Belinda is waiting for him in the dining car, gloves tucked away, her clipboard clutched tight.
He holds up one hand. ‘I haven’t had any coffee yet, Belinda, so if you’re coming at me for that expenses form I’m just going to grunt until you give up and go away.’
‘Good morning, Zachary,’ Belinda says smartly. ‘May I introduce you to Lara.’
He squints at the blonde woman beside Belinda, dressedin a black t-shirt and black jeans with her hair tied in two long plaits over each shoulder. The dress code makes things tricky here, especially as he’s not great with faces. Everyone dressed in raven black but the dancers, who all look the same to Zach anyway with their hair slicked off their faces and their sharp, sticky-out bones and their turned-out, froggy feet.
‘She’ll shadow you today, and if she likes what she sees she’ll take her pledge tonight and be your new lighting assistant.’
‘Am I being promoted?’
Belinda raises one eyebrow. ‘Do keep up, Zachary. Juliet left six weeks ago and you’ve had your pay rise for at least a month, so I hope you’ve been doing the job I’ve been paying you for.’
He pulls the lever on Gino’s coffee urn and watches it splash into a mug.
‘Joking. Everything’s under control.’
Belinda hands Lara a thick black folder. ‘Here’s your contract and code of conduct. Have a little look at it when you get a chance today and ask Zachary or Mackenzie if you have any questions. I’ll keep your things in my office. After the show Zachary will bring you back and we can see what you want to do.’
The blonde girl nods. She looks composed enough but a little twitch in her top lip gives her away. Belinda sweeps out of the dining car, leaving an awkward silence behind her. Zach wonders where to start.
‘Have you had breakfast?’ Zach asks, finally. He’d like to be a good boss, and as far as he’s concerned a good boss concerns themselves with their employees’ stomachs first.
‘I’m not hungry. Thanks.’
‘Right. Well. Hold on while I get something.’
Gino, who never seems to have the problems with mornings Zach suffers from, greets him cheerily.
‘I’ve made your favourite, Zachary, and I’ll keep some aside until lunch if you fancy a snack.’
He passes a plate of pancakes and blueberries drenched with shiny rivulets of golden syrup across the serving hatch and Zach’s mouth waters.
‘You’re a god among men, Gino, I really mean it.’ Gino has given Zach extra helpings since his very first day. Gino had raised his eyebrows, looked the almost seven feet of length of him up and down and made an Italian sound of admiration.You’ll need quite a bit extra to keep that frame going, he’d said.Do not go hungry, you hear me? If I am starving you, ask for more.
Zach takes his plate and coffee to a booth on the other side of the dining carriage. Lara follows him, the ring binder tucked under her arm, hovering awkwardly by the booth.
‘Sit.’ Zach gestures to the bench opposite him and she perches on the corner. ‘Have some pancakes.’ He pushes his plate towards her and she tentatively tears off a corner of the dough and holds it lightly between her fingers.
‘Where did she pick you up from?’
She stifles a yawn. ‘Southampton.’
‘Have to get up early?’
Lara nods, a wry smile beginning on her lips. ‘Left my mum’s at four thirty. It’s not always this bad, is it?’
Zach wants to tell her no. He wants to say that today will be the hardest day she’ll ever do onThe Apple and the Pearl, even if she stays another ten years. And in some ways that will be true. But he can’t lie. So he makes the kind of non-committal grunt that used to have Juliet throwing her hands up in frustration –Are you an animal? Fucking communicate, please! –and tears off another corner of pancake to pass to her.
‘So how much did Belinda tell you in your interview?’
Lara shrugs. ‘She mainly asked me things about my life and my experience. She said it was a ballet and we travel from venue to venue on a train.’
Zach spears a pancake with his fork and eats it in one bite.
‘Anything else?’
‘She asked me if I’d had any contact with the supernatural.’
