Back in the dressing room I’m hooked and buttoned into my final costume, Eliza pre-makeover, poor, down-at-the-heel flower girl. I wish more than anything I had a moment to myself, because as much as I hate myself for falling for Ben Cohan’s words, I now have an intense need to look Emily up. Could there be more to the story than I’m aware of? It seems ludicrous that I haven’t looked her up already but what with one thing and another, it honestly hadn’t crossed my mind until he suggested it. And now I can’t think straight.
Hair and makeup dirty me up and then I’m led straight to set to shoot the final scene of the day. Standing in first positions waiting for action, I push away my desire to pull out my phone and google. I try to block out the sea of unfamiliar faces looming in the half-light beyond the camera and the studio lights; I try to block out my thoughts of Ben Cohan and Emily Bryant. I squeeze my eyes shut, clench the handles of my flower basket until my fingerless-gloved hands ache, and force myself back to Edwardian England, Covent Garden, pre-war, pre-iPhones, pre-all-of-this.
I hear action and just like that LA slips away, my own life slips away, and I am the person I am supposed to be.
* * *
—
On wrap the studio bell gives a final peal and a smattering of applause comes from around the set. I momentarily bask in the afterglow of a job well done.
The director pulls me into a tight hug. She grins and whispers, “Out. Of. The. Park.”
And in spite of everything, I smile.
Back in the dressing room, I de-rig from costume as quickly as I can and slip back into my normal clothes.
Kathryn pokes her head around the door. “Are you decent?”
“I am,” I say with a chuckle, and Kathryn makes her way into the room as flustered wardrobe assistants slip out past her.
She plonks down on a chair with a satisfied sigh. “Well, young lady, that was fantastic. I don’t know if you noticed but we had some set visitors in that last scene. I hope you don’t mind but I invited a bunch of suits over to the lot to check you guys out. They loved you both together. Great chemistry.”
I stop mid-face-wipe. “Yeah? You think?” I ask. I hear the hope in my own voice and flush slightly at the sound of it.
She holds my gaze and nods meaningfully. “Yeah, I do. Of course, we’ll have to wait for the rushes and get a general consensus, but it’s looking good. Unless something completely untoward happens on Wednesday then I think we might be in business, kid.”
“Wednesday, is that when the screen-test viewing is scheduled?”
“It is, why? You’re not planning on jetting off before then, are you?” she jokes.
I turn back to the mirror and continue to gently remove my makeup. “No, no way. If you need me, then I’m here,” I say, and I realize the truth: if I want to stand a chance of landing this part then that’s what I will have to do.
In the safety of my Uber home I pull out my phone. I let Cynthia know I can’t leave until Wednesday now and then I finally pull up Google. I can’t find a photo of Emily online but I unearth a link to a short film on Vimeo. I pull my headphones from my bag, slip them over my ears, and press play. The sleeping face of a woman, though it’s not Emily. It’s funny, I assumed Emily would be the main character in this, but I guess there’s no reason she should be. The pillows and bedsheets around her are crumpled and the camera pans up to the apartment window. Outside, we see New York. The low rumble of a passing train and the girl’s eyes open. The scene flits to the woman rushing quickly through a chilly fall Central Park on her way to work. I don’t know the lead actress’s name but there’s something vaguely familiar about her. I watch on as her day unfolds, as she witnesses an incident in the park, and as it colors her day until, in the final scene, we realize the incident actually happened to her. It’s a good short but Emily’s not in it. I scroll back through the credits and there’s her name. She must have had a tiny role; I must have missed her. But the credits don’t mention any other names. Only Emily Bryant as Anna.
Who the hell was Anna? I don’t even know what the lead character’s name was supposed to be let alone the background actors.
Then slowly comprehension hits and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I press replay on the film. The face of the beautiful woman sleeping fills the screen, brunette, late twenties, peaceful. The lead character is called Anna. Anna is played by an actress called Emily Bryant. The girl I am looking at on the screen is Emily Bryant. Oh my God.
I look away staring unseeingly at the highway blurring past the window. The realization burns bright and urgent and terrifying in my mind. I’ve never actually met Emily Bryant, have I?
I look back at her face on my phone. Then I open another tab and search for more photos, or videos, or anything. At first it’s impossible to track down anything, and then I find a pasta commercial on YouTube. The description mentions her name, the date posted was May last year. It’s more recent than the short film. I click the video and watch: a woman dances elegantly around her kitchen with a wooden spoon as she prepares dinner for her bemused family. It’s the same girl, her hair longer, perhaps a shade darker. I pause the video, her face filling the screen as she sits at the table proudly smiling. And then it hits me.
Sweet Jesus. I know who she is. I know where I’ve seen this face before. I have seen Emily Bryant before. I’ve seen her in the photo I took from her apartment, the photo on her nightstand; the photo of the two women hiking high in the hills above Hollywood. I was right about one thing: Emily was in that photograph; she was just the one on the left instead of the one on the right.
Which means I never met Emily—it was Marla I met five days ago at that audition.
Ben’s words come back to me: Emily’s not what you think she is. You have no idea what you’re getting into here.
I shudder at the thought of what that could imply, for Emily Bryant and for me.
30
Who Are You?
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15
All I have to go on is a first name and a face.
Back in the apartment, two hundred results come up for “Marla” when I search for her on IMDb. But I have time. I sift through the list, removing names that are variants on Marla. I ignore crew, non-actors, and those with credits pre-1990. There’s a chance she could be older than me but she can’t be more than thirty-five at the max.
I narrow down the list to twenty-one possibilities. I flick through their pages studying their photographs, but do not find her. Thirteen of the twenty-one do not have photographs on their pages. I’m sure she was careful to remove any photographic evidence, especially on such a mainstream public site as this.
One by one I search Google for each of the remaining names. Some names come up immediately, actresses who have worked enough to leave a trail of publicity or production stills in their wake. I study face after face. Some older, some younger, some blond, some of different ethnicities, some successful, some not. The volume of careers, or lack of them, when seen in quick succession takes its toll on my psyche. The flickering question of why I am here, so far from home, so far from the people who love me, quivers inside me but I push on.
After an hour I have three names left on my list. Marla Sinclair, Marla Kaplan, Marla Butler.
Sinclair only has two credits: Woman in Crowd, in a 2011 Christmas rom-com I’ve never heard of, and Communion Girl, in a 2001 slasher movie. Both parts are essentially extra roles so I’m guessing this isn’t Marla.
Marla Kaplan’s credits look more promising. Nine television credits in total, with depressingly two-dimensional character names like: Hot Friend, Vampire Girl, Mila’s au pair, Nude woman, and Girl.