She tries to tell the truth nowadays, it’s not worth stretching it on these things. For a long time she put any old thing down, not lying, just being . . . inexact. But then she was caught out at that shoot in Berlin; that old flat with the hundreds of Japanese paper lanterns, the assistant bringing out outfit after outfit, none of which fit the measurements she had scribbled down in the London casting a month before, as the little designer fussed around her, tut-tutting his disapproval.

But you look so fet. So fet in these.

In the end, she had to borrow the costume assistant’s trousers and was cut out of the ad.

As she scrawls across the pages, Hannah’s comment from last night comes back to her: a one-woman show. Directors I Have Known and Been Rejected By. It was funny, of course it was, but it had stung. She wouldn’t make a comment like that about Hannah.

Hey! Han! What about all the times you’ve tried IVF and it’s failed. What about that? Wouldn’t that be hilarious?

But of course the comparison doesn’t stand. Because nothing beats Hannah’s pain.

The casting director puts in an appearance, and the atmosphere lifts and sharpens. “All right, folks. Running a bit late.”

He is tanned, meaty, a bit overweight. His face, the face of a self-satisfied baby. But he gets Lissa seen for these things often, and so she smiles and laughs and flirts with him despite herself.

The red-haired woman is up. Lissa watches her seal away her fury and paint on a smile.

She gives a quick, reflexive glance to her phone. Still no news on the callback. The Chekhov. That in itself doesn’t mean anything—you can wait weeks for these things and then be surprised, but she can feel hope begin its long, tidal ebb. By tomorrow, if she has still not heard anything, she will be twitchy; by the weekend, fractured and emotional; by the beginning of next week, defensive, patched up. She has become more, not less thin-skinned as time has gone on.

She ignores the hat and glove measurements—sometimes it seems as though these forms haven’t changed since the 1950s—puts down her shoe size, then stands and hands the paper back to the young woman behind the desk.

The young woman stands up. She is tall and skinny and wearing black. She picks up the Polaroid camera before her and waves it languidly towards the blank wall.

Lissa sees the other women look up as she takes her place against the exposed brick, their quick assessment of her figure, her clothes. Looking for the shadows, the wrinkles, the grays.

She arranges her face.

She used to not try out for these things at all.