Page 11 of Lights, Camera, Love

I give the tight band of lycra stretched over my chest an upward tug, to cover more of my cleavage, and the bottom curves of my breasts pop out. Oh, joy—cleavage or underboob: both such wonderful options! I yank the bra top back down.

The midday sun’s harsh rays are bouncing off the corrugated-iron shed and onto my mostly bare skin, so I step beneath the cover of the nearby monitor tent.

Buzz just made a last-minute change to this scene’s camera angle—which seems unusual to me, given the scene had been so carefully planned out—and the riggers and grips are madly resetting the equipment.

At least this buys me a few minutes in the shade.

As I stand there, savouring the reprieve, Billie Eilish’s voice starts blasting from my bag, which is slung over the back of one of the canvas chairs. Oops, I forgot to put my phone on silent—lucky we weren’t filming. I hurriedly dig it out and answer Rafael’s call.

‘Hey, babe! I’m on set, so I don’t have long to chat. How are you?’

He lets out a sigh. ‘Heartbroken.’

‘Oh no, what happened? Is this the radiographer?’

‘ Was the radiographer.’ His glum voice reverberates with an echo, telling me he’s inside his dance studio. ‘Andros was his name. Like a fucking Greek god. I thought we had something going, but he just posted a loved-up pic on his Insta with someone who’s way hotter than me.’

I watch as Buzz moves the camera lens, pointing it directly at Austin’s shadow on the dusty earth, weirdly, rather than at the actor’s face.

‘Oh, babe, I’m so sorry to hear it,’ I tell Rafael.

‘But no one’s hotter than you. And you need to get off his Instagram.

’ My heart tugs. Rafa has so much love to give and wants nothing more than to share it with the right person.

The problem is that he tends to plan the guest list for his wedding after a half-decent first date. Not that I’m any better.

‘He clearly wasn’t the right person for you,’ I continue, ‘so the sooner you clear him out of your mind, the better. Then you can meet your dream man.’

I glance back at the set. Austin whips off his cowboy hat and Buzz clasps his hands to his own head, assessing the changes to the actor’s shadow.

The runner, Finn, strides right across the shadow the director is considering, balancing a tray of coffees in paper cups.

Buzz madly gesticulates for him to get out of the way, and Finn spins and trips, spilling the coffees all over the ground and obscuring the shadow.

I wince as Buzz bellows at the poor kid.

‘Speaking of dream men, how’s the sexy co-star?’ Rafael asks me. ‘Have you kissed him yet?’

Austin has wisely stepped away from the drama unfolding on set, and I give him a once-over, taking in his fitted jeans.

Strangely, I feel nothing—not the butterflies I’d expected to have when I was on set with him, and definitely not the hot rush of longing that used to choke me whenever I’d gaze at his poster on my wall.

‘No kissing as of yet,’ I say to Rafael. ‘That happens in one of the interior scenes, which we start filming next week. And thank god, there’s no sex scene—the studio wants this movie rated PG.’

It strikes me as odd that I’m relieved I don’t have to film any intimate scenes with Austin.

What’s wrong with me? Am I broken? I’ve been so focused on wishing he would develop a crush on me that I haven’t even considered the previously unimaginable possibility that I might not feel the same way about him.

I ask how my dance classes have been going in my absence, and Rafael confesses that Sebastian, who’s been filling in for me, has begun wearing steel-capped boots after copping one too many toe-annihilations from Avalanche.

A laugh bursts out of me, and an ache to be back at DanceLab presses against my chest.

‘I’ll be so happy to have you back next week,’ Rafael says. ‘I also need to chat with you about this year’s student showcase. I want to hold it at a bar and turn it into a big charity event, with the media and everything.’

‘Ooh, that sounds fun.’

‘Well, you’ve got a profile now, my leading lady, and what’s the point of having a profile if you don’t put it to good use?’

I chuckle and tell Rafa I miss him before Cassie waves me over so we can start blocking out the scene.

Time to go and act opposite a shadow.

The rest of the filming week unearths even more baffling creative choices from Buzz.

First up is the orchard scene, in which Constance encourages Jamie to connect with his mute daughter through dance.

For no apparent reason, Buzz directs Austin and me to circle each other as we deliver our lines.

When Austin asks Buzz why he’s giving us both vertigo, Buzz simply says, ‘All traditional bonding rituals stem from a circle of emotional protection,’ as if that makes perfect sense and Austin was silly to have asked.

Another formerly simple shot—one of Constance, Jamie and his daughter, Angel, strolling across the farm—is inexplicably filmed in slow motion.

At the critical moment when Angel finally speaks for the first time, Buzz directs the camera to focus tightly on the girl’s eyes, so it’s not even clear whether it’s her speaking or just her internal thoughts.

