Chapter Seventeen
I was reading in my trailer a week later when I heard a knock on the door.
‘Come in?’
The door swung open to reveal a Josh Sacco vibrating with tension. ‘Have you seen my—’ he started, before looking around my pristine trailer and shaking his head. ‘Never mind.’
‘Your what?’
‘Don’t worry about it, this is my shit to deal with,’ he said, resolutely.
‘Go on, try me.’ I put my book down and gave him my full attention.
He closed his eyes and breathed in heavily. ‘Emily, you’re going to be so mad and I need you to resist the urge to lecture me.’
‘OK,’ I said, slowly.
‘I can’t find my script.’
‘Oh, that’s not so bad!’
‘No, like, I-I think I might have lost it. Somewhere . . .’ He gestured vaguely towards the outside world. We both knew that would be bad news. A whole Wonderwick script just floating around out there before we’ve even wrapped? Josh knew it would be bad news, I didn’t need to lecture him.
Instead I tried to reassure him. ‘It’ll turn up, it’s probably in your trailer.’
But Josh wasn’t really listening. ‘Uh, yeah, maybe,’ he said, raking his hands through his dark curls. ‘Don’t tell anyone, OK?’
‘I won’t, I promise. And I’ll keep an eye out for it.’
He didn’t seem reassured. Our scripts were watermarked with our names so if they did go missing, the production team would know who to give a good bollocking.
The best case scenario was that it was just lost somewhere in his house or trailer, the second best was that he’d left it lying around on set and someone was going to find it and hand it in, and the worst-case scenario was that it would end up on eBay . . . or in the hands of the Daily Mail.
Later that afternoon, the crew were setting up the next shot, and a few of us were sitting around in an E-Z Up tent, playing UNO.
Even Josh had deigned to join in, after previously claiming he could never look at an UNO card again after we overdosed on it while shooting the first Wonderwick film.
I wanted to ask him about the missing script situation but couldn’t do it in front of everyone.
‘Max! No!’ I wailed after being the victim of a +4 card. ‘I’m dying here!’
‘Come on, pick ’em up.’ Josh pushed the pile towards me with a huge, annoying grin on his face. ‘What? Don’t look at me like that, it wasn’t my fault!’
‘Ugh!’ Dutifully I did as I was told and picked up four. Classic Max. ‘Remind me never to sit next to you again. Somehow you always end up with the naughty cards.’
‘What can I say? I’m God’s favourite. Anyway, you take this too seriously!’
‘All’s fair in love and UNO, pal,’ Eve, one of the supporting cast who I liked but didn’t know very well, chimed in as the game carried on.
Things descended into chaos quickly, Eve somehow in possession of a hand full of +2 cards, leaving Josh groaning at every turn and the rest of us cackling with delight.
The flap of the tent opened and Darcy stepped in. She cast a sceptical eye over the scene in front of her.
‘Hey, Darcy!’ Max said cheerfully.
‘I was just wondering what the noise was all about.’ She shrugged, coolly. Darcy was rarely seen in an E-Z Up with other actors: she had her own private tent, because of course she did.
‘Just playing UNO,’ Tommy told her.
‘What’s that?’ she asked. Who hasn’t heard of UNO?!
‘It’s . . . I mean, it’s a card game?’ Max offered.
‘C’mon, Darcy, you can join us.’ Josh gestured to an empty folding chair. But before she could answer, it was time to head back to the set.
‘Someone should tell her that just because she’s playing a bitchy villain she doesn’t need to go full method,’ Eve whispered, giving me a sideways glance as we walked over to the sound stage. I giggled, admiring her audacity.
As everything was being set and checked around us, Carrie waved my phone at me, the screen illuminated. ‘Glen’s calling. Shall I answer for you and tell him you’ll call him back?’
‘No, it’s OK, I think I have a second,’ I told her, taking the phone and answering it. ‘Hey, Glen.’
‘How’s my favourite client?’ It was safe to assume he opened all calls like that.
‘Great, I can’t talk for long. What’s up?’
‘I just wanted your final, final answer. What’s it going to be: Orientations or Dinky Daffy and the Detective Squad?’
‘Oh, Glen, I’m going to break your heart.’
The sigh could be heard from outer space. ‘Orientations then?’
‘Yes. I think it’s time to get serious.’ I thought it was a little bit funny that all the conversations we’d had at the kick-off meeting for this Wonderwick were about how I was a grown-up now, a woman now, that that was what people wanted from me and I should be prepared to give them, but when I wanted to apply that to something other than a ‘spicy’ scene, it was somehow a surprise to them.
‘Couldn’t you get serious with a ton of money?’
‘Glen, fifteen per cent of something is better than fifteen per cent of nothing,’ I said, more assertively than I felt.
‘True. It’s your decision!’
‘When Edgar Malek gets that Oscar nod and you’re asking to be my date on that red carpet, it’ll be worth it’ I laughed.
