Waiting for Callback (11 page)

I felt quite smug. I’d definitely called this one. I was going to take all the credit when this got to full-on relationship stage.

‘But what do I reply? Why did he have to be so vague?’

‘He really was not that vague. He’s so clearly into you.’

‘Elektra, help me. What do I put?’

‘You’re asking
me
for boy advice?’

‘You’re the only person in the room.’

Fair. ‘Erm, what about something like, “Yeah, was nice. Sounds good.” But obviously put it a bit more smoothly.’ Texting is
hard
. Neither adults nor guys
appreciate the amount of thought and subtle subtext that go into the composition of a text.

‘Yes, yes, good, so . . .’ She paused for about ten minutes, staring at the screen. ‘How about, “Was good to see you too. I’m around next week”?’

‘Perfect. Go for it.’ I’d have said, ‘Seize the moment,’ but this was taking too long.

‘I can’t send it. What if this is a terrible mistake?’

‘It’s definitely not.’ Obviously, my extensive experience in this area had made me something of an expert. ‘You’ve just got to shut your eyes and send
it.’

‘Done. Oh, God, that was definitely a mistake.’

‘No it wasn’t. Do you want to get with him?’

‘No . . . Yes . . . Not sure. He might be a nice person to try stuff with.’

For some reason, we found this very funny.

‘You need a couple name.’

‘We so do. Mossorr?’

‘Torross?’

‘Can’t be Taurus. We’re both Capricorn. Capricorns are caring and loyal.’

They’d been talking about star signs? Seriously? This was not like Moss. She had it bad. ‘What about . . . Toss then?’

‘Not Toss!
Please
not Toss.’

Her phone buzzed again. We both stared. The tension was palpable.

‘Ahhh, he’s asked me to meet up with him.’ Moss had to bite her lip to stop her embarrassingly huge grin.

‘To do what?’

‘Unspecified things,’ she said and we both started sniggering again. I have never claimed that we were mature.

‘Just go.’

‘My mum’ll freak out. Even if I just go for coffee, you know my mum,’ she said and I did.

In many ways, Moss’s mum was lovely. She was always nice to me; she made a mean lemon cheesecake; I liked how she dressed (skinny jeans, ankle boots, also she had a pink cocoon coat that I
lusted after); she never got mad with Moss about the mess in her bedroom; she let me bring Digby round instead of walking him in the park; and she didn’t mind that we all called Moss
‘Moss’ and not Momoko (mostly because Momoko means ‘peach child’ and while Moss is many things she’s not a ‘peach child’). But when it came to the whole
achievements thing Moss’s mum was fierce. Moss got up an hour earlier than me every single morning to practise the piano. After school on Monday, she had extra maths; after school on
Wednesday, she had a tennis lesson (and she was never going to be any good at any sport so that was a total waste of time and money); and for
four hours
on Saturday morning she had Japanese
class to please her dad who was originally from Japan.

Even by London standards, that was pretty intense.

I moaned about my parents making me do all my homework and monitoring my phone addiction and not letting me watch any of the weirdly compelling reality shows about seriously fat people, but if
my mum got too heavy about studying I would just keep saying I was
stressed
until she backed off in a panic and started to buy me lavender oil and Oreos (my favourite, but normally as
welcome as hemlock in my house) and schedule ‘down time’ back into my life.

Moss’s mum was in a whole different category. I would bet
100 per cent
that she wouldn’t think dating (anyone) was a good idea – she’d label it ‘a
distraction’ and say no.

And Moss’s dad wouldn’t be any help because he lived on the other side of London with a new, very young girlfriend. In fact, she looked about the same age as us (but had way bigger
boobs). I tried very hard to hate him for Moss’s sake, but he was really funny. I don’t think Moss hated him either.

Pretty sure her mum did though.

‘You could say you were coming round to mine?’

We weren’t in the habit of lying to our parents (much), but sometimes you just had to go for it.

Moss shook her head. ‘Nah, it’s not worth it; she’ll find out. I’ll be brave and talk to her. You never know – maybe if I offer to mind Haruka for her for a few
afternoons.’

‘I’ll help you,’ I said, which was the mark of a true friend. Moss’s little sister, Haruka, looked cute, but she was pretty high maintenance (a bit like Moss really, not
that I’d ever tell her that).

‘Now you have to get with Archie and then we could double-date.’

‘That’s not even funny.’

‘I wasn’t trying to be funny.’

‘There’s as much chance of Archie asking me out as Prince Harry.’

‘Don’t be so defeatist. Why don’t you ask him? Come on, it’s the twenty-first century.’ That was easy for Moss to say; she hadn’t had to ask Torr out.

‘Yeah, sure. I’ll just go up to Archie at ACT and randomly ask him if he’d like to go on a date. That wouldn’t seriously freak him out.’

‘He’d love it. Major ego boost.’

‘Yep and major ego shrink for me when he says no.’

‘He wouldn’t say no.’

‘I’m so not going to risk it.’

And I wasn’t.

