“Bite me,” was Candice’s automatic response.
“She loves me secretly,” Benjamin remarked, turning his attention back to his phone.
“Do you guys even have a scene at the theatre?” I asked, not recalling ever seeing their characters at this location in the script.
“Just a short one. You know, gathering evidence and all that,” Ryan answered. He had been staring at a box of injury pallets silently until this point, looking distracted.
“Hey, New Girl, how long can you hold your breath?” Benjamin suddenly asked, amusement playing in his eyes.
“Don’t even start,” Candice said instantly, her monotone voice full of menace.
“I was just asking,” Benjamin replied, making his eyes wide and unassuming.
“The water tank doesn’t actually lock, does it?” I asked, referring to the rather frightening scene I’d have to do today. It involved being dangled above a large water tank Edward and I used in our act, and then being dropped into it by our killer, who quickly shuts the lid, locking me inside and forcing Charles and Cutter to decide if they’ll save me or go after him.
“These things do happen,” he said mysteriously.
“Seriously Benjamin. I’m going to kick you out of the makeup room in two seconds if you don’t shut it,” Candice threatened. I knew Candice was my friend (though she’d never admit it) but I couldn’t understand why she felt like standing up for me so much today. I wasn’t complaining, but it was very out of character.
“Candice doesn’t like water shoots,” Ryan said by way of explanation. “They creep her out.”
“Why?” I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me.
“Think about how much goes wrong during a shoot. Someone forgets to bring a battery for something. The gel over the light melts. The boom goes out. They forgot if they got coverage of some stupid little insert shot. I’m not trusting those people to get a water stunt right,” she said with a tone of utter authority, giving a theatrical little shudder for effect.
While I had to admit she did have a good point, I could definitely have done without this lovely little thought being planted into my head right before I’d be plunging to my icy death.
“New Girl, you’re looking a little pale . . . er,” Benjamin said from his spot on the floor, actually sounding a bit serious.
“It’s because you guys scared her about the stunt. Now she’s going to freak out and forget how to open the box,” Ryan said accusingly, not helping my nerves at all.
“You said the box doesn’t lock,” I almost shouted, looking at Candice with slight hysteria in my eyes, one eyelash dangling off of my lid like a madwoman.
“It doesn’t. There’s no way you could get stuck in there,” she reassured me. “And even if you did, they’re not filling it up all the way. The top of the tank is covered by metal and that part will be all air. So no matter what, you’ll be able to breathe . . . for a reasonable amount of time”
I thought this over for a moment, trying to decide whether this was adequate consolation or not.
“If I drown today, I’m coming back to haunt all three of you,” I threatened darkly.
*****
I stood alone on the stage, waiting for everyone to get organized. Of course, when I say "alone," I mean as alone as you can be on a film set. I knew there was a mic on or around me somewhere, and if I spoke, the sound people would be able to hear my every word. That was one of the first lessons Gran taught me when I started acting—never say anything bad about someone you work with while you’re on set, because someone is always listening. This thought made me reflect back on my conversations with Candice and the boys in the makeup trailer where we had analyzed Lukas’s goodness (or lack thereof) for extensive periods of time. But I was almost positive no one had heard that—or if they had, they certainly weren’t showing any signs.
I couldn’t see much as I stared off into the audience, since the lights shining on me made it almost impossible to see anything. I sighed deeply and looked down at my costume. I was, again, in my ridiculous stage costume. My chest was cinched in so tightly that I thought I’d faint, and my fake eyelashes were so long that I looked like a porcelain doll. I had to admit that the skirt made of iridescent green feathers was pretty amazing, no matter how uncomfortable the rest of the costume made me feel. I brought my hand up to my wild, curly hair, feeling that it was snuggly pinned into submission and piled on top of my head. I had never acted in a period piece, but I was beginning to feel that this is what it must be like: all curls and corsets.
