‘Okay. Well, I’ll give it a whirl. Don’t worry about payment, Evie. What’s a bit of document sleuthing between friends?’ He chuckled. ‘Just give me a couple of minutes and I’ll put everything I need on a hard drive. I never go anywhere without one! I should be able to sort through it all within the next couple of days,’ Steven said, tucking the laptop under his arm.

‘Oh, Steven. Thank you, so much. You have no idea how much this means to me,’ Evie told him, nervously checking the time as her heart rate jumped up a notch. Half of her was relieved that Steven could do it, but the other half of her wished he’d said no.

‘Anything for the Ad Lib family,’ he said, winking. ‘I’ll be back in a tick,’ he shouted to Josie, before taking the laptop through the green door again.

‘Hurry up, would you!’ Josie yelled back.

Evie looked over to Josie where she was frantically attending to a long line of people waiting to be served. When Evie looked closer, she noticed a vaguely familiar-looking woman with hair that was red, frizzy and everywhere, in the most glorious way. She stood beside two leggy, inarguably beautiful women who looked like they had just stepped off a movie set. Evie inched closer to them, then whispered under her breath, No way.

It was Florence Ivers, her old lecturer and idol—the woman she’d so desperately hoped the short film competition would win her an internship with.

She edged behind the drink station and heard Florence say, ‘I’m literally living off Diet Coke, coffee and four hours of sleep a night.’

The two models looked at her with concern, murmuring that she should take better care of herself. “Maybe try meditation?” “Or an eye mask?”

‘I don’t have the time to meditate. I’m drowning in paperwork. My latest intern from the uni just bailed to go get “real life experience” living in a commune, if you can believe that. The young ones are always so flaky. The only reason I justified coming out today was because it’s research for a new movie I’m working on,’ Florence said.

Even from Evie’s covert position, she could see big purple bags under Florence’s eyes. The threesome moved to the front of the line and began to order Pepsis and popcorn, and when Josie turned away to start preparing the order, Evie stepped out from behind the drink machine. ‘I could help,’ she said.

Josie and the three women all looked at her.

‘That would be great, thanks Evie,’ Josie said.