“Isn’t everyone?”
I’d meant it as a joke—at CADS you were harder pushed to find someone whowasn’tworking on a screenplay—but as I was beginning to learn from my improvisation module, I didn’t have the best comedic timing, and it sounded blunt even to my own ears.
Thankfully the man laughed. “I know, hardly original. And maybe it won’t go anywhere, but I’m enjoying it. So, do you hate your flatmates, or are the library desks simply more comfortable than a well-used dorm-room bed?”
“Both, I think.”
CADS didn’t have its own residence halls, so you had to source your own. The cheapest I could find was a tower in Bethnal Green, full of students from universities across London. Everyone in my flat seemed to get along well with one another—or at least, they enjoyed blasting Nirvana while they got high together before traveling to various grimy clubs. No wonder I was falling asleep at library tables. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept through the night without being interrupted by their stumbling home. The guy next door to me, Amos Thomson, was a fashion student at Central Saint Martins, and the one time I asked him to keep it down when he got in from whichever party he’d charmed his way into, he’d just arched an eyebrow at me and said, “Honey, you know this is supposed to be fun, right? Come knock on my door if you ever pull that stick out of your ass.”
I avoided being there as much as I could.
“Thank god the library is open twenty-four hours,” I added.
“The film studio is, too, if you ever fancy a change. I’m Ivan. I’m on the directing masters, and I could definitely do with the feedback. I can help with your front-row problem too. It could be mutually beneficial.”
It would turn out most of my friendships were.
Of course I had no ideajusthow beneficial Ivan would be, not until we ran through a Hitchcock marathon one weekend. On screen, Alice winced at every resounding “knife,” and I felt tears wet my cheeks. My father had been watchingNorth byNorthwestwhen I told him the first of my acting school offers had come through. He hadn’t even paused, just snorted and said, “You couldn’t pay me to live in London.” I’d prepared for all manner of my parents’ condemnations—that I was wasting my money, my time,theirmoney and time—but the disinterest cut.
And I don’t know why it hit me then—only thatno, drama school had not been all I had hoped it would be. Mostly, yes, but not all. And I’d started to wonder if it was worth it—because I was out on my own here. No family to rely on. No friends to confide in. So completely alone, and right now, with Ivan by my side, I felt a little bit less so—and that just made clear how gaping the chasm within me was.
We would become friends eventually—the sort no one else really understood. But in that moment we were just two people alone together. Watching a film in the quiet.
I’d spent my whole life being told no one cared about the things I did—and here was someone who did. That was enough for me.
If I’m really honest, that was everything for me.
Ivan paused the film a few minutes from the end. “I wanted to give you this. Please don’t be weird about it.”
A library card, with his student ID number.
“They don’t trust the undergraduates,” he said. “But the postgrad library has all the same books,andyou can take them out whenever you want. I thought I lost my card a while back, and I got a replacement and then found it, so I have a spare.”
“Ivan,” I started, still choked up. I wouldn’t have to waste hours photocopying. I wouldn’t have to spend more money on textbooks—secondhand or not. This was a little room to breathe.
“Just don’t go spilling coffee on any of the books,” he said. “Develop an awareness of the back rowandthe cups in front of you.”
I swatted him with the nearest pillow.
To my mind, Ivan giving me that card was the real start of our friendship.
He has always insisted it’s when I threw a pillow at him and gave him a glimpse of “just what sort of diva he was dealing with.”
“Let’s finish this,” he said, raising the remote to press play once more. But first his voice softened, and in it there was the sort of understanding I didn’t know I craved. “And then … then you should get some sleep, Nadine.”
———
As the weeks went on, factions formed within our class: the musical theater kids, the Shakespearean thespians, the fame-hungry despots, and the film magnates.
I’ll give you one guess where Harper Moore fit in that equation.
After the monologues, it was clear I no longer interested her. But when I was on a stage, her eyes would light on me—like I was so perfectly forgettable until the moment mytalent shone.Yes.That’s what I wanted. To be something you couldn’t look away from. Your attention, whether you wanted to give it or not.
I might not have been friends with them all, but what did that matter? Wasn’t that why I loved to perform? It wasn’t just them seeing me but me seeing them in turn. It was a dialogue, a way of connecting (frankly, the only one I knew how to do).
I remembered that day of the monologues, the way everyone had so swiftly disregarded my talent as soon as there was a different opinion to follow, and I determined to never allow it to happen again.
I made myself undeniable.