Even though I’m one of the least experienced people on set, I feel pretty certain that Buzz is trying too hard to be an ‘interesting’ director and is forgetting that he’s making a commercial dance movie.

Filming at the farm finally wraps up, and Kiara, the location manager, arranges a bonfire celebration for the night before we’re all due to head back to the city.

After a short nap, I arrive late to find cast and crew members standing and sitting around the fire, its flames flickering towards the sky, bright clusters of stars bursting across the black canopy like spilled glitter.

I drag my aching feet over to the ice bucket and fish out a dripping bottle of beer.

This afternoon, I filmed a pivotal scene in which Jamie catches Constance dancing up a storm along the ridge of the farm.

Every time I finished the routine—a mash-up of hip-hop, jazz and funk that I choreographed myself—Buzz would frown at the monitor for a good thirty seconds and then mumble, ‘Let’s do one more.

’ I ended up performing the four-minute routine thirty-seven times.

After Buzz finally called it a day when we lost the light, I overheard him ordering the script supervisor to mark down the first take as the best one.

That’s right—we got it the first time. Brutal.

I wipe my hands down my lavender pants and slump onto an empty log.

A couple of metres away, Austin and Kye sit on another log with their legs outstretched towards the fire.

Austin is murmuring into Kye’s ear, and Kye is listening with his full lips pushed out into a contemplative pout.

Austin looks scruffy and unshowered in tattered jeans and a worn-out flannel, whereas Kye is fresh and put-together in black jogger jeans, a loose pale-grey tee and a mustard shirt rolled up at the sleeves.

When I realise I’m staring, I shift my gaze to the fold-out snack table, where Jakob, the screenwriter, is chattering to Brie from the lighting department, his sausage fingers flapping wildly in her face.

On a log nearby sits Louis, the boom operator, who talks so endlessly about himself that I’ve been encouraged to avoid him.

His victim tonight is Kiara, the location manager, who I’ve gotten along well with this past couple of weeks.

Even from here, I can hear Louis droning on in her ear about the firewood he once collected as a kid and the different-sized sticks he amassed. Kiara’s eyes are glazing over.

I’m just about to get up to save her when a body drops onto the spot next to me, bumping my shoulder. Buzz settles in and shoots me a smirk, his tightly coiled hair sticking up at all angles. ‘Saw you were a lonely heart over here and thought I’d come say hi,’ he says.

‘Hi,’ I reply. He’s my boss at the moment, so I smile and tip the neck of my beer bottle against his.

His smile expands. ‘Are you happy?’ he asks. ‘I mean, with how it’s all coming along and the scenes we’ve put down here?’ The slight slur in his voice makes me realise that the beer he’s holding isn’t his first of the night.

‘Definitely,’ I say quickly. Then, wanting to be agreeable, I scramble for something else to add. ‘I’ve been thinking about the setting, and I think the farm and the vast landscape here will be a really nice metaphor for the distance between Jamie and his daughter. Emotionally, that is.’

What are you on about, Evie? You know this movie has about as much depth as a puddle. But I can’t help nattering; the smell of alcohol seeping from Buzz is becoming impossible to ignore. How much has he had?

His brows fly up. ‘Wow. Could you be any more adorable?’ He leans closer. ‘You know, I’ve always had a thing for women with brains.’

As opposed to women with empty skulls?

Buzz traps me in his stare, his voice taking on a rough edge. ‘But honestly, honey, when audiences catch sight of you in this picture, they won’t be thinking too hard about the landscape.’

Before I can think of anything to say back, he adds, ‘Austin’s really nailed his character as well. That guy sure can deliver a line.’

He’s not wrong—Austin rarely rehearses and often appears half-asleep, but when it’s time for the camera to roll, he knocks it out of the park.

I wait for Buzz to say something about my acting performance, but he falls silent and takes a long swig of his beer.

‘And what about my delivery?’ I venture bravely. If I’m doing something wrong or not keeping up with Austin, I need to know so I can fix it.

Buzz shifts his legs around to face me, the flames of the fire gyrating in his black eyes, morphing them into two shiny beetles.

‘Why don’t you come back to my cabin after this, and we can talk about it?

’ he suggests under his breath. ‘We can chat about Constance and what you need to work on before we start the interior scenes.’

My brow tenses. ‘Your cabin?’

‘Cabin eleven,’ he says in a low voice. His gaze lingers on mine before he rises and stumbles over to a couple of the camera guys, a giant patch of dirt staining the backside of his corduroy trousers.

As I watch Buzz go, my skin breaks out in goosebumps, and not the good kind. There’s no way in hell I’d go back to his cabin with him alone. It’s so inappropriate that he even asked.

The fire pops and sizzles as I glance back at Austin and Kye. Austin’s hunched forward, scratching something on his boot, while Kye is staring right at Buzz, his jaw so tight it could crush diamonds.