Chapter 1
ANYA
I gave myself one year. One year to ‘make it’ before I packed it in for good and got a job flogging insurance or office supplies or something in a depressing, solid nine to five. One year. That’s it. Then obviously, one year turned into two and two into two and a half and so on and so forth until I ended up here, four years later a jack-of-all-trades at the bottom of the film industry ladder willing to be paid in meals andexperience.
The film isn’t a bad one. It’s a surreal short about a woman who’s being stalked by her past self and—yeah, okay it’s not great. At least it’s a job. A job in the middle of nowhere with fourteen hour days and a two-hour commute there and back. So what if I have to stuff extra bread rolls from the soup at lunch into my backpack so I can eat some form of dinner? It’s experience. So what if I have to take a four hour round trip to pick up a smoke machine last minute and pay five hundred pounds out of pocket just to be told it’sno longer necessary?
It’s experience. Experience I need if I want to get anywhere close to fulfilling my dreams.
I just really didn’t think the final tether holding my dream in my hand would be a power cord connected to a smoke machine.
“Yeah, we don’t need that anymore. The director says it would make the scene look too cheap.” The producer, Beth, tells me.
I really didn’t think I’d give up on my dream on a foggy afternoon in Kent but standing in the middle of the forest with an apparently redundant smoke machine, is evidently enough to tip me over the edge.
A burst of laughter comes out of me. “You’re joking.”
In my university days, I would have held it together until I found my best friend Rosie on set and ranted to her about the audacity of sending me on a fool’s errand in the middle of shooting. Rosie, of course, is nowhere near the outskirts of Kent since she had walked into a job in a post-production house the day after graduation. I wasn’t jealous when Rosie was offered her job, we were going to be in different departments after all, but I couldn’t help feeling bitter thinking about her glamorous city life working on the next wide-release feature while I’ve been stuck working for pennies on under-funded shorts.
“No,” she says, turning her attention back to her iPad.
I close my eyes. After more late nights than I could count, over a hundred hours of driving and likely the same amount of pilfered bread rolls, I’ve had enough.
“That’s it.” I slam the smoke machine on the floor. “Fuck this. I’m out.”
That makes Beth look up. “You what?”
“I quit. This is so not worth it. Find someone else to be your errand bitch. I’m basically a glorified delivery person.”
Beth says nothing, her mouth slightly parted. “You can’t quit, we haven’t hired you.”
I laugh, slightly manically. “I know.”
I grab the smoke machine from the ground and walk away, finally feeling a weight fall off my shoulders. I’m going to go home, order a takeaway, drink a whole bottle of wine and watch a property development show.
“Wait!” I hear Beth shout from behind me. I don’t stop.
* * *
“Do you know anyone in the market for a smoke machine?” I ask Rosie, holding my phone between my cheek and shoulder as I unceremoniously throw the forsaken thing on my passenger seat and start the engine.
“Why are you selling a smoke machine?” Rosie laughs.
“I’ve rented it for three days and I am not driving back to fucking Slough anytime soon.” I sigh as I put my foot down, my little car already spluttering from the miles I’ve already put it through today.
“Okay, I feel like I am missing some very important pieces of information here.”
I fill her in on my day from hell, gripping the wheel with both hands and trying to concentrate on the drive.
“You need to stop settling for crummy experience jobs, Annie,” Rosie says after I finish my story, using the nickname she gave me in our first week as housemates in first year. “You need to aim higher.”
“I am aiming higher,” I protest. “It’s just no one higher wants me.”
“No, we are not having any of that self-pitying bullshit today, missy.” Rosie scolds.
I groan and rest my palm on my forehead. “I can’tnotdrown in self pity at the moment. I feel like everyone is already where they need to be and I am still basically at the same point in my career as I was when I was nineteen. I think I need to get used to the fact that I peaked in uni and pack it in.”
Rosie sighs.“Have you started drinking already?”
