OCD
THE MAC ACTOR TRAILER
Monday, October 19th
8:34 A.M.
When the bell rang, signaling the end of first period, Massie sprint-walked toward the actor trailer. She’d spent most of French class seething over the fact that her girls had botched their very first scene. What was she paying for if they couldn’t get it right on the first take? Throwing open the trailer door, Massie ducked inside and slammed the door behind her.
The MAC girls were hunched over their desks as their tutor, a frumpily dressed woman wearing bifocals and a stretched-out cardigan, stood in front of them. Layne was slouched in her director’s chair, doing the OCD crossword.
Massie clapped her hands loudly, and everyone’s heads snapped up. “Girls! What happened out there?”
The tutor narrowed her eyes at Massie. “I’m going to have to ask you to allow the girls to finish their homewo—”
“Mia,” Massie said, cutting the t-ew-ter off. “Have you been swallowing chicken bones?”
“No?” Mia squeaked.
The other girls stared down at the open textbooks in front of them.
“Then why did you choke?” Massie screeched.
Lilah snorted. Jasmin and Kaitlyn leaned even closer to their books, their noses almost touching the pages.
“You asked what the gossip was,” Mia said defiantly, her voice gravelly and bored. “I didn’t have lines for that, so I didn’t say anything.”
“I told you to prepare for a gossip question.” Layne smacked her palm against her forehead.
Jasmin stood. “In Mia’s defense, we never got a script and we’re not trained in improv, so—”
“Plug it, Tampax,” Massie barked, pacing the width of the trailer.
Layne yanked off her baseball cap and ran her hands through her frizzy brown hair. “Massie, if we expect the crew to know their lines, we need to write them.” She noted something down on her clipboard that looked like a squiggle, then pierced it with a sharp dot. “I have a close friend I like to call Shakespeare”—Layne’s accent turned vaguely British—“and she can help me—”
“No friends!” Massie snapped.
“Fine.” Layne shrugged. “I’ll do it myself. We’ll do a table read after school.”
Massie hesitated. On one hand, she didn’t need Layne thinking she was running the show. On the other hand, she didn’t actually want to write a script. And when in doubt, delegate.
“Fine,” she told Layne, just as the bell rang, signaling the start of second period. “But I have final approval.”
Glaring at Mia, she stomped toward the trailer door. She gripped its cool metal handle hoping for a dramatic exit, but it slipped from her sweaty palm. After a quick wipe on her sweater dresss, she tried again. “It better be e-mailed to me by lunch, or you’re all fired.” She pulled the door open, praying to Gawd it wouldn’t come to that. Because when you couldn’t even buy good friends, what hope was there?