I closed my eyes for a moment in the heat of the lights and imagined how perfect Lukas and I would be in an Austen-esque film. Lukas would have those beautiful, manly sideburns and tight breeches the men always wore, and I’d wear some empire waist, flowing gown that would make me look like a princess. And of course we’d both have British accents, which would automatically make us infinitely more attractive.
I let myself get lost in this wonderful land of accents and lovely clothes until an actual British accent (or at least something that sounded pretty similar to one) brought me out of my reverie.
“Are you Imogen?” I heard the voice ask, directly in front of me. I opened my eyes and blinked a few times, wondering if maybe I had willed this man into life.
“Me?” I asked, though it was pretty obvious he was talking to me. There wasn’t anyone else on the stage. He demonstrated this by looking around the stage once to verify that my question really was as stupid as it sounded.
“Yeah,” he said simply, bringing his hand up to his mouth and beginning to bite his nail.
“Imogen?” I asked dimly, until I finally realized what he was talking about. I was pretty embarrassed by how long it took me. “Oh yeah, I play Imogen on the show. My name’s June,” I said, extending my hand. He took it with his free, non-nail biting hand, and gave me a quick smile.
The boy continued to stand there, nibbling on his thumb and carefully observing the commotion happening offstage until I finally cleared my throat as an indication that he hadn’t told me who he was.
“Rafe,” he said, leaving me to wonder if he had just said his name, or somehow insulted me in some unknown English slang. Realizing that this boy would be no help in identifying exactly who he was, I tried to figure it out for myself. I was guessing, using my extensive knowledge of the script (or just my common sense) that he was playing Edward. We were, after all, the only two people in this scene if you didn’t count the audience, and somehow, people never did.
Rafe was a tall, lanky boy—well over six feet, which put him several inches taller than Joseph, Lukas, and Ryan. He reminded me of a lit match. He was pale and towered over me, with copper colored hair that seemed to be untamable, even though I could smell the product Candice had used in it. He was wearing eyeliner, which I supposed was part of his character, and an old, tight-fitting, ratty gray suit that looked like it had seen better days. His eyes were a sort of amber color and never rested in one spot. It felt like he was a big ball of nervous energy, between his nail biting and shifting eyes.
“So, Rafe, are you playing Edward?” I asked out of politeness, even though I was pretty sure I already knew the answer. He looked over at me as if he didn’t know I had been standing there the whole time.
“Yeah, I’ll be the one dying here pretty soon,” he said, slight amusement in his voice despite his anxiety-inducing habits.
“Have you been on a show like this before?” I pressed, feeling like there were a lot of awkward silences growing between us.
“I’ve been on this show before,” he said in his thick (was it British?) accent.
“Wait . . . as Edward?”
“No. As various people. You’d be surprised how well they can get away with using the same actors for smaller roles. I’ve been on the show three times now, just wearing wigs or being mangled beyond recognition. That sort of thing,” he said, dropping his hand away from his mouth as though tired of biting those nails. Instead, he beg
an to tap out a drumbeat on his legs while he stood talking to me. This guy couldn’t stop moving.
“Wow. I had no idea they did that on shows,” I said, genuinely shocked.
“Not all shows, just ones who know they can get away with it and have the budget to hold onto an actor they like by changing up their look a bit. Of course, I can’t be in big roles more than once or people would notice.”
I pondered this new information for a moment, wondering if Bates had been talking about keeping me on the show as someone else. That would definitely be a pity. I liked playing Imogen Gentry. Leaving these thoughts for another time, I tried to continue making small talk with Rafe, though it was difficult since he, unlike Lukas Leighton, didn’t bother trying to fill awkward silences.
“So, are you from England?” I asked, wondering why his accent didn’t sound quite right. It was almost as if he were speaking with an English/Scottish accent, but one where he rolled his Rs excessively. Even that wasn’t a good description. It sounded more like rolling your Rs, but only once. Either way, I had no idea where he was from.
