterday was not great . . .’ She looked at me out of the corner of her eyes. ‘But this seems . . . like a fresh start?’
I paused for a moment, thinking. ‘It’s certainly the first time he’s ever tried to, I don’t know, make it up to me after he’s done something wrong.’
‘And do you think this could represent, quite literally, a new leaf?’ she suggested, optimistically.
‘Let’s hope so,’ I laughed. ‘OK, Lou will be here any minute so, er, let’s try and redistribute these among the trailers – take them to hair and makeup, the production office, visual effects, the prop workshops .
. . oh, and can you get some to Big Phil in security, his wife would love that bouquet with the poppies. ’
‘Aye aye, captain.’ She saluted me and set off with two vases as I sat down in front of the makeup mirror and gazed at my reflection. Tired, undoubtedly, but nothing that coffee wouldn’t fix. And something more. Maybe hopeful? Was it hope I was feeling? Yes, that must be it. Hope.
My thoughts were interrupted by a knock at my trailer door. ‘Ems, I know you’re always around early so just wanted to let you know I’m ready in makeup when you are,’ Juliet called.
I opened the door, and her eyes widened at the sight of the flowers.
‘Bloody hell, what’s all this, then?’
‘I’m on a redistribution mission,’ Carrie said, reappearing from her first trip. ‘Here.’ She handed a vase to Juliet. ‘For makeup! Not to stereotype or anything but you’ll probably appreciate them more than props did. Here, take two!’
‘They’re gorgeous!’ Juliet’s eyes lit up, cradling one vase under each arm like twin babies. ‘Who on earth are they from? Secret admirer?’
‘No,’ I laughed, shaking my head. ‘Josh. To apologise for yesterday.’
‘Pretty extravagant way to apologise,’ she said as we made our way from my trailer to hair and makeup. I relieved her of one of the vases and we walked side by side past Josh’s trailer. ‘He must be feeling guilty.’
‘I guess so,’ I said.
The makeup trailer was buzzing with activity, full of my fellow actors with an early call time.
Felicity was in the chair on the other side of me, deep in conversation with her makeup artist about some new miracle cream that she hoped would keep her young forever.
Courtney was gossiping to Wen, another of the supporting cast, about a cute new grip who had come onto this film.
I sat down in my chair in front of my mirror while Edith sat in the chair next to me, where normally Darcy would be.
She greeted me with a warm, ‘Hello, love!’ and played on her phone while Juliet got to work.
After a while, I realised Edith was still on her phone and Darcy was nowhere to be seen.
‘Not that you shouldn’t be relaxing as much as possible, but isn’t Miss Darcy meant to be here by now?’ Felicity asked Edith from the other side of the mirror. Naturally, my ears pricked up.
‘Oh, she is,’ Edith said looking up from her phone.
‘Naughty girl,’ Felicity said, archly. ‘You wouldn’t keep people waiting like this, would you, Emily?’
‘I’m not saying anything.’ I mimed zipping my mouth shut. After being called out for scolding Josh, the last thing I needed was getting a reputation for complaining about Darcy.
‘I heard you gave Josh a good talking-to yesterday,’ Felicity said, getting up from her chair.
‘Good for you. We can’t let the boys think they run the show.
’ She gave me a squeeze on the shoulder before heading out of the makeup trailer.
This was the general feeling I had about my outburst at Josh: I wouldn’t do it again, but I didn’t necessarily regret it.
‘Ooh, crew WhatsApp group says Darcy has graced us with her presence. Jen claims she’ll be here any minute .
. . assuming she doesn’t get sidetracked,’ Edith said.
‘I would say I quite enjoyed that slow start to the day but it just means I’m going to have to work double hard to get her ready vaguely on time. ’
Finally, Darcy materialised clutching a pale purple iced drink.
‘Hey,’ she said to Edith as she slid into the chair.
Naturally, she did not apologise for being late, instead slipping AirPods into her ears and scrolling on her phone as Edith tried to work around the downward head-tilt of someone whose gaze is locked on a screen.
It was only then I noticed everyone in the room was sort of looking at each other and smiling slyly. Interesting.
I was almost finished when Darcy took out one single AirPod, gestured at the flowers on the windowsill, the one surface of the room not covered in makeup, skincare, hairdryers, eyelash curlers and anything else the hair and makeup team carried around in their bag of tricks.
