Tom cleared his throat and gripped the screenplay in his hands a little tighter. He felt even more awkward than he had in the gazebo, since he had just finished a long shift cooking at The Lighthouse Grill, and he was still sweaty and a little disheveled.
Delilah didn’t seem to mind, however. She was sitting across from him at a booth in the empty pub, looking as eager as a child on Christmas morning.
“Thank you so much again for agreeing to meet with me right now,” she told him. “I feel bad asking you to help me after you just had a shift.”
He shook his head, smiling. “No, don’t feel bad. I’m delighted. I’m glad we were able to find a time that worked for both of us.”
She smiled, looking around the empty restaurant. “It feels fun being here when all the other customers are gone,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in an empty restaurant before.”
He grinned, gesturing to the two of them. “Well, almost empty.” He loved having her there, in what felt like his second home. He’d often stayed in the pub after all the customers had gone, waiting to be the last one there before locking up for the night. He liked the hush that fell over the usually bustling place.It was a quiet unlike any other, the kind of quiet that reigned over a place that was usually bursting with life. It felt as if all the joy and pleasant chaos was simply sleeping, waiting to come back the next day in full force.
“Are you ready?” he asked her, straightening the script in his hands as if it was the wheel of a race car they were about to take off in together.
“Yes,” she said, although he noticed that the happiness that she’d seemed to be feeling about the screenplay when they were in the gazebo together was gone. She seemed stressed, and she was holding her shoulders tightly.
Not wanting to pry, even though he felt concerned about why she wasn’t feeling her usual eager self, Tom cleared his throat and began to read the first line of the scene. It was a different scene, longer than the one they had read in the gazebo, and more charged with emotion and tension. Tom wondered if that was what was affecting Delilah’s mood—maybe she’d already started getting into character, and she was holding tension inside her body on purpose in order to read the scene better.
He was incredibly impressed by her acting, although he felt that his own lines sounded wooden and awkward. She seemed like a powerhouse of energy, in control of every facial expression and vocal inflection.
Once they’d run through that scene a couple of times, Delilah asked him if he’d be willing to read the next scene as well.
“I’d love to,” he assured her. “I’m having lots of fun.”
She smiled at him gratefully, but her tension didn’t dissipate. In fact, she seemed to become more uptight as they started the next scene, even though it was about the woman in the story talking about how much she wanted to be happy, and how she believed that she still had a chance of finding happiness.
Tom glanced at Delilah a few times as they read, in awe of her performance, but noticing that in between her lines, she seemedto be frowning in concentration. Once she even scribbled down a note in a notebook that she pulled out of her purse.
“That was wonderful,” Tom said earnestly once they’d finished reading through the scene.
Delilah shook her head. “Thanks, Tom, but I’m feeling so frustrated with my performance. It’s not clicking with me, and I need it to. I’m not living in this character yet, and I have to find a way to really become her. I’ve got to make it all seem completely real, and that starts with me really encompassing her character.”
Tom’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. He wasn’t sure how she could be dissatisfied with what she’d just done, but he supposed that she was far more critical of herself than he was—and it was true that she had a better idea of what directors would be looking for than he could ever understand.
“Well, don’t lose heart. That’s what practice is for, right?” he said, smiling at her. “What do you feel that you’re not encompassing about this character?”
“You’re so kind.” Her smile was small, but he could tell that she appreciated his attempt at being supportive. “For one thing, I haven’t quite put my finger on her emotions in this scene. Should I play longing? Bittersweet joy? It isn’t clear how she’s really feeling, and I want to make sure I make the right choice.”
Tom nodded. “Let’s try it again and see what you come up with. Maybe just experiment a little and see if a new idea jumps out at you.” After the words came out of his mouth, he froze a little, wondering if she’d be offended that he’d been so forward. After all, he didn’t know what on earth he was talking about when it came to acting, and even if he did, who was he to give the great Delilah Bates advice about how to figure out a character?
She simply smiled, however. “That’s a good idea. Thank you.”
They read the scene again, but this time even Tom could tell that her acting wasn’t at the level it usually was. She read some lines with too much emotions and others with not enough. Noneof it seemed to land on the right blend of earnest hopefulness and determination.
“Ugh,” she said, as soon as the scene was over. She covered her face with her hands in frustration. “I can’t get this wrong. If I do, it’ll cost me this part.” She lifted her hands from her face and set them in her lap, taking a deep breath. “I’ve come to realize how much I want this role,” she said. “I haven’t wanted one this much in a long time.”
Tom nodded. “That sounds hard,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything like that, but I’m sure it’s stressful.”
She sighed, laughing a little. “The curse of being an artist, I guess. We love creating, but sometimes we love things too much. Maybe I shouldn’t care as much as I do.”
“No,” he assured her. “I think it’s wonderful. People should care more about what they do. That’s when we do truly great work.”
He thought about his own work, of cooking, and how much he loved it. He’d never felt pressure to “succeed” in his work in the way that Delilah seemed to feel pressure to land the role she was hoping for, but he knew that caring about doing his work well was what made it enjoyable for him—and of course it was what made him a good chef.
As he was thinking about cooking, he was suddenly struck with an idea.
“Hey,” he said, setting the screenplay down. “Did you eat dinner yet?”
“Oh, not really,” she confessed. “I ate lunch around three o’clock, and then I’ve just been running around. I had a granola bar around six.”
