“Kirsty, this is Ruby and Anne-Marie – friends from home. They’re auditioning for Spotlight! too.”
“Hi, it’s so great to meet you,” Kirsty said, smiling at us. “I know exactly who you are. You are Ruby Parker. I love The Lost Treasure of King Arthur – I’ve seen it about a hundred times. And you are Anne-Marie Chance. I’ve watched your performance in the British version of Spotlight! – you were brilliant, a real inspiration.”
“And you are unexpectedly likeable,” Anne-Marie said. “So are you two an item now?”
“Um,” Danny stared quite hard into his ice cream and blushed. Kirsty clapped her hand over her face and giggled.
“What? Did I say something wrong?” Anne-Marie asked innocently.
“We’re really just friends,” Kirsty said, smiling sideways at Danny in the universal girl-signal that meant she’d like to be more. “So far.”
“Well, anyway,” I said, sensing that Danny might implode from embarrassment. “We need to be getting back home. I expect we’ll see you tomorrow, Kirsty.”
“Looking forward to it,” Kirsty beamed.
“I bet you are,” Anne-Marie said.
Sapphire Bfue Productions
FAX
TO: Mrs Janice Parker
FROM: Christina Darcy, Casting Director
RE: Audition workshops for RUBY PARKER, ANNE-MARIE CHANCE, NYDIA ASSIMIN
Dear Mrs Parker,
Please find attached the parental permission forms required by Sapphire Blue Productions before the next stage of casting can commence. Please ensure that each form is signed by a parent or legal guardian.
The workshop process will begin tomorrow at 9 a.m. at Sapphire Blue Productions Rehearsal Studio on Delrado Blvd. Address and map are attached. Please make sure that the children are wearing comfortable clothing, bring their dance shoes with them and one piece of prepared music as they will be asked to sing a solo.
We look forward to seeing you all tomorrow, Yours sincerely
Christina Darcy
Chapter Eight
When we got back from shopping, Mum and Nydia were in the kitchen reading the fax. Anne-Marie and I grabbed it out of their hands and read it out loud.
“Parental consent forms?” Anne-Marie made a face. “Will you be able to sign those for me, Mrs Parker? I don’t need an actual parent to sign them, do I?”
“Well, your mum has agreed for me to look after you while we are here, so I don’t see why not,” Mum said. “But if it has to be an actual parent, I’m sure we’ll be able to fax the forms to your mum or dad to be signed.”
“If you can find them,” Anne-Marie said, looking at me.
“Shouldn’t we be focusing on this part?” I said, picking up the fax. “The bit where it says we have to have a piece of music prepared because they are going to ask us to sing a solo!”
“Yes, I was wondering about that,” Mum said dubiously. “You can sing something from Spotlight!, can’t you?”
“Except that everyone will be doing that,” Anne-Marie replied thoughtfully. “We need something different…Hey, maybe we can get Danny to come over and teach us the words to ‘You Take Me To (Kensington Heights)’!”
“Danny?” Nydia looked confused.
“Turns out he’s not in Sherwood,” I told her. “He’s in Beverly Hills.”
“And he’s got a new girlfriend,” Anne-Marie added.
“She’s not his girlfriend,” I said.
“Only because he’s too dim to ask her out,” Anne-Marie said, rolling her eyes. “But she looks like the kind of girl who gets what she wants, so I shouldn’t think it will be long…”
“What? Where? Who?” Nydia asked all at once. As we filled her in on how we met Danny and Kirsty O’Brien, Mum peered in Jeremy’s giant fridge, probably hoping that we would forget she was there so she could listen to every word.
“That must have been a bit freaky,” Nydia said after Anne-Marie told her all about Kirsty. “What’s she like?”
I looked at both of my friends and said, “She seemed really nice actually and as for her and Danny…” I glanced towards the fridge where Mum was apparently fascinated by a tub of yoghurt. “I just don’t mind any more.”
“Which is a good job,” Mum said, unable to keep quiet any longer. “Because you have to learn a song each by tomorrow and I haven’t played piano since 1994. We’d better get practising!”
I was trying my hardest to learn ‘Good Morning Baltimore’ from Hairspray when Sean and his mum came back. Anne-Marie’s shrieks of excitement were louder than my singing so thankfully Mum stopped torturing Jeremy’s piano and we went to find out what all the fuss was about. Everyone was in the hallway with Sean when we arrived.
“You got through?” I asked Sean as soon as I saw him.
“Sort of,” he said, looking uncomfortable. Anne-Marie had her arm hooked through his and was grinning like a Cheshire cat.
“Sort of? What does that mean?” I asked him.
“It means,” Sean’s mum said, putting her arm around Sean and hugging him to her, “that they have offered Sean the part of Sebastian in Spotlight! The Movie Musical and that Sean has accepted.”
“Subject to contract,” Sean said, looking at me.
“Oh, Sean, stop sounding like an agent and start getting excited – you’ve got the lead!” Anne-Marie said. “This is HUGE. I can’t wait to tell Jade and Menakshi – this is going to kill them. I might e-mail them now actually, or maybe text as it’s a special occasion…”
“You mean he doesn’t have to do any more auditions?” Nydia asked.
