For the first time since she’d arrived at the set, Suzanne was alone. She sat nursing her soda and thinking about her visit with Joe. She hadn’t minded taking the drug screen. She understood that these truly had to be the nice, cooperative years for her. She didn’t think of it as a punishment, not even the part about her salary being held in escrow until she finished the picture, just in case she got loaded and cost the producers money. She just figured she had to do all this until she didn’t have to anymore. It was a repair process that could go on for as long as it liked. She only wished it was for a better film—a big-budget picture, for example, or even a small, interesting art film. A high-action, low-budget film, though, was harder to reconcile.

Suzanne heard the static of a walkie-talkie transmission outside. She swallowed the last of her Diet Coke, opened the door, and followed Ted to the set.

The director, Simon Markham, was English. A nice guy. She’d met him the week before, when they’d interviewed her for the job. For all her desperation, she hadn’t cared that much if she got the part or not. She simply assumed she would never work again. Whenever she wasn’t working, Suzanne knew she’d never work again, and when, inevitably, she did work, she knew it was the last time. It was a relationship with her profession that was based on trust.

Simon was standing near the camera. He was wearing a big straw hat, linen pants, a white T-shirt, and a jacket tossed cavalierly over his shoulders. “You look like you’re dressed for a yacht,” Suzanne said.

“Oh, good morning, darling,” Simon said, almost kissing her on both cheeks. “You’re looking well.” The cinematographer asked him to look through the lens at the shot they were lining up: the scene where Suzanne and her co-star Robert Munch have been tied to a cactus by a bunch of pimps and left to die. It was a long scene with a lot of dialogue, especially Suzanne’s speech about her fear of the dark.

She watched Simon Markham deal with the crew. It was his first feature film and he was nervous, although he seemed to be assimilating his nervousness into his naturally high spirits. Now he was listening to the director of photography explain why the shot wasn’t going to work the way he wanted.

Suddenly Ted appeared at her elbow. “We’re ready for a line-up,” he said. Suzanne nodded and followed him to the cactus, where she was introduced to Robert Munch, was tied up with him, and talked to him about her fear of the dark, all before nine A.M.