Waiting for Callback

by Perdita Cargill

  And it wasn’t my fault that I didn’t.

  ‘Really? Do you really notice? Or does it take you about a year to catch up all the time? I think it does because you treat me exactly the same as the day Stella signed me up.’

  She sat down next to me then and waited.

  I went on. ‘We’ve had this exact same conversation a hundred times and that’s not fair. You shouldn’t keep saying the same things to me all the time because I’m not the same.’ I thought I was making a pretty obvious point (actually, I was making an obvious point), but Mum just looked baffled. ‘I don’t do all the same things.’

  ‘What things? You mean boyfriends and stuff?’

  ‘No, I’m not talking about that.’ God, this was hard work. ‘I’m talking about learning lines and getting to auditions on time and not minding about them not wanting me and still doing my homework.’ Mostly. ‘Just, like, dealing with all that.’

  ‘I know and I’m proud of you. But it hasn’t even been a year.’

  ‘It’s been a long time. You’ve got to start to trust me.’

  ‘We do trust you.’

  ‘Not really. You sort of trust me not to get drunk or smoke or get pregnant, but you don’t trust me to know my mind about my future.’

  ‘I just don’t know.’

  ‘I think I will know,’ I said.

  She looked at me. ‘Will know?’

  I nodded.

  ‘So you don’t know? You don’t know for sure?’

  Months and months of stuff scrolled through my mind: waiting rooms packed with the competition, church halls, the other Elektra smiling up at Daniel Craig, crying on Archie, Daisy crying on me, lovely Ed directing me, mucking about at ACT, being Squirrelina, the phone not ringing, the phone ringing.

  I hesitated. ‘Not for sure. Now it’s just something that might but probably won’t happen. I’m not stupid, Mum, I know it would be a big decision.’ It would be a much bigger decision than whether to take a bit part or do a voice-over for a minor squirrel. It would change things. I’d thought about this. ‘I know it would be hard work, not some cushy ride. I just really, really want to be the one who decides. I don’t mean I won’t listen to you and Dad, of course I will. It’s just . . . it’s just that it’s my life and I want you to listen to me too.’

  She looked at me for a long minute. ‘You know what we need? We need a List.’ (And yes, she did say ‘list’ like it had a capital letter.) ‘We need paper and we need pens. Well, you do – you need to be the list-maker.’

  She was right. There’s nothing like being the list-maker to make you feel as if you’re in control.

  ‘What shall I put first?’

  ‘What do you want to put first?’

  That was quite an annoying answer. I looked at the blank sheet of paper and wrote:

  1. Stella and Charlotte to email/phone me, not Mum.

  ‘Agreed?’ I asked her.

  ‘I think maybe they have to contact me because you’re under sixteen,’ Mum said. ‘How about you put that they should always email you and me. And you have to check your emails. I don’t care which of us they phone, but you’re usually at school.’

  I crossed out my first attempt and started again:

  1. Stella and Charlotte to email/phone me, not Mum as well as Mum. Mum to promise to tell me exactly what they said on any phone call the minute she next sees me.

  ‘Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed,’ she said. ‘What’s next?’

  2. Mum will not discuss my ‘career’ with Stella and Charlotte without me there.

  ‘Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed,’ she confirmed.

  3. Mum and Dad will not discuss my ‘career’ without me there.

  ‘Agreed?’ I asked.

  ‘Not agreed.’

  ‘Room for negotiation?’

  ‘No room.’

  I crossed that one out too. I needed a clean sheet of paper.

  3. I will go to auditions and meetings without a chaperone.

  ‘We’ve talked about this, Elektra. Stella says it’s usual to be chaperoned under sixteen.’

  ‘Tons of kids turn up on their own. Honestly.’

  ‘How about we agree that if Stella says it’s OK and it’s in London and it’s near a Tube station then you can go on your own?’

  ‘Is that your final offer?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then all right.’ I wrote it out.

  ‘If this is turning into a contractual negotiation about your independence, is there any chance we could add in some additional stuff like you agreeing always to sort out your own laundry and cook the occasional meal?’

