Page 3 of The Actor and His Secret

‘To an apartment which is days from being claimed by the bank if you don’t pay up on your arrears? Really, Nikos. It’s a fucking Wednesday and you smell like the floor of some dingy nightclub downtown.’

‘Are you flirting with me?’

I don’t need to watch to know she just rolled her eyes. Selina always follows an eye roll with the kiss of her tongue over her teeth. It’s an Italian thing.

‘I’ve come to throw you a bone.’ Her heeled boot - red bottomed, most likely, she’s got expensive taste - kicks the velveteen sofa I’ve fallen asleep on. ‘Are you going to be a good boy and take it?’

‘Go away.’ I hoist the bound pages and drop them to the floor, right next to the puddle of vodka. ‘I’m vegan.’ Well, if consuming nothing but alcohol counts as vegan.

‘Fuck you.’ Selina kicked again, knocking over the empty bottle of spirits I had downed last night. ‘Up. Now.’

I pinch my eyes closed. If I can just tell the universe that Selina is going to leave, maybe the manifestation will work. ‘I don’t pay you to give me orders.’

She leans over me, painted nails digging into the material of the sofa. Not that it matters – with the stains, sweat, and unknown bodily fluids matting the once soft velvet, there’s no hope for it anyway.

As there’s no hope for me.

‘May I be the one to remind you, you don’t pay me.’

‘Then leave already.’

Selina chuckles, a deadly, dangerous sound. ‘Oh, no, you’re not getting rid of me that easily.’

I don’t open my eyes until the click of her heels disappears in the direction of my kitchen. Problem with these luxurious apartments is the architects think an open plan, modern design is more desirable. I suppose it would be if that didn’t mean I could smell the rotting take-out food left on the counter from my place on the sofa.

My ears itch with the sound of running water. It’s brief, shuts off, and then Selina is back in the living room. There’s barely a warning before a cup of water is dumped on my head.

‘Okay, okay!’ I bark, gasping at the icy bite of water as it soaks through my dirty white tee.

Selina has a terrifyingly pleased grin on her face, her arms crossed and sharp shoe thumping a rhythm on the hardwood. The empty glass is tinkering against the tap of her nail.

‘Enjoying yourself?’ I ask, sitting up as the room sways violently. My living room really is a mess. It wouldn’t be impossible to believe a tornado entered, unannounced and uninvited, but it’s simply the way I’ve been living.

Beyond the wall of windows at Selina’s back I have the perfect view of Central Park. Even from the height of my home, I can still hear the calls of runners, coffee vendors selling pastries from carts, and the bustle of foot traffic as New Yorkers continue with their day.

Is it really afternoon?

I rub the sleep from my eyes, still not bothering to look at the papers Selina had dumped on me. They now sit in a puddle of vodka and water, two opposing liquids - which is rather a good metaphor for the war currently waging inside of me.

It’s a script, with the tell-tale typography of a catchy title plastered on the front page.

An Age of Dragons.

So it’s not bank letters or an eviction notice - the same I’ve been dodging for almost a year.

‘No thirty-year-old lives in such a state,’ Selina says, grimacing as she looks between the table covered in old pizza boxes and warped cans of beer. ‘If your Yiayia saw you now, she’d murder you.’

Yiayia, my weakness. My grandmother who I’d left behind in Thessaloniki, Greece. No, not left. Ran away from. I didn’t go back to visit her a single time before she died.

‘Why are you here?’ I’m not in the mindset for talking. Not with the drums pounding in my head and the snakes writhing in my stomach.

‘You got the gig.’

I look down to the script again, squinting as if that would help my mind make sense of where I’d seen the title. ‘Sorry, I don’t think my thirty-year-old brain is awake enough to make sense of this.’

Selina smiles down at me, flashing every single perfectly placed tooth. ‘If I could say it in Greek, I would. You got the fucking job, Nikos.’

‘But it’s been six months…’

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