Waiting for Callback (19 page)

I definitely wasn’t the girl in the background any more. Serious humiliation.

When we got home, I had to listen to Mum explain it all to Dad (why hadn’t she just texted him earlier like a normal person?) and all I wanted to do was curl up in the
dog basket and wail.

I phoned Moss again. I really, really needed to talk to her, mostly because she was the only person who would have the sense not to say very much at all, but definitely not to say that it
didn’t matter. Still no answer. I’d tried, like, seven times and all I’d got was her irritating voicemail – ‘
Hi, this is Mossy and I’m not
. . .’
muffled voice in the background, definitely Torr, breaks off laughing
,
‘. . .
here right
. . .’ breaks off laughing. To be fair, she wasn’t with Torr for once, she
was at some stupid ‘How to succeed at Politics’ course (tag line
For the high-achieving teenager who is determined to go all the way
– did nobody think that one through?)
that her mad mother had made her go on because she thought that it would guarantee that Moss would end up as some sort of world leader. But if she had been around she would probably have been with
Torr. Either way, she wasn’t available. Again. So I went to bed with just Digby for company.

I hadn’t gone to bed at eight thirty since I was about nine. It was weird. I could hear people talking as they walked past under my window. I just lay there on the bed, feeling sorry for
myself, and intermittently refreshing my phone in case Moss was back online.

Pathetic.

There was a little tap on the door and my mum came in. ‘I just came in to say goodnight,’ she said, which I knew wasn’t true. She’d given up coming in to say goodnight
about a year ago because she couldn’t stay awake long enough (and a little because she knew I needed her not to). ‘Squish up, both of you.’ She clambered into the bed beside me,
nudging Digby out of the way (which pissed him off), and put her arm round me. ‘You can cry if you want to.’

‘It’s OK, I’ve cried enough for one day.’ And I never cry. Well, not on the outside.

‘Dad says he’ll come up if you want him to.’

We both looked around at my room, which had sort of exploded when I’d got ready at dawn. It was a brave offer but no. I shook my head.

‘I could give you a present if you want. Eulalie sent something over that looks especially shiny.’ By which she meant too expensive and quite possibly vulgar. On any other occasion,
I would have had the ribbon off in under a second.

‘A present to congratulate me on my first film role?’

She didn’t say anything so I knew I was right.

I shook my head. ‘Maybe you should give it to the other Elektra.’ That was a bit unnecessary, but this was not my finest hour. ‘Sorry, I’m not in the mood.’

‘Not even for one of Eulalie’s over-the-top
cadeaux
?’

‘Nope.’

‘She sent it in a cab so that you’d get it today.’

I shook my head.

‘How about a piece of my cake then?’

‘Nope, not even your cake can help this situation.’

‘That bad?’ Her chocolate cake was epic.

‘That bad.’

‘It’ll all keep,’ she said and we lay there for a bit and although she was being nice I just wanted her to go away. I was weirdly sweaty and I just needed a bit of space.
‘Stella phoned,’ she said.

‘Is she upset with me?’ This was so embarrassing. Another wave of heat.

‘Of course she isn’t! She just feels bad for you. She says to tell you that everyone’s really sorry and that you’ll still be paid.’

I didn’t care about the money and I definitely didn’t want people to feel sorry for me.

‘That boy was cute.’

‘Which
boy
?’ Like I didn’t know who she meant. She knows too much. I don’t always understand
how
she knows as much as she does, but she just does.

‘You know which boy I mean; the one who gave you his handkerchief. I didn’t think boys carried hankies any more.’

‘It wasn’t a hanky, it was a napkin.’

I love you
.

Go away
.

Please
.

Things I didn’t say.

‘It was still very nice of him,’ Mum said.

‘Yep.’ I didn’t really want to have this conversation.

‘So what’s his name?’

‘Oh, he’s just a guy from ACT. I don’t really know him.’ Well, that would certainly be true now I’d made such a colossal tit of myself in front of him.

‘There’ll be other parts,’ she said for about the fiftieth time.

‘I know,’ I replied for about the fiftieth time, although I still didn’t believe it. And there wouldn’t be other parts in a film with James Bond. And Archie Mortimer.

After a bit, I sort of pretended to have fallen sleep and Mum crept out in that exaggerated tiptoe way that people do when they’re trying not to wake up babies. Digby jumped back on to the
bed, did that going round and round thing for a minute or two and then settled down fatly on my feet. At least one of us was happy.

I was still wide awake.

My phone barked:
The other Elektra was rubbish. Archie x

From:
Stella at the Haden Agency

Date:
17 April 10:01

To:
Elektra James

Subject:

Dear Elektra,

Charlotte and I just wanted to say that we heard what happened at
Open Outcry
and it shouldn’t have happened and we’re sorry. Come and have
coffee and cake soon and we’ll tell you some much worse stories about things going wrong on set (but you have to promise to keep them secret!). The people on set said you handled the
situation like a pro, so well done you because this was
one hundred per cent
their fault.

Onwards now – there will be other opportunities.

Big hugs from both of us x

‘She says she’s
fine
, Bertie, but you know what she’s like.’