He looked at me for a moment, one coppery eyebrow raising into the mess that was his shaggy hair. “England?” he asked, as if I were crazy.
“Well, it’s just . . . you have a British accent,” I offered, trying to recover from however I had insulted him.
“I’m from South Wales,” he said making me feel like this had been more obvious than the fact that the sky is blue. “And people don’t have British accents. They have Welsh accents . . . or English, or Scottish, or whatever you’d like. ‘British’ is a bit of an all-encompassing word.”
“Oh, yeah . . . of course,” I said, attempting to recover from this awkward situation. I wasn’t a stupid person, but I definitely put myself into situations where I often looked pretty dumb—right now being the perfect example. I decided not to mention the fact that I had absolutely no idea where Wales was and had only heard of it because of Princess Diana.
“So, you landed yourself a pretty comfortable gig on this show, eh?” Rafe asked, ending his pant leg drum solo and starting to run his fingers absently through his hair. I could now see why, despite the product Candice had used, his hair was standing on end. I got the feeling this guy would make Woody Allen and Jim Carrey seem calm and relaxed.
“Yeah, I hope so. I’m really loving it so far,” I answered, looking at the disappearing box behind us that would soon become Rafe’s coffin.
“Rafe, you look perfect,” I heard Bates call out from some unseen spot in the audience. Frankly, if I tried to look past the blinding lights, all I saw were spots in my burned eyes.
Rafe gave a little two-fingered salute to our unseen director and walked to the edge of the stage, presumably for further instruction. Not knowing what else to do, I followed suit. He knelt down (a pretty impressive sight to behold when all six-foot something of him bent in half) and muttered something under his breath that I didn’t quite catch. I decided to keep playing the politely interested co-star and pretended not to notice.
“So, Rafe, we’ll have you do this how we originally discussed. Forget about what we said this morning,” Bates said, stealing a quick glance in my direction that caught me off guard. Had they talked about me this morning? Was that a bad thing?
“June, you don’t need to say anything. Just be very showy and help Rafe into the box. Once he’s in, give a few beats before you try to open it again, and then act like it’s stuck. He needs to be in there almost a minute,” Bates instructed. “We’ll shoot him actually falling out of the box later today after he’s gotten his makeup done, but we’ll just have you keep going so it doesn’t look too jumpy.”
I was pretty sure I understood what he was trying to say, so I nodded silently, assuming that if I did it wrong they’d just stop me and have me re-shoot anyway. I was becoming much more relaxed on set, which was a nice change for my stomach's sake. Rafe and I stood up and walked back over to the disappearing man box in silence.
“Also, it’s carbon monoxide poisoning now, not arsenic,” Bates called out, somewhere behind the lights. “At least, I think that’s what they said.”
Rafe gave a little full body shake, presumably to help him get ready to start filming, then turned and gave me the biggest, toothiest smile I’d ever seen. “Showtime,” he said. Apparently he was very excited about filming.
Bates called out a few instructions to other crewmembers and then set the shot up, instructing us to get to our first positions. I stood beside Rafe, slightly left of center stage, and fluffed the feathers on my skirt up a bit. We waited a moment as Bates got caught up in some conversation with the director of photography, and I turned to Rafe, suddenly confused by what appeared to be an empty audience.
“Where are the audience members?” I asked, worried that I was the only one who had noticed this huge missing piece of the puzzle.
“They’ll probably shoot the audience scenes later, if they show them at all,” Rafe said in a muffled voice, having gone back to biting his nails again. Apparently waiting a few seconds for Bates to call action was enough for Rafe to slip back into his easily awakened boredom.
“You two ready?” Bates finally called out. We both nodded, not mentioning that we had been ready for a while. “Camera?”
“Speeding.”
“Sound?”
“Speeding.”
“Action.”
