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After three hours, the woman wearing the dark-rimmed glasses came in, and my heart danced. This was it! I was about to be in a Hollywood movie!
“When I call your name, come with me. Gerard Smyth, Abigail Davis, Georgia Grenville…”
Each time she read out a name that wasn’t mine, my heart sank. She called Jerome’s name, and he sprung up, flashing us a wide smile.
“I hope Dean’s in this scene — he’s so hot!”
He joined the other extras, who milled behind the clipboard woman and whispered excitedly to each other.
Kyla Wright, Kyla Wright, I repeated in my head, hoping it would somehow influence the list on the clipboard. But the woman reached the end without saying my name, and disappeared out the door she’d entered through, with the gaggle of extras following.
I returned to my book, but it was hard to concentrate through my lingering sense of disappointment. Dean, Isaac, and Wyatt were somewhere in this resort, and there may have been only a few walls separating me from them. And we were stuck here in a room full of people, reading books and playing card games, trying to ignore the fact that we were in close proximity to Hollywood royalty.
And the only thing stopping us from meeting them was the woman with a clipboard.
“God, this is boring,” April complained. “When’s it gonna be our turn?”
Jamie shrugged. She was midway through knitting a sweater and waited until she’d reached the end of the row to answer.
“You won’t know until it happens. But think of the upside — we’re getting paid by the hour. So even if we don’t film a single scene, we’re still taking home a couple hundred dollars.”
“A single scene?” April’s eyes grew wide. “Do you mean today, or for the whole movie?”
Jamie unraveled her ball of red yarn until she’d made a few feet of it slacken and started her next row of knitting.
“Usually for the day, but sometimes for the whole movie. Every shoot is different.”
I gazed around the room. Despite the woman calling out thirty or so people, there were still plenty of us here. What if today they called in those people, then tomorrow a few others, then the day after a few at random… a pit formed in my stomach.
“So it’s possible that we might not get to workat all?”
“Maybe.” Jamie looped the yarn around her needle. “But they usually only hire as many extras as they need, so you’ll be used somewhere. Even if it’s only crowd scenes.”
I tapped my foot against my chair leg impatiently. Even though I’d get paid, knowing that I might not be in the movie was heartbreaking. My dad had been so excited — he’d becrushed if he couldn’t see me on the big screen, even if I was only in the background.
After a few hours, the woman with the glasses returned and read a new list of names from her clipboard.
“Lewis Armstrong, Carla Murphy, Debra van Neerven…”
I sighed and returned to my novel. By three in the afternoon, when all the extras had returned to the conference room, I’d finished the book I’d been reading and swapped it over with another one.
At this rate, I was going to read every book in my own collectionandfrom Bob’s cafe.
“I’m bored.” April had made herself comfortable by propping herself up against my shoulder, and she nestled her head against my neck. “What are you reading?”
“A novel.”
She pulled the cover so she could see the title and I swatted her hand away.
“You can read my other one, if you’d like.” The book I’d finished was on top of my handbag and I nudged it with my foot.
“Nah.” April stretched her legs out in front of her. “I wonder why they haven’t called more extras in yet?”
“Maybe they only need the main actors?”
April sat up, her attention piqued.
“Do you think they’re filming a sex scene?”
