Page 23 of Marisol Acts the Part
“You got me there,” I grumble, swiping the frosting only for it to smear down the bridge of my noseandsomehow get tangled in my hair.
I can’t win today, can I?
While I groan and struggle to wipe the yellow smudge off my face, she leans forward and pinches the bit that’s stuck to the end of my hair. My body stiffens as her fingers gently brush against the bare skin of my shoulder, and I pray to every deity I know that she doesn’t see the goose bumps that blossom beneath her touch.
“Do you want the rest of these?” I ask, eager to get attention off me. I push the box toward her. “So your sister can show you the error of your ways.”
Jamila snorts, an unusually lovely sound. “You sure?” she asks with a raised brow. “Because it looks like you could still use some practice eating these correctly.” She swipes her thumb against her nose and does me the favor of holding back her laugh again.
I swallow another groan, holding up my phone and wiping furiously until my reflection is finally free of any rogue frosting. “Yes, I’m sure,” I insist once I’ve cleaned myself off and tucked my phone away. “You’d be doing me a favor,” I insist, eyeing the box warily. “I can’t be trusted alone in an apartment with two dozen cupcakes.”
Jamila nods, tapping her finger against the strap of her tote bag. “If my sister found out someone offered me a box of Magnolia cupcakes and I turned it down, she’d kill me.”
“Well, then consider this a humanitarian effort,” I argue, closing the box and pressing it directly into her hands. “I’m saving your life.”
This time, Jamila doesn’t hold back her laugh. “Well, when you put it that way.”
Over her shoulder, a PA orders everyone out of the room so they can reset for shooting tomorrow. I quickly grab my ownbag and remaining box of cupcakes seconds before another PA swoops by and hoists the table we were sitting at into the air, moving it to the opposite end of the room.
“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Jamila calls out in the shuffle of the crew and lingering cast members.
“See you tomorrow,” I echo, too frazzled by trying to balance my cardigan, bag, and box in one hand to find her in the crowd.
Once I’ve collected myself and my stuff, I head outside to meet my driver and head back to Dad’s apartment. As we cross the Brooklyn Bridge, I let myself process this mad dash of a day. It’s easy to feel disappointed—over my not-so-great first impression, Rune’s passive-aggressive comment about my wardrobe, and the overall lack of openness from the cast. Especially Dawn. But there were bright spots too. Nailing my performance, even though it was only a read-through. The face Miles made when he saw me. Jamila’s smile, and the jolt of her fingers brushing against my skin.
Actually…maybe today wasn’t so bad after all.
Chapter 7
Any hopes I had that Rune and I would hit it off after our less-than-stellar interaction at the read-through go out the window within five minutes of me stepping onto set for my first scene of the season.
“One second!” Rune shouts as I get settled on my mark, a black X taped on the floor of what’s meant to be Miles’s bedroom. He jogs over to us, pulls the pencil from behind his ear, and starts scribbling something in the margins of his script. “Let’s adjust these,” he says, holding the script out toward me and Miles once he’s done.
It’s hard to make out what his chicken scratch says. Panic quickly settles in once I realize that he’s rewritten almost every single line I have.
“Can I—”
“Quiet on set!” someone calls out, Rune heading back tohis director’s chair before I’ve even finished reading all the line adjustments.
Before I can protest, the lights beyond the set dim, while the lights on set crank up to full brightness, blinding me until I can’t make out anything outside of the makeshift bedroom except shapes and shadows. The usual chatter goes completely silent except for the slap of the clapboard, marking the start of our first take.
“You can’t just show up here whenever you want, Zoe,” Miles says without missing a beat, despite the slight adjustment to his line.
I do my best to ground myself, focusing on the character and letting the words I’d studied last night with Jerome come naturally. “I was worried about you,” I reply, slipping into my scorned ex-girlfriend role.
Miles scoffs, crossing the room to get away from me. “You’ve never been worried about me.”
“I’m not a villain.” Following the script, I reach out to grab Miles’s arm and pull him back toward me, but Rune’s voice disrupts the scene.
“Cut!” he shouts, the lights dimming enough that I can see him getting out of his chair. Sweat has broken out along my forehead by the time he makes it over to us. “Marisol, can you read the revised line?”
“Y-yeah, totally,” I reply with as much enthusiasm as I can muster. One of the makeup artists appears beside me, brushing aside my hair to touch up the foundation on my damp forehead. “Can I see the script again? I didn’t get a good look at the revisions.”
Rune bristles, tightening his grip on the rolled-up scriptbefore begrudgingly handing it over to me. “We’ll take a five-minute break.”
The noise and bustle return as a bell rings out, signaling the start of our break. Rune heads off to crafty, while Miles collapses onto the prop bed behind him, keeping himself occupied with his phone.
No one seems especially bothered by the need for an immediate break, but I still feel the pressure weighing down on me like a thousand-ton backpack. Dread creeps down my spine as I scan Rune’s marked-up script as quickly as I can, repeating the edited lines to myself until they start to lose their meaning. The only thing that makes learning lines harder for me is nerves, and I have plenty of those right now. Unless I want to completely bomb my first scene on the show, I need to calm the hell down.