Rafe walked grandly to the middle of the stage, his presence now anything but small. He grinned out at the empty audience and bright lights before giving a majestic sweep of his hand, indicating toward the disappearing man trick. I followed quickly behind him, trying to look like I had any idea what I was doing. I definitely thought we would spend more time blocking this scene out, or that Bates would at least tell me what he wanted me to do.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Rafe began—rather stereotypically, I thought. “Tonight you have seen many a strange wonder. You’ve experienced the excitement of my lovely, levitating lady,” he exclaimed in his thick accent, bowing slightly in my direction. Apparently I was the levitating lady. I looked out at the "audience" and put my hands up in a "ta-da" gesture.
“You’ve felt the suspense of sawing this sweet supporter clean in half.” He once again gave me a little bow. It was starting to sound like Imogen Gentry really got beaten up during this show. No wonder Cutter and Charles suspected her.
“But now, prepare yourselves to dive into the dramatic denouement of the disappearing man!" he exclaimed. I hadn’t read any of these lines in the script and I wondered if it was Edward or Rafe who was taken to speaking in alliterations.
Attempting to keep a straight face after Rafe’s ridiculous rant (apparently now I was thinking in alliterations), I followed him to the large painted box at center stage. He spun the box around to show that there was no way he’d be able to escape through the back and then stepped in, giving a hearty wink in the general direction of the camera before I closed the door on him.
And there I was—standing alone in the middle of the stage with a camera and millions of lights pointed at me. I had absolutely no direction to go on except, "make a few gestures and give him about a minute in the box."
Trying to interpret those directions as best I could, I looked back out at the audience with a mysterious smile on my face . . . or at least, what I hoped looked like a mysterious smile. I presented the box, looking something like Vanna White, and tried to do a little spin in front of it so that I could get to the other side and hold my arms out like an idiot. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Instead, my toe caught on the uneven wooden floor halfway through my spin and I came tumbling into a heap on the floor right in front of the box. And of course the best part was that it was all caught on tape. Lucky me.
“Cut,” I heard Bates yell from behind the camera. There were a few scattered snickers, but I couldn’t make out where they were coming from. Then Rafe opened the disappearing man trick and poked his head out.
“What happened?” he
asked Bates, not even seeing me on the floor. It didn’t take long though, and he soon emitted a loud, rumbling laugh.
“Thank you,” I said sarcastically, my cheeks feeling like they were on fire. At least Lukas hadn’t been here to see that. He probably would have been polite enough to not laugh (unlike Rafe), but I still wouldn’t have wanted to trip like a clumsy oaf in his presence.
“Are you okay, June?” Bates asked from his mysterious position behind the lights. At least he sounded like he was trying to be sympathetic, even though I could hear the smile in his voice.
“I’m fine. Sorry. The floor is uneven,” I mumbled, trying to pretend like nothing had happened. I quickly got to my feet (with no help from Rafe, I'd like to point out) and dusted off my skirt, relieved that I hadn’t ruined the feathers.
We reset and shot the scene a few more times after finally receiving some direction from our director. You’d think, given his title, he would have told me what he wanted me to do in the first place, but no such luck, I guess. I messed up a few more times, much to Rafe’s amusement, but we finally got the scene captured. Bates was as happy as a kid at Christmas by the end of it.
I was anxious to get back into the cramped confines of the makeshift makeup room so I could tell Candice how embarrassing the whole ordeal had been. I quickly checked in with the assistant director to make sure I knew what my next scene was and then scampered away to see Candice.
The dusty and hot makeup room was piled, floor to ceiling, with Candice’s makeup cases and men. More men than usual, that is. Benjamin and Ryan sat on the floor texting like fiends, while Rafe, who had somehow managed to slip past me unnoticed, was sitting in the makeup chair with Candice fawning over him in a disconcerting manner.
“Don’t give Candice flowers and candy to woo her,” Benjamin began saying to no one in particular, “Give her fake blood and liquid latex. Apparently I’ve been playing this all wrong.” He looked up at me, indicating that I was the one he’d been talking to all along.
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