—
Upstairs, I dump my stuffand head straight for the fridge. I’m in the mood for something fancy. I definitely deserve it after the day I’ve had. But as I pull my chilled bottle of gifted Perrier-Jouët from the fridge door compartment, it suddenly occurs to me that my bag was left unattended today. Did I lose my key or could someone have taken it? I pause with the fridge door still ajar as I scan the apartment, the chill from the dewy bottle in my hand making me shiver. The empty apartment stares back at me, silently, exactly as I left it this morning. Nothing out of place. Besides, no one could have gotten past the reception downstairs without being noticed. I shake off the eerie feeling that someone else has been in the apartment. No one stole my apartment card; it probably just fell out of my bag when I was rushing around today. Why steal a blank white card and leave a wallet and phone? I grab some grapes from the fridge compartment to go with my drink.
I pop the champagne cork and let a puff of effervescent sparkle loose before carefully filling a single flute. A memory of New Year with George flashes through my mind but then I suddenly realize I haven’t thought about him since that first audition today. Not once since then. All thoughts of the article Cynthia sent me this morning watered down to nothing. Well, almost nothing.
If anything is worth celebrating then it’s that. Outside the light is fading and I toast the twinkling city lights beyond the glass of the apartment, taking a cool sip of fizz as I wander to the bathroom to run a hot bath. I bequeath myself: self-care.
Salts in, steam rising, I hear the familiar ping of a text message from my bag in the living room and suddenly Emily and everything that happened earlier today comes back to me.
Oh shit, her stuff.
I look at my already nearly drained champagne glass. If it is her, I can’t drive anywhere to meet her tonight. I feel a strange thrill of excitement. I cannot wait to hear her excuse for disappearing—the reason an adult woman would leave all her money and her only method of transportation with a complete stranger for a whole day. I mean where the hell did she go? That thought, and the fact that I’m suddenly dying to talk to someone about this beyond-weird day, propels me back into the living room. I think, after this, Emily and I could become pretty good friends. I mean, in script terms, it’s a pretty great best-friend meet-cute.
I skip into the living room, towel tight around me, pour myself another quick glass, and tip the contents of my audition bag out onto the sofa.
High-heeled boots, makeup pouch, white blouse, my wallet, Emily’s wallet, Emily’s Avis car keys, my water bottle, folded-up audition pages, and my phone. The lit-up screen showing a text from a number I don’t recognize.
“Oooo!” I plop down next to the pile of stuff and read.
Weds Feb 10, 6:36pm
Hi Mia, this is Delilah from reception at Casting Ground Zero. Thought I should let you know: nobody collected your note today. We’re closing up now but I’m in tomorrow so will pass on your cell number if she shows up then. Del x
I stare at the text, unblinkingly.
What? Emily didn’t show up. My eyes find her wallet beside me. Her car keys with their Avis key fob containing its hastily penned number plate info. What the hell happened to her? With no money and no car.
I shiver and reflexively take a sip of my drink, the sound of the bath thundering on in the other room. What should I do? Should I call Michael and tell him what happened today? But I don’t want him to make trouble for her with her agent. I’m pretty sure if something bad happened to her someone else at the studio would have noticed.
I have a habit of assuming something terrible has happened to someone when in actual fact they’re just ghosting me. George was absolutely fine, just moving house and having a drink in the pub without any intention of ever speaking to me again.
So perhaps Emily is fine, too. Maybe she has another bank card in a coin purse, or Apple Pay, who knows. Perhaps she’ll get in touch tomorrow. I should probably wait until the morning and reassess.
I head back to the bathroom to turn off the water, warm steam hanging in the air. Maybe something just came up, an emergency, perhaps she got a call and didn’t make it into her audition. I know if anything happened to my family, I’d be off instantly, leaving everything behind me. But the thought niggles slightly because how would she have gotten anywhere in an emergency without her car and her money? I suppose someone could have picked her up, or she could have ordered an Uber on her phone…Whatever it is, it won’t be a mystery for too long. If she doesn’t contact me by tomorrow then I’ll pass her things on to her agent through my agent. None of it is really my business. If she’d thought about me today half as much as I’ve thought about her, I’m pretty confident we wouldn’t be in this situation.
And with that thought I tap on some music, slip out of my audition clothes, and sink into the hot bubbles of the bath.
Half an hour later my self-care session has moved to the bedroom. Thick toweling robe on, dark chocolate selection box on my chest, and oldSex and the Cityreruns playing on the TV. The idea of ordering in some kind of udon is playing at the back of my mind when one of Carrie’s ill-advised shoe shopping excursions is unceremoniously interrupted by the loud electrical buzz of my apartment door bell. I bolt up reflexively, scattering chocolates across the bedding.
Someone’s at the door.
The clock under the TV reads 7:12. It’s not so much the hour that bothers me—it’s the fact that I literally know no one in LA except Souki and she doesn’t know where I’m staying.
I grab my phone, slip it into my robe pocket, and pull the robe tight around me. The buzzer fizzes loudly again as I pad out to the apartment hall. The security monitor next to the front door is illuminated and there is a woman standing in the hallway outside my door, holding something in her hands. Closer to the screen I take in her features. Dark-brown hair pulled back from her face, a white blouse—and for a second I’m certain it’s Emily.
But then there’s no way she could know where I live. She doesn’t even know my full name, let alone my address in LA. I squint at the monitor, the figure’s features slowly making sense. It’s the building’s front-desk concierge. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding and swing open the door.
She greets me with a warm smile. Her name badge is partly obscured by the large package she is cradling, and despite having seen her every evening since I arrived, I realize I can’t for the life of me remember her name.
“Hi, Mia,” she says. “Sorry to bother. This just came for you. Someone dropped it at reception—it wasn’t Michelle but it seemed pretty urgent so I thought I’d bring it straight up.”
“Okay,” I reply, baffled. I assume someone called Michelle must have delivered my welcome gifts to the apartment before I arrived on Sunday.
The tightly bound packet in her arms crinkles, the brown packing paper soft in her hands, something angular hidden within. There are no postage marks on it. No need if it was hand-delivered. I see my name written in neat precise black Sharpie across its front in handwriting I don’t recognize. I try to think who on earth would be dropping off a parcel for me at seven o’clock at night. My agent perhaps, it could be scripts. But he’d just email them.
I realize she’s waiting for me to take it or at least acknowledge her effort in bringing it up for me. I’m sure it’s not part of her job description to cart people’s stuff directly to their doors.
“Shall I?” I ask, taking the heft of it from her. “Thank you so much for bringing it up here—” I spy her name badge now. “—Lucy.I really appreciate it.”
