Emma
Emma had no idea how long she slept for, but she awoke to a dark room and the remnants of a weird dream about fifty-seven varieties of bean auditioning for the lead part at Bar Brand – the bar she’d been working at for three years.
Pushing herself upright she reached for her phone.
Five missed calls.
None of the numbers belonged to Penny, so she guessed she knew what she could do with the absurd hope the actress the studio had decided to go with had caught a sudden case of really bad numb-tongue.
She texted her flatmates to tell them she hadn’t got the part, but that she was okay (greatest piece of text-acting ever, right there) and that neither needed to rush back because celebrating had been replaced with one of the greatest comforts known to woman: a long soak in the tub and a re-run of Pride and Prejudice.
If she dragged her armchair over to the bathroom door, piled up all her books and set up her laptop at the right angle, she could watch Darcy-Colin emerging from the lake, while she submerged her aching heart in the bath.
The next message turned out to be from her mother. With a curious detachment that belied the usual trepidation she felt when listening to messages her mother left, she got up and padded out to the kitchen to open the fridge. Her mother was on a cruise with – actually Emma didn’t want to think about what number boyfriend this was. She knew she quite liked this one though. For a start, he was age-appropriate. Fingers crossed he’d last the distance, or at least the length of the cruise, because no way could she deal with her mother having nothing else to focus on but her and how she Had Not Got The Part she might have bragged was in the bag.
Reaching into the fridge she grabbed the Moo Shu pork, a carton of noodles and the cheap champagne.
‘Hi,’ she said, turning around to greet several imaginary people, ‘so glad you could make it. Welcome to my pity party, help yourself to drink and canapés …’
Pretty convincing, she thought, as she opened a kitchen drawer to grab a pack of chopsticks. Who wouldn’t want mad-skillz like hers on the set of a rom-com?
She uncorked the bubbly, debated drinking straight from the bottle, and then put her voicemail onto speakerphone while she hunted up a glass.
‘Hi Emma, enquiring friend from across the pond is dying to know if you got the part? Can’t wait to post pics all over social media of when I knew you, back in the day.’
Emma shoved a mouthful of cold noodles into her mouth. ‘Back in the day’ had been three years ago when Kate Somersby had walked into Bar Brand to write a review of the place. It had been Emma’s first day on the job and she’d been busy acting her way through her shift, doing the whole fake-it-’til-she-made-it routine until she got familiar with everything. Emma had immediately recognised the actress in Kate. Not the showy, this-is-who-I-be kind of acting, but more the, this-is-how-I-get-through-the-days face that she showed the world.
She’d wondered what had happened to make Kate so eager to try on any other face that wasn’t her own. Plus, Kate’s British accent and it’s reminder of a home she hadn’t visited for years, had got her good. They’d become good friends, keeping each other up-to-date with their lives ever since.
Taking a gulp of fizzy wine straight from the bottle she listened to the second message from Kate:
‘Me again. Did I get the day wrong? Hope I haven’t jinxed anything. Oh, are you busy rehearsing a) a love scene b) a love scene or c) a love scene. Tick all that apply. And call me or text me or email me or send smoke signals or something because clearly our telepathic link is down.’
It was going to have to be a non-verbal communication, Emma decided, swapping phone for laptop so that she could compose better. If she had to actually use her voice, Kate was going to know right away just how devastated she was that she hadn’t got the part.
As she munched on more food she emailed:
To: Kate Somersby
From: WritingHerOscarAcceptanceSpeech
Subject: Won’t be giving up my day job after all.
I didn’t get the part
Emma xx
There, she thought, pleased with her honest, to-the-point and most importantly, no-sobbing-to-be-heard composition.
Minutes later she got a reply.
To: WritingHerOscarAcceptanceSpeech
From: Kate Somersby
Re: Won’t be giving up the day job after all.
Oh, EM, G! No coming to the UK to practise your British accent a la Renee Zelwegger??? Waaah—I’m so sorry, hun. I know how much you wanted that part. You would have been bloody brilliant. You ARE bloody brilliant.
