With their to-go cups in hand, the girls headed out. Simi kissed Jemima goodbye and watched her head back to her flat, probably to continue cooking up her secret literary masterpiece. Aside from when they were playing their dating game, it felt as though Simi saw Jemima less and less. Even though they were living under the same roof, she missed her and hated the sight of Jemima’s almost-permanently closed bedroom door. Simi hoped she hadn’t outstayed her welcome. Jemima had been so kind, letting her stay. The thought she was desperate to claw back some personal space made Simi shudder. Well, whatever was going on, Simi prayed it was a lone cloud casting a brief shadow which would soon pass. Maybe once the book was delivered, they could hang out like they used to and this would all be forgotten. In the meantime, she had to focus on today’s task – her audition with Antonia. She marched off towards the tube, determined and ready.

In less than an hour, Simi was sitting in Antonia De Silva’s corridor of doom, staring up at the new Clash of the Crown poster mounted on the wall. She was back on the dreaded casting carousel but at least some things were different. Yes, there was the usual row of actors muttering lines and that one girl who always struck up distractingly loud conversation. All that was the same but what was different was that Sandra Flipping Fabulous wasn’t in the running. It still stung that she’d got the Dorothea role but at least that gave everyone a fighting chance for the role of ‘Cake’, the part Simi was auditioning for that morning. Simi looked at her script page again. She loved creating characters – even though she’d only done it professionally a handful of times. Usually it was with dialogue like, ‘You’re fifteen centimetres dilated,’ or ‘Could you describe the person who assaulted you?’ But with this one page of dialogue in her hand, she really wasn’t sure what to do. And worse, the character Cake only uttered one word… cake. What was she supposed to do with that? At a loss, Simi opened Meagan’s email and scrolled down. Just as she suspected, there they were. After the time, date and details for the audition – Meagan’s notes.

Even after everything that had gone down on Friday, Meagan had still sent her ‘thoughts’. Simi read and reread them, now steeped in uncertainty. No, Simi thought. This was why no one trusted her. She didn’t trust herself, always defaulting to other people’s opinions. She wasn’t going to do Meagan’s notes, she was going to figure this out by herself. She gasped, thrilled at her tiny act of rebellion. Simi looked up and down the corridor again. Either side of her, the other actors seemed to have made clear character choices, several arriving pretty much in costume. Simi looked down at her own clothes, jeans and a chunky knit sweater. What if the problem wasn’t her interpretation? What if the problem was – her? Maybe, success would come if she were like someone more successful… like Sandra. If Antonia and so many other casting directors loved Sandra, that could be the path to a sure-fire win. She glanced down at her one page of dialogue wondering how Sandra would handle Cake, a simple girl who worked in the kitchens and loved… cake. Sandra would probably stride in with a big luxurious swish of her hair. Simi patted her afro which was far from swishable. She would need to try something else. She didn’t have time to buy donuts but maybe she could slather on some quintessential Sandra Scott charm, a suitable sickly-sweet substitute for donuts if ever there was one. She would give toothy smiles and nauseating bonhomie to everyone in a fifty-yard radius. Why hadn’t she thought of all this before? She would ignore Meagan’s idea that Cake was a mole from a neighbouring kingdom pretending to be a simpleton. It wasn’t funny and it didn’t even make sense. Instead, Simi would just be Sandra, she decided, as the casting-room door opened and Gabe peered out.