Page 4 of Lights, Camera, Love

I’m twisting my hair into a top-knot to hold it back for tonight’s dance class when my phone lights up with a call from my agent.

I tuck the phone into my chin. ‘Hey, lovely,’ I say to Martina. ‘ Please tell me you have an audition for a well-paying music video that I’m perfect for. Bonus points if it’s for Troye Sivan.’

‘Nope.’ The glint in her voice makes my spine straighten. ‘I’m calling to congratulate you, Constance. ’

I spin away from the mirror, my mouth falling open. ‘You’re not serious.’

‘As a heart attack. I just heard from the casting director. They didn’t even need you to come in for a call-back. You’ve got it, babe. You’re Constance!’

I scream into the phone, and Martina’s laugh drops sharply in volume, like she’s holding the phone away from her ear.

Seconds later, Mum appears in my bathroom doorway, half her hair stretched around giant rollers.

I shoot her a grin to reassure her that my scream wasn’t the catastrophic kind. Mum just returns a frown.

‘But how ?’ I ask Martina. ‘I blew the audition. I was shockingly bad.’

‘Don’t ever tell your agent that,’ she says. ‘And obviously you weren’t, superstar. Apparently, the director said it has to be you who plays Constance. He’s already panicking that something will come up and you won’t be able to play the part.’

‘I am legit stunned.’ I step past Mum and give her shoulder an overjoyed squeeze through her silk robe. She follows me into my bedroom, her Ugg slides clapping against the carpet.

Was my acting better than I thought? Maybe I’m a poor judge of my own ability. I put my phone on speaker and set it beside my dance sneakers so I can tie them on. Mum’s still hovering, and I beam up at her. She presses her lips tightly together, messing up her red lipstick.

‘ So ,’ Martina says in a bracing tone, ‘I’ll be honest and say it’s not much money, but it is exposure, and I’m hoping to get you something from the back end, too.’

Mum’s brow knits and she shakes her head.

‘The back end?’ I ask Martina.

‘A percentage of the box office returns. It wouldn’t be much, but like I said—’

‘It’s a lead role in a movie opposite Austin Reynolds ,’ I cut in, for Mum’s benefit as much as Martina’s. ‘I was in love with that guy for years when I was younger.’

Martina snort-laughs. ‘Who wasn’t? You should consider him part of your payment.’

‘I do!’

Mum tuts her disapproval, and I turn away from her. She’s all for a hunky man—the more the merrier—just as long as he’s not an actor.

Martina promises to send me through the contract details and my shooting schedule as soon as possible.

She tells me that the interior scenes will be filmed at a soundstage near the city, while the farm exteriors will be shot at a rural property that’s two-and-a-half hours away by road.

My head is already swarming with dates and logistics.

I’ll need to talk to Rafael and find someone to teach my hip-hop classes while I’m away.

I’ve barely hung up from Martina when Mum says in a rush, ‘A percentage of the back end of a film could turn out to be nothing, Evie. You should think about whether you really want to sell yourself so short.’

My fingers halt against my shoelace; I gape up at her.

‘Mum, I think you’ve missed the point here.

I have been cast in the lead role in a major movie starring opposite Austin Reynolds.

Don’t you remember him from those Tate Hunter spy movies?

Plus, Harold Winter’s nephew is directing it.

’ Saying those words aloud makes me jump to my feet, another yelp of excitement bursting from my throat.

‘Oh, pull yourself together, Evie. You’re acting like a child.’ She stalks out of the room while tearing at one of her rollers.

The smile slips off my face.

I chase her down the hallway and into the guest bathroom, chewing on my thumbnail. ‘Mum, are you not happy for me about this?’ I refrain from telling her that a big reason I even auditioned was to be able to help her out financially.

‘Of course I’m happy, and I’m not surprised you got the part.

You’re talented and beautiful, and all the other things I used to be.

But the problem is, Evie, I know this industry a little too well.

Acting in a film is nothing like teaching a dance class—especially when you’re an attractive young woman.

One minute, you’ll be the hot new thing on set; the next, you’ll be out like last night’s leftovers.

Which is why it’s so important to get paid while you are in the limelight.

’ She glowers at her reflection as she untangles a velcro roller.

I move behind her and press my palms to her shoulders. ‘ Mum. This is going to be great, trust me. Plus, a job is a job, right? Every bit helps, and I still need to pay for your college fund.’ I giggle—we both know I’ve always been the adult in the relationship—but the joke lands flat.

