Page 8 of Let’s Make a Scene

“Hello.” I try to get my breathing under control, because I currently sound like someone squeezing an asthmatic accordion. “I’m here for the table read. A Lady of Quality?” when he says nothing, I blink. “The… film?” The word comes out quavering, because, honestly, if this whole thing is some sort of extended break from reality, it would still be less weird than the situation I believe myself to be in: attending a table read for an actual, real film of which I—Cynthie Taylor—am the star.

“There you are,” a voice says, and I recognize the woman bustling toward me with a clipboard as Marion, the first assistant director. I met her at the audition I attended, but I haven’t seen her in person since they offered me the part.

“Hi,” I exhale. “Sorry, the bus got stuck in traffic and—”

Marion flicks her steely blue gaze over me, and her brow furrows. “Why did you get the bus?” she asks. “We could have sent a car.”

“Oh,” I flounder. “I didn’t know that was an option.”

Her brows pinch tighter. “Jasmine put you in touch with Gayle, right?” Marion speaks the same way that she moves: briskly, economically, like she’s a busy woman who doesn’t have time for any nonsense.

“Yes.” I swallow, still barely able to comprehend that the Gayle Salt wants to represent me. “I mean, I haven’t actually spoken to Gayle… Ms. Salt. I’ve been dealing with one of her assistants. We haven’t sorted out all the paperwork; it’s been a bit of a whirlwind. I only got the call two days ago—”

“Well, get on with it.” Marion takes me by the arm and begins steering me through the gilded lobby toward a corridor. Despite being slightly taller, I have to jog beside her like a show pony to keep up. A short, sturdy woman in her late fifties, with a cap of light silver hair, she has the energy of a person who could single-handedly run a small empire, never mind a film crew. “You need to have an agent and manager in place as soon as possible.” Her face softens for a fraction of a second. “Make sure you have a team that works for you. The film business is like the Wild West, and you need people looking out for your interests.”

“I will,” I say fervently. The idea that I have interests is—in itself—thrilling.

“Good. Here we are.” She stops outside a polished wooden door with a brass sign that discreetly indicates it is a meeting room.

“I thought I could just freshen up a bit fir—” I start, but she’s already opening the door and thrusting me inside.

“Found her,” Marion says loudly, which effectively cuts off the gentle hum of chatter that was filling the air, and all eyes turn in our direction.

Oh, god. So many eyes. The room is crowded with people, clustered in small groups around its edges as they help themselves to tea and coffee. In the middle of the space a number of tables are arranged in a large square.

I try again to smooth my skirt, with little effect. “Hi, everyone.” I lift my hand in a feeble wave.

“Cynthie, there you are.” Jasmine Gallow comes toward me, and I feel a flicker of relief. Even though Jasmine doesn’t emote a lot of warmth, I’ve had a sense from the beginning that she’s somehow on my side. I want, with a borderline unhinged intensity, to impress her.

Jasmine is slim and tall with pale, elegant hands that drift about when she talks. Despite the heat of the day, she is dressed top to toe in black. Her ice-blond hair is pulled tightly back from her narrow face. She’s just over thirty, with a quiet air of authority. She smells faintly of cigarettes and sandalwood perfume.

Her gray eyes drift over me, only the slightest thinning of her mouth confirming that my appearance is… not great.

“Let me introduce you to everyone,” she says, and unlike Marion she doesn’t take my arm, only moves forward, safe in the knowledge I will follow right behind. “We’ve kept it pretty small,” she says. “Cast, directors, producers are here along with Marnie from casting, and a couple of the department heads.”

She moves around the room, introducing me in a flurry of names that I make sure to repeat, burning them into my brain. I’ve met hardly anyone in here before. When the actress who was supposed to be playing the lead withdrew last minute because of scheduling conflicts, the Gallow siblings decided to place an open casting call, and it was through this unusual route that I ended up here.

The audition process was hasty, and I’d almost talked myself out of applying several times, finally recording a monologue on Hannah’s dad’s video camera. Hannah and I did a good-luck ritual over my clunky laptop, which involved smudging the keyboard with sage before pressing send on the video file. It stank out my room for a week, and my dad attempted to have an awkward conversation with me about drug use. As he and I rarely exchange more than a few words despite living in the same house, this came as something of a surprise.

I didn’t expect a callback. The only acting experience I have is a handful of stage roles in amateur productions, and a single voiceover gig for a toothpaste ad, which up to this point I considered the height of glamour. I scrimped and saved for the best part of a year in order to attend an intensive six-week acting class in London last summer, but it wasn’t the A-Star-Is-Born experience I’d been hoping for. Still, when I read the pages—or sides, as I now know they are called—for the audition, I immediately fell in love with Emilia, the protagonist of A Lady of Quality. Even that tiny glimpse into her character sparked something inside me.

It was something the Gallow siblings and Marnie, the casting director, must have seen too, because they invited me to London to audition in person. Hannah and I fell into hysterics after the phone call, and she suggested we speak only in Regency English until the audition so I could get into character. (This ultimately prompted my dad—clearly exhausted from his previous effort—to leave a pamphlet about Narcotics Anonymous on the kitchen counter.)

Immediately after the solo audition, I was called back for a chemistry read.

Speaking of which…

“And of course you remember Jack,” Jasmine says.

Jack Turner-Jones is as heart-stoppingly gorgeous as the last time I saw him. When I first walked into the audition room and saw him standing there, my insides all temporarily rearranged themselves, as if I were falling from a great height, and today I get a repeat performance.

He’s tall, lean, with snapping blue eyes, and light brown hair that’s cut short at the sides but longer on top. He wears dark jeans and a dark T-shirt, a pair of black Ray-Bans tucked into the collar. There’s a braided leather bracelet around his wrist, and he’s wearing expensive trainers that have been carelessly worn in. His teeth, when he smiles at Jasmine, are perfectly straight, his posture relaxed. Everything about him screams that he belongs in this room.

The smile he gives Jasmine drops a little, and his eyes widen as he takes in my tragic haircut, but he recovers quickly.

“Cynthie, hi.” His voice is cool with just the right touch of gravel.

“Nice to see you again.” I nod, trying my best to look unaffected.