“Wow,” I said, which wasn’t quite the wise and scholarly response I had been aiming for but it was all that came out.
“Good,” Jeremy said, his smile warming as he looked at his watch. “Right—well, we have twenty minutes left, so let’s read again.”
The second time he told me I was being too large. I took offence initially and said that I was only thirteen and that it wasn’t actually healthy to diet at my age. When he pointed out that he was not referring to my size but my acting, I was only a bit less offended.
“Large?” I asked him.
He nodded.
“Yes—look, you’ve done TV work, haven’t you?” I nodded. “Well, imagine your face on a screen that’s a thousand times bigger than a TV screen. Every tiny little twitch, every tiny little hair magnified to giant proportions.” I thought of the spot that Mum and I had spent several minutes trying to cover up this morning.
“Ew,” I said.
“Exactly—well the same goes for your acting. In film you don’t need to act large. Keep it small, but precise.” He looked at his watch again. “Well, Ruby, our time is up, I’m afraid.” I felt a wave of panic well up in my chest.
“But—I haven’t done it small yet! Can’t we do it quickly being small like you said?” I pleaded, my voice high and stupid again. “I’m too large!”
Jeremy smiled.
“Just remember everything we’ve talked about and—if you can—I promise you that you will do splendidly. Come on, we have to read for Art and Lisa now.”
There was something about the way he said Lisa’s name that made my stomach contract, because I knew that Lisa didn’t like me.
“Are assistant directors’ opinions very important?” I asked him in a very small voice. Jeremy gave me a sympathetic look and squeezed my shoulder as we walked to where Art and Lisa would be waiting.
“Let’s just say that this one’s is,” he said.
Something had happened when Jeremy and I acted the scene for Mr Dubrovnik and Lisa Wells, something that had never happened to me before.
For those ten minutes I forgot myself entirely. I forgot I was acting, forgot that I was reading lines, because for those few minutes I was Polly Harris, just discovering the truth about the father she loved. On the brink of understanding that in fact he was an evil historian who had kidnapped her at birth and was planning to sacrifice her at the precise moment the nine planets aligned, in an insane bid to bring about the end of the world. I felt Polly’s pain and confusion, her shock and fear, all mixed up with the feelings I had and could still remember from the night that Dad left us. Polly’s feelings and my feelings ran together likes two colours of paint mixing until we were one new shade and until I believed in her, I really believed in her. And whatever happened, I knew I had done my very best; I knew I could be proud of myself.
There had been a few moments’ silence as Jeremy and I had finished the scene and I saw Art Dubrovnik and Lisa Wells exchange looks.
“Well, thank you, Ruby,” Mr Dubrovnik said. “As you probably know our schedule for casting the part of Polly is very tight. We start filming really soon, so we’ll make a decision by the end of the day.”
I nodded, feeling a little dreamy as the hotel suite came back into focus around me. I was still half in Polly’s world.
“OK,” I managed to say. I looked at Jeremy. “Thank you for today,” I said. “It was amazing to have the chance to meet you and learn from you. Maybe if one day you didn’t have anything on you could come and do a masterclass at the academy. I’m sure Ms Lighthouse would love it. We’ve had a few famous actors—we had Brett Summers last year, who used to play my mum in Kensington Heights, although that was before the rehab. But I bet you’d be much better than her, all she talked about was herself and her new revised biography.”
Jeremy smiled and shook my hand.
“Well, if I happen to find myself one day with ‘nothing on’, I’ll pop by,” he said. “And well done—you really listened.”
That was an hour ago. I looked at my watch. Anne-Marie had been in there for nearly fifteen minutes longer than I had. They had been so strict about time in my audition, why were they letting hers run over the allocated slot? Perhaps they loved her so much they had offered her the part on the spot and were talking contracts.
I thought about how I would feel if Anne-Marie came out of there with the part already hers. I rehearsed it like Oscar nominees practise their loser’s face just as much as they practise their acceptance speeches. Gracious, happy and excited for her. Dignified. No, not bothered. That’s how I would be or at least that’s how I would act.
Suddenly the door opened and Mr Dubrovnik, Lisa Wells and Jeremy Fort followed a beaming and rosy-cheeked Anne-Marie into the room. With her skin glowing and her eyes sparkling, Anne-Marie looked really lovely, and I thought that that was it; they’d given her the part just because she was so beautiful.
“Ooooh!” A little stifled scream came from over my left shoulder, and I realised it was because Mum had spotted Jeremy Fort, who she fancied in an embarrassingly immature way.
“Mum!” I growled at her through my teeth.
“Janice!” Dad growled too, simultaneously, and both Mum and I looked sharply at him.
“Sorry. Force of habit,” he muttered, and Mum rolled her eyes.
“Well, Sylvia,” Art Dubrovnik said, “you certainly have brought me two very fine students today. You can be proud of them—and your academy.”
“Of course,” Sylvia Lighthouse said, as if she had expected the world’s leading film director to compliment her exactly as he had.
“I have two other girls to see after lunch,” Mr Dubrovnik told all of us, “and then I’ll call Ms Lighthouse at the academy to let you know either way. But I want you to know that you were both great, really great. If you don’t get this part it’s not because you’re not brilliant young actresses.”
Anne-Marie and I smiled, and she reached out her fingers and caught my hand and squeezed it.
“Good luck,” Mr Dubrovnik said.
And that was it.
It was over.
The afternoon felt sort of like walking through clear jelly: I could see everything and hear everything that was going on around me, but I felt separated from the real world as if I were floating alongside it rather than being part of it.
We discussed it at length over lunch, all of us—Anne-Marie, Danny, Nydia and I, and even Menakshi, Jade and Michael Henderson, about how we might find out the news.
“If it’s bad news,” Anne-Marie said, “she’ll call us into her office. She’ll give us a speech on taking rejection on the chin and keeping our chins up. A lot of her speeches are about chins—have you noticed?”
“But if it’s good,” Menakshi said, “she might make an announcement to the whole school in a special assembly, like when Wade Jackson two years above us got that record contract.” Menakshi looked thoughtful. “Whatever happened to Wade Jackson?”
“The fickle finger of fame moved on,” Danny said, doing a passable impersonation of Sylvia Lighthouse delivering the catchphrase that seemed to be closest to her heart.
Anne-Marie and I looked at each other.
“But if it’s bad news for both of us, it will definitely