There’s an outfit laid out on the bed for me, along with my character notes. So far, so unsurprising. The invitation led me to expect a two-night immersive murder-mystery weekend. I am Rose Dee, an aspiring actor. I’m nineteen years old, I’ve done some community theatre in my hometown of Kansas City, and I’ve come to Boston on the invitation of someone called Harry Warren, apparently a famous movie producer.

The jeans are high-waisted and too tight, the camisole too strappy and revealing, the white blouse too big, ballooning in the shoulders. But they are exactly what I wore in the nineties, when I was nineteen. I feel stupid dressed like this, critically aware of every misstep that girl took in the last twenty-five years; bitterly aware of every way she’s been screwed over by mean-spirited people, by sheer bad luck, and by history monster-trucking over all her hopes and dreams.

23:25

Nonetheless, I tease and gel my hair in the bathroom and go downstairs to the dining room in character, just as instructed. I’ll play along; there’s never a question that I will. Who the hell am I to resist?

The dinner’s actually fun. Meeting the other guests and the hotel staff, trying to figure out which of them are actors and which are participants. I scan the faces, but she is not here. That much I’m sure of. I think I recognise some of the players from Fjellstrand, but I can’t be sure. Everyone was in masks there and I was freaking out most of the time. It’s been less than three months but it already feels like a dissipated dream.

Everyone’s in awkward nineties gear, so I start to feel more comfortable – shoulder pads and big hair for the yuppie roles; skinny jeans and plaid for the alternative types. The story is we’re casting acting and technical jobs for a new big-budget movie, and over the next couple of days will be living the process. I learn that most of the guests are amateur film fanatics. The show was only advertised on a few selected, very niche internet film groups, and potential guests had to apply with a motivating letter. None of them have worked professionally in film before, but all of them harbour dreams of being on set.

I can’t help asking – yet again – why they’ve chosen me.

* * *

I’m upstairs watching TV when I hear the scream. It’s a short, dismayed ‘Ow’ but it pierces through the wall and straight into me – it’s the sound of a woman in pain.