Page 8 of Marisol Acts the Part
“Like daytime?” Delia asks in pure terror. “Please don’t tell me you want to do daytime.”
Absolutely not.No onelooks good in daytime lighting. “I was thinking something with more…prestige.”
Delia hums in thought. “Did you have something in mind?”
I bite my lip, pushing away my doubts and hesitations before I can let them stop me. “What aboutThe Limit?”
“Yes!” Blake exclaims at the same time that Delia lets out a tentative “Well…” Lily and Posie each let out a quiet gasp, immediately covering their mouths.
The room goes totally silent.
Delia then picks up the torch.
“Theyarelooking to fill a few more roles that you might be good for. No promises, but I can try to get you a self-tape at least. Or maybe even in the room if I can pull the right strings.”
“Absolutely not!” Mom interjects, suddenly appearing in the doorway to her office again, staring directly at me as shespeaks. “You can’t go out for the same show that Miles will beon.”
“Why not?” I reply indignantly, ignoring the echo of her words through the phone a few seconds after I watch her say them. Why should the guy who dumped me get to dictate what I can and can’t audition for?
“Because…” Mom trails off, sighing and pinching the bridge of her nose. The line stays quiet except for a muffled cough from Blake. Lily’s and Posie’s heads go back and forth between me and Mom like they’re watching an intense tennis match as she walks toward us.
Mom mutes her phone before setting it aside on the coffee table, then leaning down to kneel next to us on the couch. “Don’t put yourself through this, Mari,” she whispers, resting her hand on my knee.
The softness of her touch threatens to break me. I could end the call now. Tell Delia I’ll call her back and cuddle up with my mom and best friends and cry like I want to. But for a flash of a second, I felt something close to hope, toexcitement.And I don’t want to let that go. Not yet.
“Legally, it’s not a problem,” Joanna interrupts, startling both Mom and me out of our staring contest. “Unless you think he has any reason to file a restraining order against you.”
I tear my gaze away from Mom’s, shifting my attention back to my phone. “I think I’ll be fine.” Miles may be an ass, but he doesn’t run Hollywood. I’m just as entitled to a part onThe Limitas he is.
“Are you sure this is something you want to do?” Delia asks warily. “There’s this great Netflix rom-com that you’d be perfect for. Or a comedy about—”
“I’m sure,” I say before she can finish. “Time for something different, right?”
“Right…” Delia’s tone remains hesitant, and the silence that follows her reply isn’t promising, but she at least feigns enthusiasm when she promises to send me updates and details once she has them.
When the call ends with the promise of more to come soon, Mom gives me a disapproving eye. Even Bruiser seems intrigued when I sit up straighter than I have in the last twenty-four hours and pull my hair out of its wreck of a bun for a more presentable, slicked-back ponytail instead. I smile as I turn off the TV, dust the crumbs off my hoodie, and gesture for Lily and Posie to follow me up to my room.
“Let’s start laying out some potential audition outfits.”
They exchange a confused look, their frowns loosening and turning into smiles as they lunge off the couch. As we head upstairs, we’re already brainstorming what top would look best with my hot pink pleated skirt, Bruiser in tow. Mom sighs and goes to clean up our abandoned ice cream.
Who says I can’t take myself more seriously too?
Chapter 3
Not for the first time, I curse my weakness for caffeine.
“Fill this out, please,” a harried casting assistant says as he hands me a clipboard that I almost drop thanks to my shaking hands.
If I actually had the ability to drive past a Starbucks drive-through without getting myself a little treat, I wouldn’t be sitting here, panic through the roof with a desperate need to pee at what is possibly the most important audition of my career. It’s bad enough that I had to drive two hours out of the city to this sketchy warehouse because Rune insists on keeping things under wraps. I’d made the foolish decision to wait until I got to the audition to use the bathroom only to find out they don’t have one. What kind of monster holds auditions in a bathroom-less abandoned pencil factory?
I didnotcut the tags off this Dior skirt to risk peeing myself the first time I wear it.
To get my mind off thoughts of completely bombing this audition and getting permanently blacklisted from Hollywood, I quickly scan the list of questions on the clipboard.
Approximately how long are you able to go without food?
