Page 15 of He's The Reason Why

She thought she heard Blake mutter “Thank God” under his breath as he walked away, but maybe she’d imagined it.

Piper studied the rest of the scene. She and Blake had a short duet coming up, but she didn’t think they were going to actually perform it since they hadn’t rehearsed together yet. Then there were the chase scenes, which heavily featured her and her leading man, as did the rest of the story.

The day had started out frustrating and had morphed into complete and utter torture. Everything she tried was wrong, and they were barely into the third scene.

Maybe she shouldn’t read at all. She knew the lines. She’d been practicing them for months, and from the looks of things, they hadn’t changed since she was first given the script.

Blake never even glanced at the script. He just said the words.

No reason she couldn’t do that.

“Is everything okay, Piper?” Gina Paige leaned against the table next to her. “You seem tense.”

“She has opening-day jitters,” Jeremy said. “I’ve seen this time and again.”

“It’s an animated movie. There’s no opening day to be jittery about,” Gina said. “Right, Piper?”

Piper grabbed her bottle of water and stood up. “I’m fine. I just wasn’t expecting all this. I thought read-through meant, well, actually reading. But you’re all so good, we should be in the studio.”

“Oh, you’re not wrong,” Gina said. “Most table reads are a lot more subdued. In fact, the read-through for my last project took place at a bar over mussels and a pitcher of beer. Come to think of it, I’m not sure we actually finished the read.”

Jeremy nodded his agreement. “Animated features tend to be a lot more involved early on because of the back-end work. Did you notice the department heads taking notes as we went along?”

Piper glanced at the gaggle of people heading out the door. She’d met the department heads and some of the animators because she liked to stop by from time to time and see how theartwork was coming along. She was fascinated with the entire process, but so far, she hadn’t been able to see much of her main character. “They said they’d be in the studio so they could base character movements on what we did in there. I didn’t realize they were going to watch here too.”

“There’s always eyes watching here,” Gina said in an exaggeratedly ominous voice. “They record these sessions so the animators can use them later. That’s why everybody’s on their best behavior.”

She pointed to the far wall, where a camera hung from one of the tracks in the ceiling.

“Oh.” Piper stared at the traitorous device and realized that her entire morning’s worth of cringe-worthy acting had been captured for posterity and playback. It might even show up as bonus material after the movie release so that people worldwide could witness her humiliation.

A flush crept up her cheeks and burned her ears.

She wanted to hide her face or maybe take up smoking so she could go outside, away from the camera and the judgmental glances, but that wasn’t going to fix what had already happened.

Instead, she offered a half-hearted wave to the camera and mouthed, “I’m sorry.”

Jeremy and Gina exchanged a look.

“There’s no need to be so dramatic,” Jeremy said in a soothing tone that made her feel worse. “We’ve all given bad performances.”

“At least yours probably won’t make the final cut,” Gina said. “Since this is animated, there’s a good chance no one will actually see it.”

Piper winced. “I overdid it, didn’t I.”

“I wouldn’t say that exactly,” Jeremy said.

Gina stared at her with frank directness. “You overdid it, thenyou underdid it, then you did a sort of sideways twist I’ve never seen before. It was impressively awful.”

“Gina,” Jeremy admonished.

“What? It’s the truth. If we don’t tell her now, she might do it again.” Gina softened her tone. “What happened to you this morning? I know you’re better than this. Our song rehearsals have all been spectacular.”

“My sister showed up and was her usual self,” Piper said. She was more frustrated with her own reaction than with anything Della had actually done. “She’s good at pushing buttons.”

“Ah, family,” Jeremy said with an understanding nod. “Can’t live with them, and it’s illegal to have them kidnapped, although I do know a guy.”

Piper couldn’t tell if he was serious or just kidding around. One thing she’d noticed about actors, it was next to impossible to tell if they were being themselves or if they were playing the part they thought you wanted to see.

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