“No, he’s got the part,” Mrs Rivers told us. “They said that if there was anyone in the world they could cast in that role it would be Sean, and that was that.”
“But you’ve been gone all day,” I said.
“There were a lot of people to meet,” Sean said with a shrug. It was weird – everyone else in the room probably thought he was being shy and modest about his success. But I knew he was feeling bad. Bad about lying to his mum, to Anne-Marie, to the studio and, worst of all, to himself. I knew he didn’t want to play Sebastian; he didn’t want the lead role in any film with all of the attention and stress it would bring him. I knew he was only doing this because his dad had somehow made him think it was a good idea, and I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t see how mad he was being.
But I couldn’t say any of that, so instead I just smiled and shrugged, “Well done.”
“So when you go back for the workshops tomorrow, Sean will be there working with all the different groups.”
“This is fantastic,” Anne-Marie said. “Because you know what this means, don’t you?”
We all looked at her. “What?” I asked.
“Well, the girl who’s picked to play Arial will be the girl that Sean has most onscreen chemistry with – and it’s bound to be me, isn’t it? I’m going to get the part of Arial!”
“Well, maybe,” I said uncertainly.
“You’ve as good a chance as any,” my mum said.
“Of course I will,” Anne-Marie said happily. “Sean just has to tell them he wants me to play Arial and they’ll give me the part.”
“Except that wouldn’t be exactly fair…” Nydia said uncertainly.
“Yes, well, show business isn’t fair, is it?” Anne-Marie said. “That’s sort of the whole point.”
“I don’t think so, Annie,” Sean said. “And anyway I don’t have much say in who else they cast. I just get to sit in on the auditions. They told me today I’d be working with at least twenty potential Arials tomorrow.”
“Oh.” Anne-Marie looked crestfallen for about one millionth of a second and then she started jumping around again. “It doesn’t matter anyway, because me and Sean are bound to work the best together. It’s going to be brilliant!”
“We should celebrate!” Gabe said. “Me going home, Sean getting a lead role.”
“A small, quiet celebration that involves an early night,” Mum said,
getting supporting nods from Sean’s mum and Mr Martinez. “How about pizzas and ice cream all round?”
She put her hands over her ears as we all cheered.
Later on, as Anne-Marie was still speculating on exactly when they would be offering her the part of Arial, I walked out into the garden for a think. It was still really warm and quiet out by the pool. All I could hear were crickets in the shrubbery and the distant sound of music from inside where Nydia was still practising her song while my mum murdered the sheet music. David had come out with me and was trotting at my heels, sniffing around in the plants and occasionally growling at something that was clearly not there. David never growled at anything that really was there: those things he hid from.
I sat on the edge of one of the sunloungers by the pool and looked into the dark water. A lot had happened since we’d arrived in Hollywood and, for once, not a lot of it had happened to me. I’d been feeling so worried and nervous about coming back here after the last time, but I’d hardly had a second to think about me. Tomorrow might include one of the most important auditions I would ever have, and the very first proper one since I decided I didn’t want to give up acting after all, but somehow that didn’t seem as important as everything else that was going on. Mainly this huge great big secret that Sean was keeping from everyone else; a secret I didn’t know how to keep for much longer. Once before I’d given away a secret that belonged to Sean and it could have ruined his life. I wasn’t sure if he’d forgive me a second time.
“Whatcha thinking?” Sean asked me, making me jump as he stepped out of the shadow of the veranda.
“I’m thinking about you,” I said before I knew it.
“Can’t blame you,” Sean said with a grin. “I am fascinating.”
I pursed my lips just to be sure that I didn’t return his infectious smile.
“Sean, I’m serious,” I told him. “I’m thinking about you keeping seeing your dad a secret from your mum, and about how you’re lying to both your mum and Anne-Marie about why you took the part of Sebastian. Your dad said there’d be weeks of auditions and rehearsals. But you got the part, Sean. You’ve got the lead role in a major movie and you don’t really want it.” I made myself look into his eyes. “Sean, what are you doing?”
Sean sat down alongside me on the sunlounger and looked into the pool.
“I don’t know,” he said, after a moment. “But I like that you worry about me.”
“Be serious!” I said, feeling annoyed.
“I am serious,” Sean said, glancing at me. “All I wanted to do was to see my dad, to get close to him again. I never meant for this to happen. But now that it has, it’ll give me some more time to get to know him again and to get Mom ready for the idea that I want him back in my life.”
“And pretending to take the lead role in the world’s biggest teen movie musical ever was the best way you could think of doing that?” I asked him.
“It was the way it happened,” Sean said.
“Well, it’s the wrong way,” I said firmly. “Sean, you have to tell your mum the truth. And Anne-Marie – before this goes any further and you really get in deep. Anne-Marie’s your girlfriend and my best friend. It’s not right to lie to her or your mum – plus it’s really stupid.”
“I know,” Sean said. He was quiet for a long time and we sat there in silence, until David decided that some imaginary monster was lurking underneath our sunlounger and launched an assault on our toes.
