Page 20 of Best Served Hot
She wondered if it was because the person she’d loved had never been completely real. Maybe a bit here and there, but it was all stuck together with hidden, shitty parts, and the whole Frankenstein’s monster was glued together with lies. If the lie was dead, so was her love. And hadn’t that been fading anyway?
How long had she been unhappy? Hard to say. She hadn’t been paying attention. But she was now. Ethan was truly in her crosshairs.
Whowashe, exactly? It was a question that didn’t matter as much as it had a week ago. But she did know a few things about him. Or rather, she was starting to understand what mattered to him. His reputation, his career, his money, his ego. That was the heart of him. And she was gonna rip it out and jump on it.
Fourteen
Alex walked back onto the set ofFoundations(a week after her devil’s pact with Nicole) with extreme trepidation. She’d been sacked from this show, and people would have talked about it. She wondered what they knew.
The first person she saw was a runner called Lena. She watched Alex walk onto the set with a look of unpleasant shock. Lena was a self-important type, always trying to squeeze every last drop of power out of her lowly position as a runner, strutting around the hospital set, yelling as though she worked in an actual hospital with real emergencies.
Alex hated the type. They weren’t solving world hunger atFoundations, nor were they working to come up with a solution to climate change. They told stories. And here? They told the kind of stories that weren’t worth telling.
Alex liked making TV, but she was under no illusion about the kind of show this was. She didn’t think the same could be said of Lena. There had been a mutual antagonism between her and Alex from day one.
‘Hi,’ Lena greeted her, not bothered enough to mask her angry confusion. ‘What are you doing here? I thought you got…’ She let it hang in the air.
Alex looked at her and waited. She was not one to play chicken with.
Eventually, Lena said, ‘I thought you left.’
‘Yep. And now I’m back. I’m assisting the director for this ep.’
Lena squinted at her. ‘You.ADing?’
‘Yes, if that’s alright with you,’ Alex shot back.
‘Kinda weird that you ended up backhere? And ADing. Why would anyone book you for that gig?’ Lena asked her.
Alex didn’t enjoy explaining herself to Lena. She was not the point here. However, Alex did have to make the lie fly on set. ‘She was looking for an assistant director, and I know the show. Plus, I’ve got some experience in that area,’ Alex said vaguely.
‘Oh, yeah. I think I heard about that,’ Lena smirked.
Christ, was there anything this arsehole didn’t know? Was she gonna whip out pictures of Alex in her ill-advised teenage emo stage next?
‘I better head in,’ Alex said. ‘I’ve got a read-through to go to,’ she said pointedly.
Runners didn’t go to those. It was department heads and assistants only, in addition to the actors.
Alex didn’t give a shit about hierarchies. But Lena did, and she was begging to be put back in her box. ‘Let me know if you’re doing a coffee run. I’d love an iced latte.’
Lena affected the look of someone who had plenty more to say, but simply hadn’t the time. ‘Whatever.’ She scuttled off.
Alex hadn’t particularly enjoyed getting the better of her. Which made her wonder if this whole thing was a mistake. She was here for payback. If she couldn’t enjoy besting Lena, who was asking for it every minute of her life, how was it gonna be any better with Ethan? Could she even handle this?
It didn’t much matter because she’d agreed to it. And when she said she’d do something, she did the damn thing. More than that, she’d made a choice.
And it began with not actually attending this read-through. But rather, standing outside of it. Ethan was being thrown a very stressful party right now, and she was the surprise guest.
Fifteen
In the large room, filled with a round table full of assorted actors and crew, Ethan sat quietly and twitchily.
Nicole knew he would be. She also knew that if she sat there with an air of disinterest, then eventually, he’d start to relax. If Nicole seemed distant and indifferent to the read-through, just your bog-standard dead-inside pay-cheque director, he might hope she wouldn’t really get involved with the cast and crew beyond the work. No chats, no socialising, no conversations that might go a bad way for him. Nicole wanted to watch that happen. Go ahead, Ethan. Let your blood pressure lower. It’s all gonna be fine.
The actors sat down. Nicole had seen the show patchily and recognised the players. They’d come here fresh out of drama school and risen to the C-list underFoundationsauspices. Nicole knew the game well enough to know what came next for them.
One or two would make it big. Some of them would end up staying at the show as long as it ran, which was on season nine and counting. Most of them would float out to different C-list work and continue in that vein for the rest of their careers. And some of them would quit acting altogether.
