Finding June (21 page)

“Would you guys really rather be sitting on
the floor in a crowded makeup room, when you could be in a nice,
spacious, makeshift cafeteria meant specifically to cater to your
every need?” I asked the pair as Candice was attempting to glue
huge fake eyelashes onto my lids.

“Why would we want to be there when we could
be here listening to the melodic and compassionate voice of
Candice?” Benjamin asked seriously.

“Bite me,” was Candice’s automatic
response.

“She loves me secretly,” Benjamin remarked,
turning his attention back to his phone.

“Do you guys even have a scene at the
theatre?” I asked, not recalling ever seeing their characters at
this location in the script.

“Just a short one. You know, gathering
evidence and all that,” Ryan answered. He had been staring at a box
of injury pallets silently until this point, looking
distracted.

“Hey, New Girl, how long can you hold your
breath?” Benjamin suddenly asked, amusement playing in his
eyes.

“Don’t even start,” Candice said instantly,
her monotone voice full of menace.

“I was just asking,” Benjamin replied, making
his eyes wide and unassuming.

“The water tank doesn’t actually lock, does
it?” I asked, referring to the rather frightening scene I’d have to
do today. It involved being dangled above a large water tank Edward
and I used in our act, and then being dropped into it by our
killer, who quickly shuts the lid, locking me inside and forcing
Charles and Cutter to decide if they’ll save me or go after
him.

“These things do happen,” he said
mysteriously.

“Seriously Benjamin. I’m going to kick you
out of the makeup room in two seconds if you don’t shut it,”
Candice threatened. I knew Candice was my friend (though she’d
never admit it) but I couldn’t understand why she felt like
standing up for me so much today. I wasn’t complaining, but it was
very out of character.

“Candice doesn’t like water shoots,” Ryan
said by way of explanation. “They creep her out.”

“Why?” I asked, my curiosity getting the
better of me.

“Think about how much goes wrong during a
shoot. Someone forgets to bring a battery for something. The gel
over the light melts. The boom goes out. They forgot if they got
coverage of some stupid little insert shot. I’m not trusting those
people to get a water stunt right,” she said with a tone of utter
authority, giving a theatrical little shudder for effect.

While I had to admit she did have a good
point, I could definitely have done without this lovely little
thought being planted into my head right before I’d be plunging to
my icy death.

“New Girl, you’re looking a little pale . . .
er,” Benjamin said from his spot on the floor, actually sounding a
bit serious.

“It’s because you guys scared her about the
stunt. Now she’s going to freak out and forget how to open the
box,” Ryan said accusingly, not helping my nerves at all.

“You said the box doesn’t lock,” I almost
shouted, looking at Candice with slight hysteria in my eyes, one
eyelash dangling off of my lid like a madwoman.

“It doesn’t. There’s no way you could get
stuck in there,” she reassured me. “And even if you did, they’re
not filling it up all the way. The top of the tank is covered by
metal and that part will be all air. So no matter what, you’ll be
able to breathe . . . for a reasonable amount of time”

I thought this over for a moment, trying to
decide whether this was adequate consolation or not.

“If I drown today, I’m coming back to haunt
all three of you,” I threatened darkly.

*****

I stood alone on the stage, waiting for
everyone to get organized. Of course, when I say "alone," I mean as
alone as you can be on a film set. I knew there was a mic on or
around me somewhere, and if I spoke, the sound people would be able
to hear my every word. That was one of the first lessons Gran
taught me when I started acting—never say anything bad about
someone you work with while you’re on set, because someone is
always listening. This thought made me reflect back on my
conversations with Candice and the boys in the makeup trailer where
we had analyzed Lukas’s goodness (or lack thereof) for extensive
periods of time. But I was almost positive no one had heard that—or
if they had, they certainly weren’t showing any signs.