“It’s been kind of fun though,” Sean said when David finally abandoned our feet and tried instead to murder a towel. I frowned.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Having something that just you and me know about,” Sean said.
“That’s just silly,” I told him.
“Look…” Sean trailed off for a second and then took a breath and went on. “Anne-Marie is so cool, she’s a great girl and I really like her, but I sort of think that me and her…Well, I think we’re more just friends really than boyfriend and girlfriend.”
“I don’t think she thinks that!” I whispered crossly, worried that Anne-Marie might somehow hear us through an open window, even though the chances of that seemed slim since the parents had now started singing. Clearly no one in this house had inherited their singing ability from anyone present.
“I’m not so sure,” Sean said. “I know she likes the idea of dating a star, but I’m not so sure she really likes me. I was famous when we met and ever since then she’s wanted me to be famous again. If I was just any kid would she even notice me?”
“Of course she would, you’re gorgeous!” I exclaimed before I realised what I’d said. “Obviously I don’t think that. I mean, you’ve come top in the Top Ten Teen Hunk Totty poll for the last two years, so that’s just a fact.”
Sean shook his head, “Ruby, the thing is…”
“The thing is what?” I asked him, impatiently tapping my foot.
“You’ve never treated me like other girls do,” Sean told me.
“So?” I said sulkily. “And?”
“You didn’t go crazy when you met me and act all silly as if you’d lost your brain. We just got on and had fun, and you don’t care if I’m famous or just another kid at a stage school, and I really like that about you.”
“Well, that’s what friends are for,” I said, miserably thinking how I’d done a lot of acting as if I didn’t have a brain recently, only Sean hadn’t even noticed, which for some reason made me feel more confused..
“I’ve always felt like you really got me,” Sean said. “And then the other day when we snuck out to find Dad, it hit me. This hugely, massively obvious thing that I’ve somehow been missing all along.”
“What hit you?” I asked him wide-eyed.
“It’s you I like,” Sean said.
I shook my head. “I like you too, Sean, but you’ve still got to…”
“No, I mean I really like you, Ruby. I mean I wish you were my girlfriend.”
“I…what?” I asked him, hearing my voice rise in a shriek that could shatter glass.
“You heard me,” Sean said, a tiny smile curling up one side of this mouth.
“B-b…but you can’t say that.” I struggled to get my words out. “You can’t say—Just don’t say it, OK? Anne-Marie is my best friend and your girlfriend, and anyway you’re wrong. She cares about you a lot. She told me today how much you mean to her. I can’t be your girlfriend, Sean.”
“OK,” Sean said, looking over his shoulder as if he could see something in the dusk. When he looked back at me I nearly had to sit down again. Instead I took a couple of steps away from him, wondering how I could get back inside with the others, back to my life where I didn’t have to think about any of these things.
“Look,” Sean said, “I can see that right now it seems impossible…”
“Right now and forever,” I reminded him firmly.
“But say I hadn’t met Anne-Marie a year ago. Say that back then it had just been me and you, and we’d hung out and got to know each other and realised how much we liked each other right about now, and I asked you to go on a date with me…”
“But that’s not how it is,” I said more quietly as Sean took two steps nearer. I was sure David could hear my heart thundering in my chest, because he’d stopped barking and was sitting perfectly still with his head cocked to one side, staring at me.
“But if it was,” Sean said, “and I asked you to be my girlfriend, what would you say?” Suddenly he seemed very close and I realised exactly what people mean about having their heart in their mouth.
“I…” I don’t know what I was going to say because suddenly we were interrupted.
“Guys!” Nydia came tearing out to the pool and stopped dead when she saw Sean and me standing face to face.
“Sorry,” I said, leaping away from him as if he had just given me an electric shock. “We’re just…rehearsing. Sean asked me to rehearse with him.”
“Oh, right, OK,” Nydia said slowly
. She looked from me to Sean and back again, with a frown on her face. “Anyway you have to come and see Mr Martinez and your mum singing ‘I’ve Had the Time of My Life’. It’s the most hilarious and scary thing I have ever seen.”
“Coming,” I said. But I didn’t move.
“What now?” Nydia asked me.
“I’ve just got to get my…thing,” I said, gesturing in the direction of the pool where I saw David killing a towel again. “Got to rescue my towel.”
“Your towel.” Nydia gave me a long look that let me know she knew there was something else going on. “See you inside then.”
She turned on her heel and went back indoors.
“Stop being so…silly,” I said to Sean before he could say another word. “I would never have gone out with you.” Then I pounded along the path after Nydia.
And it was funny watching my mum and Mr Martinez singing a duet, while my mum played the piano badly. It was cringingly, hilariously, dreadfully funny, but I couldn’t laugh because all I could think about was that my life kept on getting more and more complicated, and there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about it.
That wasn’t funny at all.
Spotlight! The Movie Musical
Program of Events for Group Audition workshops
9—11 a.m.
You will be called in individually to meet the producers, casting directors and some cast members. You will then have a Polaroid photo taken (subject to applicable parental consent forms).
11—12 p.m.
You will perform your musical piece and read a script provided by the panel.
12—1 p.m.
Break for lunch.
Shooting Star Page 6