  I gave that the thought it deserved. ‘You know what I was thinking?’ I said.

  ‘No, what were you thinking?’

  ‘We don’t really need an actual list. We can just wing it.’

  She laughed. ‘Sounds like a plan. So, I guess I’m making supper?’

  ‘I’ll help,’ I offered.

  ‘And I promise I’ll call Stella and ask her to email you first if she hears anything about Straker.’

  I wasn’t holding my breath. I was all but resigned to the fact that I’d be going to the movies in about a year to watch a gigantic Amy make out with a gigantic Carlo on a gigantic screen. Hopefully, not in 3D.

  The sane thing to do was try to forget about Straker and concentrate on what I was going to wear to Stephanie’s party.

  ‘I’d rather be the designated driver and be in control of where I’m going and what I’m doing.’

  Lindsay Lohan

  ‘So, who is this Stephanie?’

  ‘I’ve told you a hundred times, Mum. She’s in my year at school.’ Calm down. I didn’t say ‘calm down’ out loud. Obviously.

  ‘But who is she? Why have you never mentioned her? Who are her friends? What do her parents do?’

  ‘Why the interrogation? This is ridiculous.’ Mistake, but we’d been through all this about five times and Mum still couldn’t get her head round the fact that I didn’t ask all my new friends for a list of personal details about them and their extended family. I really didn’t get why she was so stressy; she’d probably read way too many articles about teenagers’ house parties. It so wasn’t going to be that sort of party (well, probably not).

  ‘This is not ridiculous. If you expect me to allow you to go off to some girl’s party in the middle of the night one week before exams, you can expect me to ask some questions.’

  ‘This isn’t “some questions”, it’s every question. I’m totally on top of my revision.’ I wasn’t. ‘And it’s not the middle of the night, it’s half past nine. Stephanie’s one of Jenny’s best friends. She only came to our school last year which is why I haven’t mentioned her.’ No need to add that the other reason I hadn’t mentioned Stephanie before was because I didn’t really know her. ‘I think her mum’s a lawyer or something that people wear dark, sharp suits for, but I’m not sure because we don’t really talk about what our parents do, oddly enough.’

  ‘There’s no call for sarcasm, Elektra Ophelia,’ said my mum, handing me a brownie fresh out of the oven. ‘How are you planning on getting there?’ She was weakening.

  ‘I’ll get the Tube.’

  ‘You cannot be serious. Dressed like that?’

  There was absolutely nothing wrong with how I was dressed. My skirt was on the shortish side, I admit (new, very expensive and perfectly balanced on the verge of classy and slutty – thank you, Eulalie), but I had decided to own my stork legs instead of apologizing for them. (Stork legs is not a self-deprecating way of saying I have very long, slim legs – they actually do look like stork’s legs.) I gave Digby a corner of brownie because he looked so tragic.

  My phone rang and Stella’s number came up on the screen. This was quite scary.

  ‘Hi, Stella,’ I said (unfortunately, it came out squeaky). Inside my head, I was shouting HAVE YOU HEARD ANYTHING ABOUT STRAKER? but I didn’t say that because I was a cool and rational working actor – a
n actor whose agent now phoned her to discuss her career and not her mother.

  ‘You must be wondering if I’ve heard anything about Straker,’ she said.

  ‘Not really,’ I lied and Stella laughed because I wasn’t that good an actor. My mum was making ‘What? What?’ faces at me – role reversal. ‘I haven’t heard a thing,’ said Stella after a painful pause. ‘That wasn’t why I was phoning.’

  Then why? Fortuneswell? Please let it be Fortuneswell. A crisps advert?

  ‘It was just to say that unfortunately the role I was putting you up for in Doctors has been cut.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘It’s not going to someone else. They just need the screen time to resolve a bit of infidelity among the medical staff.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I just wanted to let you know so you didn’t keep that date free.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said and resisted the temptation to grill her on every other project we’d ever talked about.

