Acting Brave (Fenbrook Academy #3) (6 page)

So I didn’t try to find him. I kept an eye out every morning on my way to Fenbrook, but I never even glimpsed him again. Maybe he’d only been visiting the city, and he was back in Chicago. Maybe he was dead. Or maybe he’d be right there, any week day morning, same time on the same commuter route, and all I had to do was skip class and show up an hour late.

I’d been petrified. Of my dad, of my past being revealed, of the life I’d so carefully built up being snatched away from me. I’d been on the cusp, then: Jasmine had been starting to feel like my real life, with Emma just a bad dream. I wasn’t going to tip the balance back the other way.

So I told myself I wasn’t being a heartless bitch and moved on, careful to never be that late for class again. But every time I saw a drug rehab program, or a soup kitchen, or a homeless guy in the street, the guilt welled up inside me like freezing, thick oil.

I closed my eyes and opened them again. No, still no Nick. Nothing but annoyed commuters on the other platform. And then, thanks to karma or maybe just the cruel desire of the universe to fuck with me, they announced that the next train had been delayed due to a breakdown.

***

When I eventually made it to Fenbrook, I was forty-five minutes late. That should have given me a whole fifteen minutes of Gazpacho’s class to apologize to him, but everyone was already in the corridor. I could see Gazpacho walking away, so they’d obviously only just come out.

“What happened?” I asked the crowd in general.

Nina grabbed my shoulders. She has a blonde bob, big blue eyes and can do a mean femme fatale if you put her in a dress or an Oscar-worthy troubled single mom if you put her in jeans. “
You missed it!
”

I blinked. “It’s only Gazpacho. I mean, I like some method acting
as much as the next girl, but—”

“That was
cancelled!
There was a
casting!
With a really big
producer!
For
TV!
”

Spontaneous, no-notice castings happened a lot at Fenbrook—the faculty was very proud of them. Producers would drop into an acting class to find fresh faces, often at a moment’s notice. My heart was suddenly thumping. “Okay, if you don’t stop doing that thing with the last word, I’m going to kill you. What casting? What for?”

She bit her lip, so I knew it was bad. “A cop show,” she said in a small voice.

I felt my body freeze inch by inch, from my toes all the way up to my ears. A cop show. My dream gig. My own voice grew small, now. “What were they looking for?” I asked.

Nina could barely speak. “Cops. Female cops. Our age.”

I was devastated. I couldn’t find any words. I could only gape at her in silence.

“He said...someone very
vibrant,
” Nina whispered. “I thought of you. Even Gazpacho mentioned you. But you weren’t here.”

I bent over at the waist as if I’d been punched in the gut. I’ve actually been punched in the gut, many times, and I swear it never hurt as much as this.

“FUCK!” I finally yelled, making the whole corridor lapse into silence. People looking understandingly at me. A few even patted me on the back. Down near the end of the corridor, Mr. Gizacho even turned around and looked sadly back at me.

At Fenbrook, there’s a general feeling of camaraderie. Everyone celebrates the successes and we don’t gloat when others fail. I knew the others sympathized, but that didn’t mean they could help. They could offer the old reassurances: that there’d be other auditions, that the show probably wouldn’t get past the pilot anyway. But when I heard that the guy behind it was A.K. Dixon, the hotshot producer who’d wowed everyone with his gritty war drama the year before, I wanted to weep.

I’ve never liked cops. No, wait: I’ve never
trusted
cops. Back in Chicago, they were either the enemy, getting fat on my dad’s bribes, or oblivious, more interested in handing out parking tickets than helping a girl in need. And yet cop
shows:
the excitement and the fast-moving dialogue and the jargon...those I eat up with a spoon. Playing a cop, or a detective in a procedural, was my all-time dream role and everyone at Fenbrook knew it.

Which is why, when I went to sit on the Fenbrook steps and the tears started to roll down my cheeks, everyone understood. Nina came and stroked my back until the next class started, but eventually she had to go inside. I couldn’t face it—not a solid hour of voice work with my throat hot and raw from crying. I stayed outside.

There was a female cop strolling along the street a few hundred yards from the academy, as if to rub it in. I closed my eyes. Next spring, I’d graduate. And then I’d be just another unemployed actor in New York, faced with the choice of trying to hack out a living on the theater circuit or move to LA to disappear into a sea of hopefuls. My best shot was right here, at Fenbrook. The academy was very proud of all the careers it had helped launch—countless big names had been discovered by castings just like the one that morning. Because they hadn’t been idiots and spent vital minutes looking for a shoe just to maintain some stupid illusion. Because they really were actresses, and not just faking it.

Because they deserved to be here.

I sank slowly down into a cold, dark place. I could feel the walls that formed
Jasmine
groan and creak, their plaster cracking dangerously, but I was past caring. Maybe I’d used up all my luck. Maybe getting out of Chicago and having three years here with my friends was all I got. Maybe this was the start of everything falling apart, and all I could do was watch it happen.

“Please,” I whispered to whoever was listening. “Please. Just a little more.”

But no one answered.

And then, down in that dark place, something flared into life, burning hot and bright. A little spark of Jasmine, down amongst the Emma.

Maybe I
had
run out of luck.

Or maybe I had to make my own.

I opened my eyes and saw that the female cop was only a few yards away.

“Hey,” I said, sniffing back tears. “How much to borrow your uniform?”

***

I looked up at the glittering, glass-walled office building and, for the thirtieth time, tried to adjust the too-tight shirt. “This is ridiculous,” I told the cop. “I can barely breathe.”