I couldn’t see much as I stared off into the
audience, since the lights shining on me made it almost impossible
to see anything. I sighed deeply and looked down at my costume. I
was, again, in my ridiculous stage costume. My chest was cinched in
so tightly that I thought I’d faint, and my fake eyelashes were so
long that I looked like a porcelain doll. I had to admit that the
skirt made of iridescent green feathers was pretty amazing, no
matter how uncomfortable the rest of the costume made me feel. I
brought my hand up to my wild, curly hair, feeling that it was
snuggly pinned into submission and piled on top of my head. I had
never acted in a period piece, but I was beginning to feel that
this is what it must be like: all curls and corsets.

I closed my eyes for a moment in the heat of
the lights and imagined how perfect Lukas and I would be in an
Austen-esque film. Lukas would have those beautiful, manly
sideburns and tight breeches the men always wore, and I’d wear some
empire waist, flowing gown that would make me look like a princess.
And of course we’d both have British accents, which would
automatically make us infinitely more attractive.

I let myself get lost in this wonderful land
of accents and lovely clothes until an actual British accent (or at
least something that sounded pretty similar to one) brought me out
of my reverie.

“Are you Imogen?” I heard the voice ask,
directly in front of me. I opened my eyes and blinked a few times,
wondering if maybe I had willed this man into life.

“Me?” I asked, though it was pretty obvious
he was talking to me. There wasn’t anyone else on the stage. He
demonstrated this by looking around the stage once to verify that
my question really was as stupid as it sounded.

“Yeah,” he said simply, bringing his hand up
to his mouth and beginning to bite his nail.

“Imogen?” I asked dimly, until I finally
realized what he was talking about. I was pretty embarrassed by how
long it took me. “Oh yeah, I play Imogen on the show. My name’s
June,” I said, extending my hand. He took it with his free,
non-nail biting hand, and gave me a quick smile.

The boy continued to stand there, nibbling on
his thumb and carefully observing the commotion happening offstage
until I finally cleared my throat as an indication that he hadn’t
told me who he was.

“Rafe,” he said, leaving me to wonder if he
had just said his name, or somehow insulted me in some unknown
English slang. Realizing that this boy would be no help in
identifying exactly who he was, I tried to figure it out for
myself. I was guessing, using my extensive knowledge of the script
(or just my common sense) that he was playing Edward. We were,
after all, the only two people in this scene if you didn’t count
the audience, and somehow, people never did.

Rafe was a tall, lanky boy—well over six
feet, which put him several inches taller than Joseph, Lukas, and
Ryan. He reminded me of a lit match. He was pale and towered over
me, with copper colored hair that seemed to be untamable, even
though I could smell the product Candice had used in it. He was
wearing eyeliner, which I supposed was part of his character, and
an old, tight-fitting, ratty gray suit that looked like it had seen
better days. His eyes were a sort of amber color and never rested
in one spot. It felt like he was a big ball of nervous energy,
between his nail biting and shifting eyes.

“So, Rafe, are you playing Edward?” I asked
out of politeness, even though I was pretty sure I already knew the
answer. He looked over at me as if he didn’t know I had been
standing there the whole time.

“Yeah, I’ll be the one dying here pretty
soon,” he said, slight amusement in his voice despite his
anxiety-inducing habits.

“Have you been on a show like this before?” I
pressed, feeling like there were a lot of awkward silences growing
between us.

“I’ve been on
this
show before,” he
said in his thick (was it British?) accent.

“Wait . . . as Edward?”

“No. As various people. You’d be surprised
how well they can get away with using the same actors for smaller
roles. I’ve been on the show three times now, just wearing wigs or
being mangled beyond recognition. That sort of thing,” he said,
dropping his hand away from his mouth as though tired of biting
those nails. Instead, he began to tap out a drumbeat on his legs
while he stood talking to me. This guy couldn’t stop moving.

“Wow. I had no idea they did that on shows,”
I said, genuinely shocked.

“Not all shows, just ones who know they can
get away with it and have the budget to hold onto an actor they
like by changing up their look a bit. Of course, I can’t be in big
roles more than once or people would notice.”

I pondered this new information for a moment,
wondering if Bates had been talking about keeping me on the show as
someone else. That would definitely be a pity. I liked playing
Imogen Gentry. Leaving these thoughts for another time, I tried to
continue making small talk with Rafe, though it was difficult since
he, unlike Lukas Leighton, didn’t bother trying to fill awkward
silences.