  ‘My pleasure,’ she said without a trace of sarcasm and hung up.

  My expectations management still needed a bit of work.

  ‘Mum? Did you find it a bit scary talking to Stella on the phone?’

  She laughed. ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. And then (because it was worth a try and she looked pleased with me), ‘Any chance of a lift to Stephanie’s house?’

  ‘Can’t this boy you’re going with pick you up? That’s what used to happen on a date; it’s basic good manners.’

  ‘It’s not a date.’

  ‘I thought you told me he asked you to go with him.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean it’s a date.’

  ‘Of course it does.’

  She just didn’t get it. I thought about all the steps between being plus one’d by Archie to Steph’s party to getting with Archie (would he even try?) to going out with Archie. We had some way to go. I thought about explaining all that to my mum. No, just no.

  But she did agree to give me a lift.

  Stephanie had a big house and it looked even bigger because all the lights were on and the door was open. Two older guys (I think they were her brothers) were checking that nobody got in that wasn’t meant to. Her parents were nowhere to be seen, but I guessed her father was probably drowning his fears at the local pub while her mother was secretly watching from a neighbour’s upstairs window.

  ‘Hi . . . er, I’m Elektra James.’ (Like there would be two Elektras; that couldn’t happen again in one lifetime, could it?)

  One of the guys skimmed down a list with his pencil (he was taking this very seriously). ‘Nah, sorry, I can’t see your name.’

  ‘No, I’m Archie Mortimer’s plus one.’ Complicated mixture of pride and embarrassment right there.

  There was another long pause as he checked out the names. Either he was enjoying making me cringe or he was a bit stupid. It was a long list. I wished he would hurry up; there were three people lined up behind me.

  ‘Can’t see him either . . . Oh, yeah. OK, he’s already here. Go on in.’ He turned his attention to the two girls next in the line. I didn’t recognize them – they must have gone to Stephanie’s old school – but I half wished my mum could have seen what they were wearing, only because it made my outfit look nun-like.

  It was packed. Stephanie was sitting halfway up the stairs and I would have said hello, but she had her arm round some girl who was crying.

  I saw Archie before he saw me. He was chatting to Jenny. Maybe he was chatting up Jenny; they were standing really close to each other and she was looking amazing in a little red bandage dress with her hair all big and messy and her eyes kohled and her big lips glossed. She looked at least eighteen.

  ‘Hey, Jenny,’ I said awkwardly because I didn’t want to say ‘hey, Archie’.

  They turned as one and I could tell straight away by how pleased they both were to see me that he hadn’t been chatting her up. Jenny gave me a big squashy hug; she’d obviously had something to drink and was at that sentimental stage where everyone was her best friend in the world. Frankly, Archie looked relieved that I was rescuing him.

  ‘Elektra, you’re here. Sweet. I’ve been texting you all afternoon. I was going to pick you up.’

  My mum would have been proud of him.

  ‘Sorry, my phone went AWOL for a couple of hours.’ Strangely, I’d found it in the fridge, but I didn’t really need to tell him that.

  He pulled me towards him for a hug and I let him because it was a party and I was technically only invited because I was his plus one, but mostly because I really wanted him to.

  ‘How did it go?’ His arm was draped round my shoulders like it was meant to be there.

  ‘What?’ I was a bit befuddled, but in a good way. He smelled nice, a little bit of beer and a little bit of clean T-shirt (a way nicer combination than it sounds).

  ‘The Straker callback!’

  Oh yeah, the callback, that had been the biggest thing going on in my life until about twenty-five seconds ago when Archie had started to run his fingers up and down my arm. He was one of the very few people who would understand about Straker (and yes, I’d told him about it too – apparently, secret-keeping wouldn’t go on my list of ‘skills’). ‘It was OK, a bit weird,’ which was one way to describe it. ‘We did yoga.’

  He didn’t look that surprised, but then Archie was used to drama workshops. ‘Did they like you?’

