ONE
Daniela
First day on set and I felt…
…well, not like myself.
I didn’t feel like Daniela, who had been doing commercials in Spanish not six months ago in San Antonio, who’d sat at her abuela’s table and gushed about her first big role over palomas.
Nope.
I felt like Daphne Wilder. Polished and perfect.
The name my agent had said would get me more work in Hollywood…the name my agent had been one hundred percent correct on.
My costume had looked beautiful on the rack. On my body, in ninety-degree New Mexico heat, it was a wool blend duster that smelled like someone else’s sweat and a corset that had been laced by a woman named Pat who did not believe in breathing room.
“You look incredible,” Pat had said, stepping back to admire her work.
I had smiled. That was the job.
My agent, Mark, had materialized at my elbow approximately thirty seconds after I’d cleared hair and makeup, which meant he’d been watching the trailer door. He waswearing linen, immaculately pressed, in a color he’d once described to me as dusty rose but make it menswear, and somehow he looked cooler than anyone on set.
“Daphne,” he said with a huge grin. “You look like a star.”
“I look like I’m about to pass out.”
“Fine,” he said. “A shooting star.” he straightened my collar with two fingers. “So Ellis wants to meet you in person before blocking. Don’t be nervous.’
“I’m not nervous.”
He looked at me over the frames of his sunglasses.
“I’m a little nervous.”
“Don’t be,” he shook his head. “She asked for you specifically, remember? Saw the Esurance spot and she called me directly. That doesn’t just happen, babe.”
I knew. He'd told me four times since the offer came in.
Ellis Jones was thirty-four and had two features to her name and the kind of reputation that made studio executives nervous in a way they'd learned to callexciting. Film Twitter had decided she mattered before her second movie opened. She wore the same broken-in boots to every press event and had been photographed leaving Sundance with a woman on her arm and a cigarette in her mouth and somehow that photo had become her entire brand.
She was exactly the kind of director I wanted to work with for the rest of my career.
The makeup was thick in the heat. Full period look—warm browns, a little liner, a mouth that was slightly more than my own. I'd looked in the mirror in the trailer and seen someone almost familiar.
Almost.
"Twenty minutes before Ellis is ready," Mark said, checking his phone. "Craft services. Eat something."
"I ate."
"Coffee is not eating." He pointed. "Around the back. And don't let anyone corner you into a conversation about your process, I'm begging you."
"Mark."
"Go."
I went.