‘What’s with the flowers?’ she asked, flatly.
I was about to answer when Edith excitedly told her, ‘Josh sent them to Emily.’
It was like a cloud passed over Darcy’s face. ‘Oh?’ She took a sip from her blueberry matcha, her icy blue nails so long they almost curled around the straw.
I cleared my throat a little awkwardly. ‘Just . . . after yesterday, the whole thing on set. I think he felt a bit bad,’ I told her.
‘Huh,’ she said, before pausing. ‘Maybe I should be more of a bitch,’ Darcy drawled.
The room, which had already gone quiet as everyone strained to listen to our conversation, went deadly silent.
I’m pretty sure I even heard Edith gasp.
‘Then maybe someone would send me flowers.’ I flinched, involuntarily.
‘I mean, not that you’re a bitch, or whatever.
You know what I mean.’ She waved her hand dismissively.
I took a deep breath. Confrontation wasn’t in my nature but I was getting fed up of her. ‘Darcy, you can think what you want, but all I can tell you is that you wouldn’t have enjoyed a dunk in the river.’
‘It’s a film set, how bad can it be?’ she said, as if there isn’t a rich history of people literally dying on film sets. ‘All those flowers seems like a bit of an overreaction. But that’s between you two, I guess. Your weird little thing.’
The moment was broken by Jen coming to check if Darcy was ready. Of course, she wasn’t, but I was, and I walked back to my trailer with Jen.
‘It’s funny, before this film I’d always heard how nice she was.’ Jen shook her head. ‘And she’s been nothing but trouble. Between her and Josh it’s like herding cats.’
Just then my phone screen illuminated with an incoming call from Chloe.
I’d told her about the mess of the previous day just in case anyone on set didn’t know better and leaked it, though I doubted any of them would.
‘Sorry, Jen, I’ve got to take this,’ I said, shutting myself in my trailer. ‘Hey, Chloe.’
‘How’s my girl doing today?’
‘Better than yesterday, Josh has been trying to make it up to me, which is . . . a change?’
‘Very mature of him. But actually he’s not the gorgeous boy I wanted to discuss with you.’
‘Oh?’
‘What do you think about Ben Sage-Whittle?’
‘As an actor?’ I sensed she didn’t mean as an actor.
‘As a potential strategic alliance. Not right now, this is Wonderwick time. But in the future. I think you two could be a good match?’
‘That’s . . . very flattering,’ I said, trying not to actually giggle.
Ben was really quite gorgeous, a little bit older than me, a pretty, posh boy with a straightforwardly handsome, open face, a thatch of sandy blond hair and piercing blue eyes.
He’d been linked to a lot of high-profile girls, mostly actresses but also a couple of singers, a model.
And now, maybe me? ‘Do you think he’d be . . . you know, interested?’
‘Well, I can do some investigation, can’t I? But I think he would be delighted to be seen on the arm of one Emily Montgomery. Anyone would, babe!’
‘I appreciate your faith in me, Chlo.’
‘Gotta dash, I have a meeting in precisely one minute but I just wanted to run it by you! So you could live with that? Little matchmaking with you and Ben?’
I swallowed, nervous at the thought of a public romance.
I’d done it before, a few years ago, with another young actor, but it was nothing serious and fizzled out after only a few weeks but still managed to generate lots of tabloid headlines.
Clearly no one thought it was a bit weird to be writing endless articles about two seventeen-year-olds going out together.
But I did need something and maybe this was that something.
Ben was a serious actor, had been in various well-regarded films already and his star was only rising.
I could do a lot worse. Plus, he was cute, and we would make sense together.
Two slightly buttoned-up British types, a bit posh, a bit awkward.
‘Sure, I’m in,’ I said, as gamely as I could.
‘That’s the spirit! Mwah, love you, babe. Speak soon!’
‘Bye, Chloe.’ I always felt better after talking to Chloe, like everything was just a game, that there was this whole world going on under the surface that might not be totally based in reality. It was comforting.
I sunk into the sofa and waited for my costume to arrive. As my eyes settled on the one remaining vase that Carrie had left, the one with the hydrangeas, it took me a minute to realise I was smiling. Because the flowers were beautiful. Not because of Josh. Obviously.