  ‘You know that I have no idea what the answer to that question is.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said and pulled me even closer. Nice. ‘What were the rest of the shortlist like?’

  Carlo entered my conscience and crossed right out of it again. Carlo, Carlo who?

  ‘Amy Underhill was there. So I definitely won’t get it. She was up for the same part.’

  Archie looked blank.

  ‘You know the girl who plays Kelly in Sunningtown?’

  He still looked blank – obviously, not his sort of show.

  ‘It’s a soap and Amy’s famous-ish and I reckon she’s got it in the bag.’

  ‘You’ll be better than her and you’re way hotter,’ he said.

  That would have been an even better compliment if he’d had a clue who Amy Underhill was, but I’d take it (not too seriously but still).

  The room was heaving now, the music really loud. Jenny and Hugo (this guy she’d fancied forever) were draped all over each other. I wasn’t sure if that was because they were both drunk and needed the support, but whatever: they looked happy. No matter how closely Archie and I stood together, we kept getting jostled and there wasn’t anywhere for us to sit (there was already a queue for the snogging sofa). We went outside and perched on a low wall in the garden. It was nice out there. Someone, Stephanie I suppose, had lit heaps of little tea lights and dotted them all around the flower beds. Don’t want to be cringey here, but it was romantic, if a bit of a drunk-teen fire hazard.

  I was just imagining Flissy (who I could see making out athletically with James in the bushes) catching her hair on fire when I felt Archie’s hand on my cheek turning my face towards him. I looked at him for a minute. Was he waiting for me to say something? I stared desperately at the bushes, willing them to lend me a line. Nope, nothing.

  ‘Don’t you just, like, love what she’s done with the candles and lights and stuff?’ I babbled. Where were the Hollywood scriptwriter and director when you needed them?

  I could feel Archie looking at me; it was intense.

  Or maybe he was just worried about my lack of social skills.

  I dared another proper look at him and stopped. God, he was hot. I could feel his hands moving up my arms, down over my shoulders and my back and round my waist again, holding me tight, and then he started to kiss me. I didn’t realize until it had started, not because it was a stealth attack like in the audition, but because it happened naturally. When Damian had lunged, my brain had gone into horrified overdrive, but this time I didn’t think anything at all. Anyway, my optimism about kissin
g had been well founded.

  I sort of sensed another couple coming and sitting next to us. I would have preferred us to have been on our own, but I wasn’t going to stop unless it was my mum who’d just sat down.

  Even if someone knows what they’re doing (and Archie did), you need to break off eventually. I didn’t really know what to say so I just sort of smiled at him goofily, but to be honest he just sort of smiled goofily back.

  ‘Hey, Archie.’ It was a familiar voice.

  I peered out from under Archie’s arm; I was a bit blurry-eyed with the kissing, but yep, I was definitely sitting next to Moss. And Moss was sitting next to (well, on) Torr. This was awkward.

  ‘Hey, it’s Archie, right?’ Torr was introducing himself and within minutes Archie was getting up, leaving a cold, Archie-shaped space, and he was talking to Torr, not me, and Torr was nodding and getting up, no doubt leaving a cold, Torr-shaped space.

  ‘Shall we leave them to it for a bit?’ suggested Torr and Archie was nodding and – and there is no other word for it – they abandoned us.

  Moss and I sat next to each other in a loud sort of silence for some long minutes.

  ‘So you finally got with Archie.’ She broke it first.

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘About time.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Good decision.’

  ‘Uh-huh . . . So, things going well with Torr still?’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘That’s a long time now.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Good decision.’ It was her decision so I meant it.

  There was another long pause during which we kept giving each other sideways looks. ‘Nice . . . distressed thingy,’ I said, gesturing at what she was wearing (a skinny, black, distressed thingy which on her, of course, looked amazing).

  ‘Your legs have got longer,’ she said, gesturing at my very short skirt, which had ridden up even higher. We both started to laugh a bit nervously, but it was still laughter.

  I stopped. ‘I’m so, so sorry,’ I said and I was so, so serious.