“Rise and shine, O’Hara,” she said, giving Scarlett a good shake. “You picked the wrong morning to sleep in. It’s almost ten.”
Scarlett groaned and mumbled her way through an explanation, shoving the computer in Mrs. Amberson’s direction so that she could read the new material.
“This is excellent, O’Hara,” she gushed. “You’ve added so much! I knew you were a talent. Now…”
She pushed a fold of bills and a piece of paper into Scarlett’s hand.
“…get dressed. Go and print up a few copies of this. Then take a cab and meet me at this address. Bring the computer with you. I need this all to happen fast. Within the hour. I’ll explain the details when you get there.”
An hour later, Scarlett’s cab stopped in front of a massive building off Astor Place. There was a small lobby with no guard. The walls were covered in handwritten signs saying which auditions were in which rooms. She found Mrs. Amberson by herself in a tiny studio on the sixth floor, sitting at a table covered in black-and-white headshots of actresses, all around Donna’s age. Each one had a resume on the back.
“Where did all of these come from?” Scarlett asked.
“Call a few agents, tell them you’re casting, they’ll messenger over all the headshots you need before you can even put down the phone. Now, our mission today is to keep Donna here until the other audition ends. I have a spy over there who’ll tell us when they close up shop.”
“Right,” Scarlett said, feeling queasy.
“Oh, there’s one thing, O’Hara. It’s best that Spencer and Eric don’t know the exact reason they’re doing this. It might confuse their performance. I told Spencer I’m helping a producer work out an idea for a new reality program about a fake TV show.”
“So, they don’t know this is a setup?”
“They know it’s a setup,” she clarified, “they just don’t know all of the details. Imagine trying to improvise for three hours knowing this was all arranged for this one person. Trust me…this is better. And they’ll be paid a hundred dollars each for their time.”
Before Scarlett could reply, there was a knock at the door.
“I think our cast is here,” Mrs. Amberson said. “Let me do the talking.”
The door opened to reveal Eric, dressed in a fine light blue dress shirt and black pants. He was actually, genuinely breathtaking.
“Spencer is right behind me,” he said, smiling at Scarlett. “He’s locking his bike up.”
Spencer was completely out of breath when he appeared a moment later.
“Sorry,” he said. “So much traffic. I just got off my shift.”
“You’re fine. And you smell like breakfast. How nice.”
Mrs. Amberson went over the setup one more time, possibly for her benefit. Donna had been told that The Heart of the Empire had started production when the lead actress was hospitalized. It needed to be recast immediately, and the chosen actress would start work that week. Eric was playing the casting director. Spencer was the general assistant and would be reading the role of young police detective, Hank Stewart. Mrs. Amberson had acquired a video camera, which would be connected to Scarlett’s computer—the story being that everything that was filmed was being shown live to a room full of studio executives in LA. In reality, the camera didn’t have a battery and the cord didn’t even fit into any of the computer ports.
“The goal,” Mrs. Amberson told Spencer and Eric, “is to keep her going as long as possible. We really want to give people an idea of how much actors have to go through to get a part. And you, Scarlett…”
Scarlett looked up from her efforts to disguise the unconnected video cable with a pile of papers. “…step out into the hall with me for a moment while Spencer and Eric prepare.”
Scarlett followed Mrs. Amberson down the hall, where she scuttled out of the low skylight and onto a concrete ledge outside. Scarlett stayed inside, leaning on the sill while Mrs. Amberson pulled out her cigarette case and lit up.
“I have a surprise for you, O’Hara,” she said. “Guess what you’ll be doing while all of this is going on?”
“Going with you?” Scarlett asked.
“And miss the fun? Oh, no. You’re going to be reading the part of our young victim.”
Scarlett was too stunned to speak. Her refusal came in the form of wide eyes and a backward stagger.
“Half the actresses on these kinds of shows are so wooden that you could build a table out of them,” Mrs. Amberson said. “Donna won’t know the difference. Just read the lines and don’t fall over. That’s all there is to it.”
“That’s not all there is!” Scarlett said. “They’re pretending to be casting people! They’re improvising!”
“So?”
“So…I’m not an actress!”
“Who cares? All improvising means is making things up, which you can do. I’ve seen the way you and your brother bounce things off each other. You’re a natural. Spencer will help you.”
“He can’t teach me how to act in the next fifteen minutes.”