Her collarbones rise and fall beneath my fingers as she sighs. ‘Just promise me you’ll stay clear of the creeps, okay? Don’t let them use you and lose you like they did me.’

A crease finds my brow, and my hands slip off her shoulders. ‘I won’t.’

Mum’s words bounce around my head while I drive my clunker of a car—a nineties Daihatsu Charade that doesn’t quite steer right—downtown to DanceLab for tonight’s class.

Don’t let them use you and lose you.

No one did that to my mother more than the man who fathered me.

Gabriel Dean—any therapist would spot it—is the obvious source of Mum’s habitual bitterness and disdain for male screen stars.

They met in LA after Mum moved there from Sydney when she was eighteen to try her luck as an actress.

In a city infested with wannabe screen stars, they both won the showbiz lottery when they were cast as Cindy and Drake in the smash-hit American sitcom Sandy Street.

It dominated the US ratings for three years but was abruptly cancelled after the writers made the fatal mistake of marrying the characters and giving them a baby. The viewers lost interest after that.

What would’ve been much more entertaining for fans, had they known, was that the lead actors took their roles so seriously that they accidentally made a baby in real life.

Mum said that when she broke the news to Gabriel, he accused her of falling pregnant to someone else and pretending it was his baby to trap him.

When she repeatedly denied that awful claim, he fled the country to film the lead role in a British biopic about a neurodivergent statistician that won him his first Academy Award.

For seven months, Mum waited for him to come back to LA, but when he never showed and refused to take her calls, she moved back home so her parents could help with the baby.

Months later, while my father was finally back in Hollywood, posing on red carpets and clutching golden trophies, my mum was sleeping in my grandparents’ living room, learning to live on thirty-minute windows of sleep, leaking from multiple parts of her body, and having to psych herself up to breastfeed through several excruciating bouts of mastitis.

All these years later, when I think about the financial strife she’s in, coupled with the unfathomable amount of money that my mega-famous father must have squirrelled away, I want to puke in his coffee—which is probably sprinkled with gold dust and poured by George Clooney himself.

Mum needs help managing money, I know that. But she shouldn’t have had to face the costs and pressures of raising a child alone. Neither of us should have had to do this alone.

The neon-yellow sign that spells ‘DANCELAB’ emerges through the canopy of trees lining the inner-city street. I take the first left down an alley towards my secret parking space and reset my mind to its happy place.

My elation over winning the role in Moving is back to being fully charged when I stroll into the graffiti-coated building that houses DanceLab.

I head into Rafael’s studio, finding him alone beside the mirror, his black-tipped fingernails swiping up his phone screen.

I pace over to him and his face flies up.

‘Hey, you,’ he says as I wrap my arms around his neck. ‘Ooh. Someone’s feeling affectionate today.’

I pull back, biting down on a smile. ‘I have favours to ask.’

His tongue curls over its pierced tip. ‘You want to know if you can take me out for sushi and sake after this? Fine , if it’s absolutely necessary.’

My smile widens. ‘You’re on. Especially if you say that I can take a couple of weeks off soon?’

Surprise flashes in his jet-black eyes. ‘Sure. Sebastian keeps asking for more work anyway. You’re not going somewhere magnificent without me, are you?’

‘Are cows and paddocks considered magnificent?’

Rafael makes an aghast face. ‘Only if there’s a hot farmer involved. Wait—are you considering starting up an OnlyFarms? Because I looked up the URL years ago and it was taken.’

I laugh. ‘It’s doubtful. Although, the word ploughing would feature nicely in the marketing.’

He grins. ‘The ads would write themselves. What about something like … sowing seeds?’

I snicker. ‘Being woken up by a cock?’

‘Getting the milking done with a nice, tight squeeze?’

My head hangs. ‘Too far, Rafa, too far.’

He cackles, and I clutch onto his arm.

‘No, my friend,’ I say. ‘I’ve just been cast in a feature film, which will be shooting on a farm out of town. I’ll be staying there for two weeks. It’s a major movie that’s being directed by Harold Winter’s nephew. I’m playing the female lead—a dance teacher.’

Rafa looks on the verge of an aneurysm, his fingers strangling my wrists. ‘Stop it.’

‘Definitely won’t!’ I squeal. ‘It’s also a romance, and my co-star is going to be’—I suck my bottom lip between my teeth, drawing out the big reveal—‘Austin Reynolds.’

His jaw drops. ‘Shut. The. Fuck. Up.’

A laugh pushes through my lips as the first arrivals for Rafael’s salsa class begin trickling into the studio.