Page 21 of Let’s Make a Scene

I groan, resting my forehead against the steering wheel. I think I’m going to be haunted by that table read for the rest of my life. It was almost an out-of-body experience, watching myself mess up over and over again, having to breathe slowly through the entire script, barely able to force the words out in a coherent order. Actually, “acting” had been very low down my list of priorities, far, far beneath “not passing out” and “not stabbing Jack with his stupid fancy pen.”

Thanks to his conversation with Logan and our subsequent argument, I know precisely how little Jack thinks of me and that he’s actively trying to get me sacked. (Although as I’m still here, I guess that particular gambit was unsuccessful.) Let’s just say that that hasn’t made for the best working environment. The animosity between the two of us has only grown over the past week.

“So you got a bit of stage fright,” Hannah says now with a shrug. “It happens. Surely a bunch of actors know all about that.”

“But I’ve never had it before.” My voice is muffled thanks to the fact I remain wilted over the steering wheel. The injustice of it still burns. “Why did it have to happen then? Right when I was trying to prove that I wasn’t a total waste of space. Maybe Jack was right. All that stuff he said about me ruining the whole movie—”

“Hey!” Hannah cuts in. “Don’t say that. He was totally out of order. Just because he’s got famous parents doesn’t mean he gets to throw his weight around. Whatever he might think, it’s not actually his film.”

An image of Jack’s face swims into my mind. I can hear, as clearly as the moment it happened, the words he said to Logan ringing in my ears.

What the hell is Cynthie Taylor doing here?

“Ugh, he’s just… insufferable.” I squeeze my eyes closed, trying to banish the memory of a scene that has played on a loop in my head every time I’ve turned the light off at night. (What a relaxing experience that has been, like whatever the opposite of a white noise machine is: Jack Turner-Jones’s voice telling you you’re an absolute failure.)

“Excellent use of Regency-speak,” Hannah says approvingly.

“Thank you. But I can’t believe how smug he is. He’s so full of himself, with his process, and his solid-gold fountain pen and his designer clothes. He’s clearly never had to actually try for anything in his life,” I rant. “And then, he couldn’t even apologize to me like a normal human being! It was all ‘you need to toughen up, you need to work harder.’ As if he knows anything about hard work.”

“On the plus side, it sounds like you absolutely demolished him,” Hannah puts in cheerfully. “I always think of a hundred clever, hurtful things to say hours after an argument, but you just”—she points her finger like a gun, mimes pulling the trigger—“ ‘You’re only here because of your parents.’ Bull’s-eye.”

I feel an unwelcome flicker of guilt at that.

“The annoying thing…” I admit, slumping back in my seat. “The worst of it, is that what I said to him isn’t even true. He’s actually good. So good.” I chew on my bottom lip, remembering our last rehearsal when I missed a cue because I’d been so busy watching Jack, so absorbed in his performance that I lost track of what I was even doing there. It was mortifying, and of course Jack had been delighted to rub it in my face. “And I’m just… so not,” I finish, wearily.

Hannah is quiet for a moment. “Cyn,” she says finally, “I’ve known you my whole life. You’ve always been so sure of yourself when it came to performing, but it’s totally normal to get overwhelmed or nervous. You have to accept that this is a whole new world to you, while he’s been doing it for years. You’re feeling more comfortable every day; you’ve got an entire film crew on your side; you’re going to get your confidence back and you’re going to smash this. I know you will, because you’re the most passionate, talented person in the whole world, and Logan and Jasmine and all the producers saw that when you auditioned.”

She leans over now, slinging her arm around my shoulders and squeezing. “They didn’t offer you the job as a favor; they did it because they believe you can give the best performance. And I know you’re destined for greatness, not only because I’ve seen you onstage, being absolutely, breathtakingly brilliant—”

“School plays,” I interrupt. “Community theater.”

“Cyn,” Hannah tuts, “you’ve known what you were going to do with your life since the moment of rude awakening when someone told us we couldn’t grow up to be dogs and would have to get actual jobs.”

“I still believe you can be anything you want to be,” I say solemnly. “Even a Great Dane.”

“I don’t know how to explain it to you,” Hannah persists, stubbornly. “You have a gift. To this day I remain so deeply traumatized by that time when we were seven and you reenacted the child-catcher scene from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang that I should probably raise it with a therapist. You were born to do this. Also, you’ve practiced your Oscar acceptance speech in my bedroom mirror so many times that I can recite it. The bit where you thank Ewan McGregor is always especially moving.”

“I’d like to thank my husband, Ewan,” I sniffle, “who loves me beyond all reason and sings ‘Your Song’ to me every single night.”

“You never did get over Moulin Rouge.” Hannah smiles.

“And I never will.”

I turn to hug her back, and even though I haven’t undone my seat belt and it’s an awkward angle and my face is pressed into her hair, tickling my nose, I feel so much better.

“Okay,” I say, finally, disentangling from her. “That was a great pep talk.”

“Did you expect anything less from your newly minted personal assistant?” Hannah buffs her fingernails on her T-shirt. “Now, let’s get inside and check out the new digs. You’ve got hair and makeup tests all afternoon.”

My best friend picks up the ring binder in her lap, which I know is full of the color-coded charts and calendars that make her so happy. When Marion mentioned that I’d have a runner on set who would be assigned to me, I begged her to offer Hannah—who had been job hunting for months—the position.

At their first in-person meeting, Marion and Hannah started ooh-ing and ahh-ing over spreadsheet layouts, and it was clear that I was going to be in good hands. Not that I ever had any doubts—no one can out-organize my girl.

We get out of the car and grab our bags—plural—from the boot and the backseat. Four weeks is a long time to be away, and we’ve both panicked and packed pretty much everything we own.

“Are you ever planning on coming back?” my dad grunted while helping us load the car. It’s still unclear which answer he would have preferred.

Anyway, better to be overprepared: the fact that it’s the first week of September in England means that literally anything could happen when it comes to the weather—as demonstrated by the fact that the biblical sheets of rain have stopped, and the sun is struggling out from behind the clouds.