From:
Ms Chan, Assistant to Deputy Head, Berkeley Academy

Date:
13 January 16:06

To:
Year 10; Year 11; Year 12; Year 13

Subject:
Lost property

Dear Girls,

In the wake of this year’s social, a surprising number of items have been handed in to me. Highlights (which are available for collection from my office)
include:

At the risk of being gender normative, I am assuming that the 2 skinny ties, 5 Lynx hygiene products and the single size 11 trainer belong to visitors from St
John’s and have repatriated them accordingly.

There were also a number of contraband items and it goes without saying that I hope that there is no girl stupid enough to come and claim those.

Best wishes for an
organized
term,

Ms Chan

(Assistant to Mr Tibble)

Berkeley Academy: Believing and Achieving since 1964

From:
Stella at the Haden Agency

Date:
16 January 12:16

To:
Julia James

Cc:
Charlotte at the Haden Agency

Subject:
Straker
(working title) project and Capital Film School

(Module 3.2: Working with Children and Animals)

Dear Julia,

Mixed news. Firstly, I’m so sorry for the late notice, but the
Straker
(working title) meeting that was rescheduled for 19 January has been postponed
again. Unfortunately, we do not yet have a date for any rearranged meeting. I will of course let you know the moment that we have any further information, but I should warn you that there is a
chance that the delay could be quite long and that, given the playing age of the character, could affect Elektra’s suitability for the role. You will appreciate that such matters are outside
our control!

The good news is that Capital Film School have contacted us looking for child actors to work with their students on term projects.
This is not paid work.
Nor at the moment do we know who Elektra might be working with or the shoot dates or the shoot location. I appreciate that this might not sound terribly tempting compared to a major production like
Straker
, but student projects are great in-front-of-camera experience. Ideally, Elektra should be building a showreel and this might give her some material. The casting is next Wednesday (21
January) at 5.15 p.m. at the film school. Let me know what you both think.

Best,

Stella

‘This is not what I expected London’s finest film school to look like,’ said Moss. To be fair, it was pretty dingy. We were in what appeared to be a school
common room.

A guy put his head round the door. ‘Is one of you Elektra James?’

‘I am.’

‘Cool. I’m Ed. I’m the director.’ Seriously? He did not look like a director, not even a student director. ‘You’re meant to have a chaperone with you. We’re not allowed to audition minors without a chaperone present.’

‘That would be me,’ said Moss. It was sort of true – Mum had had some crisis (a real one that was temporarily more important than me) and Moss had come with me instead.

‘Cool – except the thing is the chaperone’s meant to be over eighteen,’ said Ed apologetically.

Ah. Moss tugged down her school skirt. ‘I am over eighteen. I’m just very short.’ I loved Moss.

‘Yeah, she looks way younger than she is,’ I offered. To be honest, Ed looked like he should have been in Year Twelve himself.

‘I’m Elektra’s . . . older . . . cousin?’ We were clutching at straws.

‘Right. Sure you are,’ said Ed. He looked at us and then at his watch. ‘Cool. We’re all just going to go along with that “older cousin line” then.’ He
grinned; Ed was quite hot under all the grunginess. He showed us into a tiny room. ‘You sit over there and, like, keep an eye on us,’ he said, motioning Moss over to a stool in the
corner. ‘Would you be happy to do a quick read-through, Elektra?’

‘Sure,’ I said fake casually, like I’d had years of audition experience and not just the dead-child-fail behind me. This was my chance to put into practice all the ‘how
to succeed at castings’ advice I’d gleaned from literally hours of googling. Ed handed me a page of script. I took it gingerly; there was what looked suspiciously like a curry stain on
one corner. I skimmed it quickly.

There was more: I had fifteen lines. Fifteen lines was good.

Fifteen lines was good even when they didn’t make a lot of sense.

‘Ready?’ asked Ed and I nodded. Sort of. I was going to have to do all this emoting in front of Moss who kept letting out nervy little giggles.

It was very hot in the room (also it smelled quite strongly of beer) so I struggled a bit to find my inner
Frozen
and ‘Let It Go’.

And now I had to get that song out of my head.

‘Do you want me to start off lying down?’ I asked. Moss snorted. My mum wouldn’t have snorted.

Ed looked unsure. ‘Er . . . it’s up to you, but it’s cool if you just want to do it all sitting. That’s what the others did.’

I resisted the temptation to ask how many ‘others’ he’d seen. I was mucking this up. At least now my hands were shaking from nerves so I could work with that. I sat on the
floor with my back against the chair legs and took a deep, deep breath. I could do this.

‘Cool,’ said Ed when I’d finished and then he made me do it again, twice.

He looked over to Moss when we were done. ‘It’s cool if you want to read too.’

I was quite pleased when she said no.

‘What’s the film for?’ I asked as he showed us out. ‘Is it for your degree?’

‘Yeah. It’s for my Working with Children and Animals module. We have to do a short film with one or the other and I had a bit of a bad experience with an angry Pomeranian when I was
younger so I chose kids.’