“So, are you from England?” I asked,
wondering why his accent didn’t sound quite right. It was almost as
if he were speaking with an English/Scottish accent, but one where
he rolled his Rs excessively. Even that wasn’t a good description.
It sounded more like rolling your Rs, but only once. Either way, I
had no idea where he was from.

He looked at me for a moment, one coppery
eyebrow raising into the mess that was his shaggy hair. “England?”
he asked, as if I were crazy.

“Well, it’s just . . . you have a British
accent,” I offered, trying to recover from however I had insulted
him.

“I’m from South Wales,” he said making me
feel like this had been more obvious than the fact that the sky is
blue. “And people don’t have British accents. They have Welsh
accents . . . or English, or Scottish, or whatever you’d like.
‘British’ is a bit of an all-encompassing word.”

“Oh, yeah . . . of course,” I said,
attempting to recover from this awkward situation. I wasn’t a
stupid person, but I definitely put myself into situations where I
often looked pretty dumb—right now being the perfect example. I
decided not to mention the fact that I had absolutely no idea where
Wales was and had only heard of it because of Princess Diana.

“So, you landed yourself a pretty comfortable
gig on this show, eh?” Rafe asked, ending his pant leg drum solo
and starting to run his fingers absently through his hair. I could
now see why, despite the product Candice had used, his hair was
standing on end. I got the feeling this guy would make Woody Allen
and Jim Carrey seem calm and relaxed.

“Yeah, I hope so. I’m really loving it so
far,” I answered, looking at the disappearing box behind us that
would soon become Rafe’s coffin.

“Rafe, you look perfect,” I heard Bates call
out from some unseen spot in the audience. Frankly, if I tried to
look past the blinding lights, all I saw were spots in my burned
eyes.

Rafe gave a little two-fingered salute to our
unseen director and walked to the edge of the stage, presumably for
further instruction. Not knowing what else to do, I followed suit.
He knelt down (a pretty impressive sight to behold when all
six-foot something of him bent in half) and muttered something
under his breath that I didn’t quite catch. I decided to keep
playing the politely interested co-star and pretended not to
notice.

“So, Rafe, we’ll have you do this how we
originally discussed. Forget about what we said this morning,”
Bates said, stealing a quick glance in my direction that caught me
off guard. Had they talked about
me
this morning? Was that a
bad thing?

“June, you don’t need to say anything. Just
be very showy and help Rafe into the box. Once he’s in, give a few
beats before you try to open it again, and then act like it’s
stuck. He needs to be in there almost a minute,” Bates instructed.
“We’ll shoot him actually falling out of the box later today after
he’s gotten his makeup done, but we’ll just have you keep going so
it doesn’t look too jumpy.”

I was pretty sure I understood what he was
trying to say, so I nodded silently, assuming that if I did it
wrong they’d just stop me and have me re-shoot anyway. I was
becoming much more relaxed on set, which was a nice change for my
stomach's sake. Rafe and I stood up and walked back over to the
disappearing man box in silence.

“Also, it’s carbon monoxide poisoning now,
not arsenic,” Bates called out, somewhere behind the lights. “At
least, I think that’s what they said.”

Rafe gave a little full body shake,
presumably to help him get ready to start filming, then turned and
gave me the biggest, toothiest smile I’d ever seen. “Showtime,” he
said. Apparently he was very excited about filming.

Bates called out a few instructions to other
crewmembers and then set the shot up, instructing us to get to our
first positions. I stood beside Rafe, slightly left of center
stage, and fluffed the feathers on my skirt up a bit. We waited a
moment as Bates got caught up in some conversation with the
director of photography, and I turned to Rafe, suddenly confused by
what appeared to be an empty audience.

“Where are the audience members?” I asked,
worried that I was the only one who had noticed this huge missing
piece of the puzzle.

“They’ll probably shoot the audience scenes
later, if they show them at all,” Rafe said in a muffled voice,
having gone back to biting his nails again. Apparently waiting a
few seconds for Bates to call action was enough for Rafe to slip
back into his easily awakened boredom.