Kate xx
Emma searched for the crying emoji and sent a whole line of them back and then immediately felt pitiful so followed it up with: Feeling sorry for myself will only last one millennia and then I’ll be all good.
Minutes later she got back:
You’ll be back to lighting up the sky-line with flames in no time, I know it! (((Hugs))) Kate xx
Tears pricked as Emma replied: Well, back to bartending at Bar Brand, at least. Rent’s due in a couple of weeks. No rest for the wicked-ly untalented. Emma xx
She was more than halfway through her food when she received her reply:
Hey, if they ever do a remake of Cocktail, Tom Cruise doesn’t stand a chance. Seriously, a better part will come along. You just have to believe (and work your arse off) but the part in brackets I know you already do, Kate xx
That produced a half-smile but then Emma flexed fingers eager to type something else. Picking up the laptop and the bottle of champagne, she headed back to her room to hop back onto the bed. After taking a thoughtful couple of gulps, she wrote: You sound like my agent, Penny. Emma’s hands paused on the keyboard and then she typed: Maybe it’s time I let the dream go! Emma, xx
She pressed ‘send’ and raised her gaze to the dressing table under the tiny window. Sitting prettily on top were various photo frames containing affirmations she’d printed out. Why didn’t looking at them spur her on the way they used to?
Over the last year, when her faith in her ability to land a good role had started slinking off to play hide and seek, Emma had seriously considered moving to New York or back to London to try the stage. She’d thought that perhaps the change of scene would herald a change of luck.
If it wasn’t for the sly fear she’d end up doing the same thing – going to audition after audition without actually getting a part – except if she moved she’d be doing it in the freezing-cold, maybe she’d even have got on that bus or plane.
She’d been in LA since age nine when her parents had divorced and her mother had taken Emma’s ‘One day I’m going to be a famous actress’ and run all the way to Hollywood with it. LA felt like home now but eighteen years was a long time to try and make it.
She’d had some successes when she was younger.
Trouble was as you got older, straddling that line between wanting more and getting desperate, was becoming increasingly harder to stay on the right side of.
At least bartending was simple, honest work. People came in to get a drink. She provided them with the drink.
Simples.
Adding a smile and lending an ear if they wanted to talk seemed like fair exchange and came easy.
The thought of finding herself in ten years time, with no good acting projects under her belt, no man in her life, no children … Her only true achievements a killer-flexible yoga body and a face that didn’t move, shook her.
If she didn’t get her big break soon she really did have to call time on this dream and go find another. One that didn’t eat away at her psyche until she ended up like her mum – hard-wired for what was over the next horizon – never enjoying what she had.
She glanced down as an email dropped into her inbox.
To:WritingHerAcceptanceSpeech
From: Kate Somersby
Subject: NOT LETTING DREAMS GO
Eat a gallon of ice-cream, down some cheap cocktails, watch a ton of tat TV in between pulling shifts at Bar Brand but then go to an Improv class, okay? Kate xx
Emma stared at the screen. Letting dreams go was something Kate actually knew about. So was not letting them go, which was why her friend had audaciously risked returning to her home village of Whispers Wood to set about making one come true. Now, not only was Kate’s dream coming true, she’d also fallen in love.
Emma reminded herself she was in love too.
With acting.
But as she reached for the bottle she wondered what would happen if she really did let the dream go?
It shocked her when she wasn’t brought to her knees by the thought.
Instead, it felt strangely as if someone was standing outside the front door to her heart and like The Walking Dead guy in Love Actually showing her large hand-written notices that said things like: ‘I’ll tell you what you want, what you really, really want …’ ‘You want Peace’, ‘Serenity’, ‘And … zigazig ha’.
With a deep breath she hit ‘reply’ and typed: Confession: I think I’ve been awful tired of this acting-gig for an awful long time now…
There!
She’d said it.
Out loud.
Well, not out loud, but you know what she means.
She waited for a reply.
Waited some more.
Maybe she shouldn’t have put that out there into the universe.
Because honestly? If she gave up acting, who was she?