‘Yes, I got the “it’s
fine
” line too. Plainly, it’s not fine, but
how
not fine it is I’m not sure.’

‘She’s done nothing but mooch about for the last two days.’

‘To be fair, she usually mooches about during the holidays. I don’t think we need to panic,’ said Dad.

‘I just wish she’d talk to us about it.’

‘There were always going to be some knocks along the way.’

I was sitting (very quietly) on the stairs, listening to my parents talking about me. I appreciate that this sounds quite furtive, but I was an only child.

‘This
Shouting Out
film is a very hard knock.’

Was that
Eulalie
? When did she arrive? They were literally having a conference about me.

‘She’s tired too,’ my mum went on.

I was tired, but it is really annoying to hear someone say that.

‘She looks dreadful.’

Brilliant. Thanks, Mum.

‘She’s had all the stress and none of the upside.’

True. I started to feel quite sorry for myself.

‘I’m worried it’ll start to affect her schoolwork. I’m pretty sure she’s behind on her coursework and she’s back to school again tomorrow.’

I was and sadly I was. I’d had better Easter holidays. The conversation was getting dangerous. Digby padded down from my room (he’d been having a lie-in on my bed) and came and
leaned against me. It was comforting.

‘We need to keep an eye on it,’ said Dad.

I wasn’t sure if ‘it’ was my homework or my acting. Either way, this wasn’t good.

‘Maybe we just need to say “enough”,’ said Mum.

No way. I was not going out on a low.

Open Outcry
was a massive low.

‘She enjoyed the Utterly Nutterly thing,’ said Dad. That seemed a long time ago. ‘Maybe she’ll get repeat nuts work or, I don’t know, get promoted to crisps or
something and that’ll cheer her up.’

‘Cheer who up?’ I asked ‘innocently’, walking into the kitchen. Eulalie wasn’t there which was confusing.

‘You,’ said Mum in her concerned voice (I hated that voice).

‘I’m
fine
,’ I said and they both looked at each other. ‘I really am. You’re not worried about me, are you?’ I didn’t give them time to answer.
‘Because I’m
fine
.’ Maybe I needed to stop saying that.

‘But are you being really fine?’ said Eulalie’s voice from the laptop. I angled the screen and there she was, skyping in a negligee. ‘There will be other chances,
chérie
. This
Shout Out
film, he will certainly be a disaster.’

‘
Open Outcry
not
Shout Out
,’ I corrected. Eulalie struggled with names unless they belonged to handsome men.

‘
Shout Out/Open Cryout
, it is the same. Nobody will ever hear of him. He will sink without trace.’ It wasn’t just the accent: she struggled with English pronouns too.
‘You will be having a much better role soon. I know this for sure. Maybe one with words. Or a costume?’

Eulalie had disapproved of the clothing brief for
Open Outcry
. She was the only woman in the world who thought I’d look good in a corset.

‘What about the
Streaker
film?’

‘
Straker
. They just keep postponing everything. I don’t think it’ll ever happen.’

‘Maybe they make again
Funny Face
or
Roman Holiday
?’

Roman Holiday
had been a high point of my Gregory Peck studies. Eulalie was also the only person in the world who thought that I looked like Audrey Hepburn. I looked nothing like Audrey
Hepburn. She disappeared from the computer screen, but I knew she’d be back and she was in just a minute, waving a fresh glass of champagne at me. ‘I would offer you some if this stupid
technology allowed it.’ Her head loomed perilously close to the camera so that she looked a bit like a very glamorous puppet.

‘Champagne at nine o’clock,’ muttered my mother as if Eulalie were doing hard drugs.

‘I wasn’t hearing you, Julia,’ said Eulalie, who obviously had.

I wasn’t expecting them to remake
Funny Face
or
Roman Holiday
– more to the point, if they did, I wasn’t expecting a call, but some good news
would be welcome.
Any
good news. Another Utterly Nutterly commercial would be OK (I was pretty sure I could develop Squirrelina as a character – maybe get her out there meeting some
civilian squirrels). A crisps role would indeed be even better. Whatever else this acting stuff was doing for me, it was turning me into a realist. I’d ‘refined’ my original list
of roles I wouldn’t take:

(STILL) Out of the Question

I wanted to act. Acting made me
happy
– well, the ‘doing it’ bits anyway and that was enough to make the horrid bits worth it. I was still in this. But
now I was in it as a realist. I watched a spider scurry across the floor and I barely flinched (it was very small). What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger (maybe).

‘Have you got plans for today?’ asked my mum, switching off Eulalie (which sounds like a really bad thing to do to your stepmother). ‘Why don’t you go round and see
Moss?’

‘I don’t think she’s around.’

‘She’s back from her course. I saw her mum in Sainsbury’s.’

And I bet they had a really good gossip about us both. I knew Moss was back. She’d phoned me when she got all my messages and she’d been
lovely
and said all the right things
(i.e. not very much, but she’d made me laugh), but she was seeing Torr this morning (they’d been apart for
three
whole days) and although she’d asked me to come too I
wasn’t in the mood for third wheeling. ‘I might see her later,’ I said vaguely, but I probably wouldn’t.