“Next time, pick a cop who’s actually your shape,” said the cop.

It had taken me almost a half hour to convince her. She’d walked away three times, shaking her head, telling me how much trouble she could get into if we got caught. In the end, I think it was only the tears in my eyes that weakened her.

Her name was Sierra, which I’d found hilarious because Sierra is cop-speak for “S” on the radio. I kept quiet, though, because I probably wouldn’t have been the first one to point it out to her.

I took another breath and the shirt buttons actually creaked. Sierra was an A cup at most and I’m an F. The difference wasn’t subtle.

“You pop those buttons, you’re paying for a new shirt,” Sierra told me. She was practically drowning in my dress. We’d changed in a McDonald’s restroom across the street, which had attracted a fair amount of attention when we’d gone in together and even more when we came out.

I gave her a look. When she’d told me she wanted five hundred dollars to borrow her uniform, I’d almost given up on the whole thing. There would be no way I could pay my rent at the end of the month, and the whole crazy scheme only had a slim chance of working.

But it was the only shot I had. And five hundred dollars to get my dream part was nothing.

“You sure I can’t borrow the gun?” I asked. The empty holster felt wrong.

“Are you
nuts?!”
Sierra whispered. “I could get suspended for this as it is!” She’d stuffed the gun into my purse, which I was going to leave her with when I went inside the building. We figured we were both in roughly equal amounts of trouble if we got caught. “And don’t go using anything on the belt!”

I looked down at the equipment belt, where a nightstick and a bewildering array of other equipment hung. “Uh, okay.”

“And don’t answer the radio!”

“Got it.”

“And be quick!”

I left her standing nervously outside and headed in. As I pushed my way through the revolving door, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes for a second.
Do “cop,”
I told myself.

***

I’ve been into offices before, mostly applying for temping jobs. I had a pretty good idea of how I’d be treated by the men (leched at, propositioned, and gently patronized) and by the women (glared at, derided and always mistrusted). That was fine. That was part of Jasmine. Long fiery hair, big boobs, and a tight dress will do that.

But this wasn’t like that. Not at all.

The receptionist actually jerked upright when she saw me. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Is there a problem? Do we need to evacuate the building?”

I tiny part of me actually wanted to say
yes,
just to see what would happen.

“No,” I told her. And then added “ma’am,” for good measure, and asked which floor it was for Dixon’s production company. Instead of being fobbed off, she sent me straight up in the elevator.

Upstairs, the first thing I saw was a huge banner for
Foxtrot Company,
the smash-hit war series Dixon had produced the year before. I could actually feel the wave of dread silence sweep across the room when I stepped out of the elevator. Every face read,
is it me? Has she come for me?

“Do you have an….” I pretended to consult my notebook, like they did on TV, “A.K. Dixon working here, ma’am?”

The receptionist looked toward a glass-walled corner office where a dark-haired man was working. “Yes,” she squeaked, reaching for the phone. “I’ll let him know you’re here.”

I wanted the element of surprise. This would only work if he was off guard. So I marched straight over to the corner office and threw open the door. “Dixon?” I asked, making it a snarl.

He looked up. He was only in his mid-thirties and, with his dark hair all loose and tousled and his shirt and jeans, he looked more like one of the young creatives in the main office than an industry power player. But the trophy case behind him, packed with Emmys, told me I had my man. “Yes?”

Four big, cop-sized paces took me to his desk. “Stand up, sir.” Cops always said
sir,
especially when they were angry.

He got to his feet, looking slightly nervous, now. He glanced around at the rest of the office. I didn’t turn around to look but I knew that everyone would be watching through the glass walls. “What’s this about?” he asked. His eyes narrowed. “Does security know you’re here?”

He reached for the phone. That was one thing I couldn’t let him do. This whole thing could get out of control very quickly...if it hadn’t already.

“
Hands where I can see them!”
I yelled, one hand going to the butt of my nightstick.

Dixon snatched his hand back from the phone and then put both hands over his head.
Holy shit! This really works!

“Mr. Dixon”—I had a feeling I was meant to say his full name, but I had no idea what the “A” stood for—”I’m arresting you on suspicion of”—
argh! What am I arresting him for?! Think! Think!—”
possession of narcotics.”

“That’s ridiculous!” he said, sounding genuinely shocked.

“Hands on the desk,” I told him, coming around to his side. He did as he was told, bending at the waist and planting his hands on the wood. I kicked his feet apart and started frisking him. “You have the right to remain silent!” I told him, snapping the words out. “You have the right to an attorney!”
What now? Handcuffs!
I grabbed them from their belt pouch, pulled Dixon’s hands behind him, and tried to slap the cuffs on him smoothly, like they did on TV. It wasn’t as easy as it looked, but I got it in the end.

I let Dixon straighten up. His whole demeanor had changed. He was sweating, his wrists pulling nervously at the cuffs, his eyes searching for a way out.

It was time.

“Now we can do this the hard way or the easy way,” I told him. “I can take you downtown and put you in an interrogation room with my partner—”

He gulped.

“
Or...
you can give me a part in your show.”

The words didn’t sink in immediately. He blinked at me three times before he got it.

“You’re not really a cop?” he asked disbelievingly.

I dropped the aggressive cop voice. “Nope. Jasmine Kane. I’m from Fenbrook Academy. Final year. I missed the casting this morning.”

His mouth opened and closed a few times, his face reddening. “Are...you...
insane?!”
he finally yelled. “You impersonate a police officer and walk in here and—” His wrists jerked at his cuffs, the chain jangling merrily. “Are you
insane?”
he asked again.