Close Up and Personal

Chapter One

I scrabble through my make-up bag, searching for some kind of magic remedy. There must be something in here which will make me look like a real actress.

My mind is racing
on a million things at once. I have an audition in less than an hour with one of the biggest theatre companies in London. And although I graduated from England’s best drama school this year, I majored in script writing. I have only ever acted in a handful of plays.

The lipstick skids out of my hand and falls to the floor.
Damn
. Maybe lipstick wasn’t the look anyway. I turn back to face my reflection in the mirror.

Large
, frightened grey eyes blink back at me from under a tangle of thick black hair. The best I can hope for is I get through the audition without making a complete fool of myself. I’ll be lucky they don’t laugh me out the door before I get to read my lines.

Lines.
Another panic sets in. At least this I have prepared for. I begin muttering the learned words under my breath, like a mantra to calm my mind.

It doesn’t work.

“Jeez, Issy. You look a wreck!”

Lorna, my best friend
and housemate, breezes into my bedroom.

I say best friend. But
since she was the one who swung this audition without asking me first, she is currently in my bad books.

“Lorna, they are going to take one look at me and burst out laughing,” I frown, turning to face her. “It’s obvious to anyone I’m not an actress.”

Lorna stalks over to the bed
, folding her long legs underneath herself as she sits. She’s a model, and manages to make everything she does look like a catwalk pose.

“Shhh,” she
tuts, moving a tuft of hair out of my eyes. “Calm down. You’ll be great. Remember the college play? You rocked the auditorium.”

“
That was at college, Lorna. This is the real thing.”

Lorna cocks her head to one side and smiles. “We went to drama school
, honey. They don’t let anyone who isn’t destined for greatness act in the final play. Besides, what have you got to lose?”

My dignity, my ego, my
self-respect.

I look back to the mirror, letting out a long sigh.

Lorna shrugs. “I couldn’t have even got you this audition if you hadn’t shown talent. Berkeley Theatre only lets top actors try out for their plays.”

The thought
spikes me with a fresh surge of fear.

Top actors. And me. Great.

“And you’re perfect for the role,” continues Lorna. “Look at your beautiful dark hair and those great big eyes. You’re a natural Lady Capulet.”

This is another reason why I’m
annoyed with Lorna. She chose the role without asking me. And yet again, I’ve been typecast as an evil older woman.

I give my reflection a rueful smile.
Thanks mom.
In the few roles I’ve acted, my inherited Spanish features always get me cast as villainesses and femme fatales. Ironic, since nothing else about me suits those roles. I’ve only had two boyfriends and one of those was in first grade.

“Just think
, if you get it,” continued Lorna, her eyes shining, “you could get to meet James Berkeley in person. Or even Madison Ellis!”

I frown into the mirror. Right now, meeting the famous owner of the
Berkeley Theatre company and his actress wife is the last thing on my mind. All I want to do is get through the audition without mangling my lines too badly and leave with my dignity.

“I just have no idea how I should look,” I sigh. “I
never went to those classes about how to ace auditions.”

“Turn to face me,” instructs Lorna. I obey, and she rif
fles through my make-up until she has a stack of neutral shades in her palm.

“It’s just like casting for models,” she says. “
You just have to look like you’re not trying too hard and that you’re naturally beautiful. Which for you,” she adds, sticking an eye pencil between her teeth, “issh the eashieest sshing in the world.”

I sit still whilst Lorna applies neutral tones of brown and taupe around my pale grey eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I say as she gets to work on my face. “I am grateful, Lorna. Truly. It’s just that I think I’m way out of my league here.”

Lorna acknowledges the apology and switches to a different make-up brush. Under her expert hands
, my eyes now appear both professionally finished and effortlessly natural.

“Thanks,” I say, admiring her genius with make-up.

“Phew,” says Lorna, smudging away at the final layer. “This is tougher than it looks. Even the slightest dash of pencil is going to make you look like a smouldering sex kitten.
Not
the look,” she adds, leaning back to appraise my face.