‘Let’s pretend that’s a remote possibility to get me through this inevitably paltry negotiation about your compensation. Everything OK on Wonderwick so far?’
I paused before answering. ‘It’s a weird one.’
‘In a good way or a bad way?’
‘Too soon to tell . . . but nothing for you to worry about, you know the series is a juggernaut at this point,’ I reassured him, and we said our goodbyes.
‘Hey.’ Max caught me just as we were about to start rolling. ‘A bunch of us are going to take cars into London tonight for some drinks and dancing. You in?’
‘Ummm . . . is this a Darcy plan?’ I asked, tentatively.
‘Yeah, but she said I could invite you.’
‘Did she actually?’
‘Well, she said, “Yeah, sure, whatever,” when I asked so that basically counts.’
I swallowed. I should say yes. ‘Sure, why not?’
Max nodded approvingly. ‘Sweet, man. We’ll head in after we wrap.’
I’d said yes! I was going out with them, just like I’d said I wanted to. Progress!
A slow afternoon and many, many takes later, I was heading back to my trailer to change for the night when I ran into Josh.
‘Any word on the . . . you know?’ I raised my eyebrows at him, as if there was any doubt over what I meant.
He bit his lip and shook his head. ‘I don’t know what to do, man. I feel like such an idiot.’
‘Do you want me to come search in your trailer with you?’ I offered, not quite knowing why.
‘God, I don’t know, maybe? In fact, definitely,’ he said, and we headed off in that direction. As we walked, Josh stopped dead and looked down at his phone.
‘What the hell?’ he muttered. I stopped and turned back to him. He held up the screen to me. On it was a text from a number that wasn’t saved.
Script is probably pretty valuable. If you want it back bring a grand in cash to the Royal Oak pub in Wyton, 9 p.m.
I looked at the time at the top of the screen. That was only an hour away. Josh furrowed his brow. ‘Who the hell is it? And how do they have my cellphone number? None of this makes any sense . . .’ He gasped and looked at me. ‘Shit.’
‘What?’
He smacked his hand against his forehead. ‘I’m such an idiot. I must have left it in the taxi last night when I was coming back from Darcy’s. We’d been running lines together and maybe I had too much to drink . . .’ He flicked his eyes up and met my gaze. ‘Don’t say it, please.’
‘I’m not saying anything! I think you should report this taxi driver to the police for extortion!’
‘I can’t do that . . . it’s not worth it.’
‘Well, what do we do, then?’
Josh sighed. ‘I guess I pay him.’
‘Do you want me to come with you?’
‘No way, there’s no point both of us missing the fun.’
‘Josh, I really don’t like the idea of you going to meet this extortionist on your own.’
Before he could answer, my phone screen illuminated with a text from Max:
Where you at?
I typed back quickly:
So sorry but I’m kind of tied up with something! Hopefully next time!
Maybe I was never meant to have a night out.
‘Anyway,’ I said, looking back up at him. ‘Do you have a thousand pounds in cash?’
Josh thought and scratched his head. ‘I mean, I could probably cobble it together. God, how do I explain this to Yuri? Drive us to a pub in the middle of nowhere, wait for, I don’t know, ten minutes and then drive us home?
’ Josh didn’t want to lose the good opinion of his driver any more than I would want to lose Mike’s good opinion of me. I understood.
‘Send Yuri home and we can get Mike to drive us. He won’t judge you. Promise.’
Josh nodded.
Ten minutes later we were in the car on the way to the Royal Oak in Wyton.
‘Are you sure about this? Maybe he’s dangerous.’ Mike looked back at us in the rear-view mirror.
‘I don’t think he’s dangerous. Just trying to make a quick buck,’ I reassured him.
And it was true: this was clearly a chancer who’d managed to exploit a drunken idiot in his car.
‘If he wasn’t trying his luck he could have asked for a lot more money and given you a longer deadline to find it. He just wants a quick payout.’
‘What if he asks for more?’ Josh asked, panic in his voice.
Obviously Josh could afford more, but it was the fear that it would never end. ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. It’ll be fine,’ I said.
‘All right, but the slightest sign of trouble you tell me and I’ll wring his bloody neck, you hear me?’ I could tell Mike didn’t like this one bit.
‘Oh, loud and clear,’ said Josh, the first smile I’d seen on him all day. ‘Mike, you’re a prince.’
‘Just doing my job,’ he said stiffly, as if he offered to murder someone on my behalf every day.
‘Dvo?ák,’ I said, as the sound of his ‘New World’ Symphony serenaded us via Classic FM.
‘Huh?’ Josh replied, but Mike and I just smiled at each other in the rear-view mirror.
A taxi was parked in the pub car park when we arrived. ‘Don’t you worry, I’m making a note of the registration number,’ Mike said as we exited the car.