Page 19 of Lights, Camera, Love

I down two more drinks in a futile attempt to settle my thoughts, then shower and climb into the squeaky double bed. For what feels like hours, I gaze up at the cobwebs coiled around the cabin’s high wooden rafters, unable to find sleep.

CHAPTER 6

Evie

I give the tight band of lycra stretched over my chest an upward tug, to cover more of my cleavage, and the bottom curves of my breasts pop out.Oh, joy—cleavage or underboob: both such wonderful options!I yank the bra top back down.

The midday sun’s harsh rays are bouncing off the corrugated-iron shed and onto my mostly bare skin, so I step beneath the cover of the nearby monitor tent. Buzz just made a last-minute change to this scene’s camera angle—which seems unusual to me, given the scene had been so carefully planned out—and the riggers and grips are madly resetting the equipment. At least this buys me a few minutes in the shade.

As I stand there, savouring the reprieve, Billie Eilish’s voice starts blasting from my bag, which is slung over the back of one of the canvas chairs.Oops, I forgotto put my phone on silent—lucky we weren’t filming.I hurriedly dig it out and answer Rafael’s call.

‘Hey, babe! I’m on set, so I don’t have long to chat. How are you?’

He lets out a sigh. ‘Heartbroken.’

‘Oh no, what happened? Is this the radiographer?’

‘Wasthe radiographer.’ His glum voice reverberates with an echo, telling me he’s inside his dance studio. ‘Andros was his name. Like a fucking Greek god. I thought we had something going, but he just posted a loved-up pic on his Insta with someone who’s way hotter than me.’

I watch as Buzz moves the camera lens, pointing it directly at Austin’s shadow on the dusty earth, weirdly, rather than at the actor’s face.

‘Oh, babe, I’m so sorry to hear it,’ I tell Rafael. ‘But no one’s hotter than you. And you need to getoffhis Instagram.’ My heart tugs. Rafa has so much love to give and wants nothing more than to share it with the right person. The problem is that he tends to plan the guest list for his wedding after a half-decent first date. Not that I’m any better.

‘He clearly wasn’t the right person for you,’ I continue, ‘so the sooner you clear him out of your mind, the better. Then you can meet your dream man.’

I glance back at the set. Austin whips off his cowboy hat and Buzz clasps his hands to his own head, assessing the changes to the actor’s shadow. The runner, Finn, strides right across the shadow the director isconsidering, balancing a tray of coffees in paper cups. Buzz madly gesticulates for him to get out of the way, and Finn spins and trips, spilling the coffees all over the ground and obscuring the shadow. I wince as Buzz bellows at the poor kid.

‘Speaking of dream men, how’s the sexy co-star?’ Rafael asks me. ‘Have you kissed him yet?’

Austin has wisely stepped away from the drama unfolding on set, and I give him a once-over, taking in his fitted jeans. Strangely, I feel nothing—not the butterflies I’d expected to have when I was on set with him, and definitely not the hot rush of longing that used to choke me whenever I’d gaze at his poster on my wall.

‘No kissing as of yet,’ I say to Rafael. ‘That happens in one of the interior scenes, which we start filming next week. And thank god, there’s no sex scene—the studio wants this movie rated PG.’

It strikes me as odd that I’m relieved I don’t have to film any intimate scenes with Austin. What’s wrong with me? Am I broken? I’ve been so focused on wishing he would develop a crush onmethat I haven’t even considered the previously unimaginable possibility that I might not feel the same way about him.

I ask how my dance classes have been going in my absence, and Rafael confesses that Sebastian, who’s been filling in for me, has begun wearing steel-capped boots after copping one too many toe-annihilations from Avalanche. A laugh bursts out of me, and an ache to be back at DanceLab presses against my chest.

‘I’ll be so happy to have you back next week,’ Rafael says. ‘I also need to chat with you about this year’s student showcase. I want to hold it at a bar and turn it into a big charity event, with the media and everything.’

‘Ooh, that sounds fun.’

‘Well, you’ve got a profile now, my leading lady, and what’s the point of having a profile if you don’t put it to good use?’

I chuckle and tell Rafa I miss him before Cassie waves me over so we can start blocking out the scene.

Time to go and act opposite a shadow.

The rest of the filming week unearths even more baffling creative choices from Buzz. First up is the orchard scene, in which Constance encourages Jamie to connect with his mute daughter through dance. For no apparent reason, Buzz directs Austin and me to circle each other as we deliver our lines. When Austin asks Buzz why he’s giving us both vertigo, Buzz simply says, ‘All traditional bonding rituals stem from a circle of emotional protection,’ as if that makes perfect sense and Austin was silly to have asked.

Another formerly simple shot—one of Constance, Jamie and his daughter, Angel, strolling across the farm—is inexplicably filmed in slow motion. At the critical moment when Angel finally speaks for the first time, Buzz directs the camera to focus tightly on the girl’seyes, so it’s not even clear whether it’s her speaking or just her internal thoughts. Even though I’m one of the least experienced people on set, I feel pretty certain that Buzz is trying too hard to be an ‘interesting’ director and is forgetting that he’s making a commercial dance movie.

Filming at the farm finally wraps up, and Kiara, the location manager, arranges a bonfire celebration for the night before we’re all due to head back to the city. After a short nap, I arrive late to find cast and crew members standing and sitting around the fire, its flames flickering towards the sky, bright clusters of stars bursting across the black canopy like spilled glitter. I drag my aching feet over to the ice bucket and fish out a dripping bottle of beer. This afternoon, I filmed a pivotal scene in which Jamie catches Constance dancing up a storm along the ridge of the farm. Every time I finished the routine—a mash-up of hip-hop, jazz and funk that I choreographed myself—Buzz would frown at the monitor for a good thirty seconds and then mumble, ‘Let’s do one more.’ I ended up performing the four-minute routinethirty-seventimes. After Buzz finally called it a day when we lost the light, I overheard him ordering the script supervisor to mark down the first take as the best one.

That’s right—we got it the first time. Brutal.

I wipe my hands down my lavender pants and slump onto an empty log. A couple of metres away, Austin and Kye sit on another log with their legs outstretchedtowards the fire. Austin is murmuring into Kye’s ear, and Kye is listening with his full lips pushed out into a contemplative pout. Austin looks scruffy and unshowered in tattered jeans and a worn-out flannel, whereas Kye is fresh and put-together in black jogger jeans, a loose pale-grey tee and a mustard shirt rolled up at the sleeves.

When I realise I’m staring, I shift my gaze to the fold-out snack table, where Jakob, the screenwriter, is chattering to Brie from the lighting department, his sausage fingers flapping wildly in her face. On a log nearby sits Louis, the boom operator, who talks so endlessly about himself that I’ve been encouraged to avoid him. His victim tonight is Kiara, the location manager, who I’ve gotten along well with this past couple of weeks. Even from here, I can hear Louis droning on in her ear about the firewood he once collected as a kid and the different-sized sticks he amassed. Kiara’s eyes are glazing over.

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