“Ok,” she concludes, “I think we’re going to have to do without mascara. You
r eyelashes are so long, they might end up looking false.”

“
Lorna!” I laugh. I love my friend but her flattery is beyond ridiculous sometimes. It must be her life in the modelling world.

I look at the pair of us in the mirror.
Without a lick of make-up, Lorna’s chocolate skin has a perfect golden sheen to it. She looks like she’s been airbrushed, and her violet eyes sing out against her tumult of afro hair. Everything about Lorna is vivacious. Full of life. She has got every single modelling job she has ever tried for, and London agents are falling over themselves to represent her. Next to Lorna, I look like a ghost.

“It should be you going to the audition,” I murmur, gazing at her beautiful face
. “Not me.”

Lorna turns to me sternly.

“Now you listen to me, Isabella Green,” she admonishes, waving a long finger. “You are a superbly talented young actress. And you’re perfect for this role. Don’t you dare waste this opportunity.”

I smile back at her. “I’ll do my very best,” I say
. “I promise.” And I mean it. Lorna’s gone out of her way to land me this chance. The least I can do is put my all into it.

“
Besides,” Lorna looks puzzled for a moment. “I thought you wanted to try out acting.”

“I did,” I sigh. “But for some small
, independent theatre company. Somewhere I could be involved in the scripts. I never wanted to try with the biggest theatre company in the country. And for Romeo and Juliet of all the plays!”

The realisation of what Lorna’s put me up for is starting to hit hard. It’s true that I do want to try some acting in a small way.
But not as the centre of attention in some big production. I never saw my name in lights like the other kids at drama school. My place is behind the scenes, in the background. I only want to act a little so I can be a better script writer.

“Well
, there’s no harm in hitting the big time too early. And you owe me.” Lorna gives me an evil grin. “I had to sleep with the choreographer to get you this audition.”

“You didn’t!”
For a moment, I think she’s serious. Lorna nearly falls off the bed laughing.

“Of course not! Honey, I’m bad but I’m not that bad. I told you before. We met at a party. I mentioned your name. He’d caught the last of the college final play and thought you’d be good.”

“Ok.” I stand. “Clothes.” My heartbeat starts hammering again.

Lorna selects a pair of tight designer jeans
, which she insisted I buy in the summer sales, and then runs off to find me a top from her bedroom.

“Here,” she returns
, holding a beautiful silk camisole top.

“I can’t w
ear that!” I yelp. The top probably costs more than my waitressing salary earns me in a month.

“Take it, take it,” Lorna waves it at me.

“It looks like underwear,” I say dubiously, taking the top.

“That’s the look this season,” says Lorna. “They’ll think you’re beautiful
and
have your finger on the fashion pulse. What’s not to love?”

“
Ok.” I take a deep, panic-wracked breath as I slide on the silky top. As an afterthought, I grab my favourite black vintage suit jacket and slip it over the top. Lorna nods in approval.

“You look great,” she says. “You always could mix in the vintage thing.”

“I’m good to go,” I say, appraising the new ‘casual-audition-Isabella’ in the mirror.

Lorna sits on the bed.
She looks a little tired suddenly.

“Did you remember
to take your tablets?” I say, suddenly remembering that she came in late last night.

Lorna has been a diabetic since childhood, but unless I watch her like a hawk
, she sometimes forgets to take her meds.

“Of course! Stop worrying about me and concentrate on the audition,” says Lorna.

She stands and gives me a hug. “You go,” she says. “Have fun. You look perfect. Really great. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. And if you see that hot Mr James Berkeley, you blow him a little kiss from me.”

I laugh and
feel my heartbeat slow just a little. “As if I would! Anyway, Berkeley is only a financial investor, Lorna. He doesn’t get involved in the production side. The theatre would be lucky if he even showed up to a premiere.”

“Well,” says Lorna, “you never know. You might get the part, and then you’ll see him at th
at premiere when he shows up.”