“I don’t think either of my parents will be able to do that,” Anne-Marie said, looking a little downcast. “I don’t think we’ve spent six weeks in one place together ever in my life.”
“Well,” Ms Lighthouse said. “If needs be, Anne-Marie, I’ll chaperone you myself. I won’t have you missing out on a chance like this. So don’t you worry about that.” She gave Anne-Marie one of her brief, rare, full-length smiles.
“Now, you two must focus on Friday. Ruby, you suffered terribly from nerves the last time. I want you to harness those nerves; make them work for you. Don’t let anything knock you off course again. Mr Dubrovnik must have seen something in you to make him want to see you again. Try and think what that might have been and give it a chance to really shine. Anne-Marie, you are a lovely-looking girl, but don’t rely on good looks to get you through this. Mr Dubrovnik may be shooting an action film, but he wants actors in it, not mannequins. He hasn’t won two Oscars just for casting pretty faces. You have talent, make sure you use it.” Anne-Marie and I nodded, and then I thought of Nydia sitting in English class still thinking that she might have got called back.
“Excuse me, Ms Lighthouse,” I asked her. “Does that mean no one else from the academy is going back?”
“I’m afraid so,” she said, looking at her watch. “I want you to go to the library for the remainder of your lesson until lunch break. I’ll be seeing those other girls now.” She studied mine and Anne-Marie’s faces for a moment and I could guess what she saw there. I hardly knew myself how I felt.
“Don’t feel bad about it, girls,” she said, her voice unexpectedly softened. “This is what acting is about. Sometimes seeing your friends fail means that you have succeeded.”
Mrs Moore watched us as we filed out of Sylvia Lighthouse’s office and turned right towards the library. Then she left her desk and began walking steadily to fetch the other girls who hadn’t made it through. The other girls including Nydia.
“Poor Nydia,” I whispered to Anne-Marie as we sat over open books that we had plucked from the shelves without even reading the title. I wanted to run about and scream and laugh, but given that we had been sent to the library all of those things were impossible. So instead we had to sit and wait until we could tell everyone else—tell Nydia.
“I know,” Anne-Marie said. “But you heard what she said, she said don’t feel bad because—”
“I know,” I said. “But I don’t want it to be like that, do you? I don’t want to be that competitive. And friends you count on, friends like Nydia and you, are really important. I don’t ever want to see a friend fail so that I can succeed.”
“But did you honestly feel like that this morning before you knew you had been called back?” Anne-Marie asked me. I shrugged, but said nothing. She was right, though. If I was really, really honest, this morning a part of me had hoped that none of us would get the part so we could all go back to being normal again. It was only now that I knew I was getting called back that I truly wished Nydia was coming too.
“Look, Ruby,” Anne-Marie whispered, “acting is one big competition. And somehow, by some amazing miracle, you—Ruby Parker—are one of the winners at the moment. And that’s all you’ve got to think about right now. I know that’s all I’m thinking about. And Nydia will be happy for us; like you said, she is a good friend.”
I stared blankly at the pages of words in front of me without reading them.
Somehow the impossible had happened. Somehow I had done something right, something that meant I was going to get another chance to impress Mr Dubrovnik, to get the part of Polly Harris. I didn’t know what I had done or how I had done it, but I did know one thing: I was going to give the best performance of my life.
This time, I was going to be brilliant.
The Waldorf Hotel in London was the poshest place I had ever been to in my life. OK, I haven’t been to that many posh places unless you count award ceremonies, and they are usually held in a theatre or TV studio, which aren’t nearly as posh as they look on TV.
“This is the life, hey, Ruby?” Dad said, winking as we waited in the foyer for Mr Dubrovnik to call us up, with my mum, Anne-Marie and Sylvia Lighthouse herself, who had decided to replace Miss Greenstreet on this occasion as it was “a matter of academy honour”.
“Totally,” I said, looking around me at the gold and the mirrors and the soft chair and posh orange ladies with big hair and big sunglasses and heavy-looking jewellery.
“Frank!” My mum looked as nervous as I felt. “Try not to look like a tourist.”
“It’s a hotel,” Dad said, shrugging and grinning at me. “It’s built for tourists, hey, Rube?” I laughed because I knew he was trying to make me laugh, thinking it would take my mind off my nerves. And in a way it did, because the two of them being here together reassured me and made me feel safe again in a way that just one of them, try as they might, could not.
It was great that Mum and Dad had decided that both of them were coming with me to this important audition. And I was glad that they’d had a long phone conversation about it, a conversation during which no one had raised their voice or slammed down the receiver (or in our case pressed the “End Call” button really firmly). And I was really glad when Mum had come into the living room where I had been earwigging and said, “I suppose you heard, Dad’s coming too on Friday. So that’ll be nice, won’t it?”
That seemed to be like a big step to me, part of the general air of friendship that had gradually begun to build between them since that horrible night when Dad left us and it had seemed as if nothing would be right in our family again. OK, they were living apart and Dad had his so-called “girlfriend”. And yes, Mum had cut her hair and started wearing make-up to go to the supermarket. Not to mention arranging sleepovers for me so she could go to salsa classes with her friends, who as it turned out she had a lot more of than I realised. But, I decided, as strange and as uncomfortable as some of that made me feel, it didn’t matter as long as they were talking to each other and not hating each other, and sometimes when it was really important I could have both of them together again looking after me. I couldn’t have them back together again but I knew this was the next best thing.
Anne-Marie crossed the polished marble floor to my side and grinned at me.
“Well,” she said, “how are you feeling?” I paused to listen for any early-warning gurgle from my tummy.
“Strangely OK,” I said, sounding slightly surprised. “You?”
“I’m OK,” she said, biting her glossy lip. “It was sweet of Nydia to call us this morning and wish us good luck, wasn’t it?” she said. “Good old Nydia, she’s been really great about this, hasn’t she?”
“Yes,” I said, although I hadn’t spoken to Nydia that morning or the night before. Perhaps she had called home just after I’d left. Or maybe she’d been trying my mobile, which Sylvia had made us turn off before we came into the hotel.
“You can come up now.” Lisa Wells appeared as if from nowhere and spoke so loudly that the posh orange people stopped to look at her from over the tops of their morning papers. At the sound of her voice I felt my stomach tighten and gurgle.
“You can do this, love,” Dad said. “You’re the best, remember that!” I nodded as our little group headed for the lift.
“We have two suites reserved—one for waiting in, the other for a brief rehearsal with a member of the cast and then the screen test. Ruby, you’re going in first, so less chance for you to inflate the hotel’s extra cleaning charges, and Anne-Marie, you’ll be waiting in