Extract from Take Two (Chapter 12). It’s Elektra’s first day filming on RAW (playing Straker), she’s waiting with Naomi her chaperone and it’s time for her to meet Eddie…
‘Hello, hello!’ A very blond guy wearing chinos and carrying a clipboard knocked on the open door of my dressing room and came straight in, followed by the short shorts’ wearer that Amber had tortured at the health and safety talk. ‘So, the plan for today!’ announced the blond guy. ‘Mr Havelski is running ahead of time, so we’re bringing forward Straker’s call time.
Naomi looked horrified. ‘But Elektra needs to eat breakfast, Eddie!’ I’d already eaten two croissants in the back of my limo – breakfast wasn’t my problem.
‘There’s time for breakfast if she multitasks,’ he said firmly. ‘The new schedule is as follows: we’ll convene at meeting point 1C at seven thirteen a.m.’ I looked at the clock on my wall. It was now 7.08 a.m. ‘From there you—’ Eddie pointed his pen at Naomi – ‘can marshall our Straker—’ he paused and waggled the pen at me – ‘over to Hair and Make-up at eight twenty a.m., where she can have a little something to eat and drink while she’s having a blow-dry.’ He made it sound like he’d planned me a spa day. ‘Then get her to Costume at nine twenty- five and then swiftly on to meeting point 3A on Sound Stage A, where we’ll—’
‘Eddie, where is meeting point 1C?’ Naomi interrupted him wearily.
‘Well, Naomi. Meeting point 1C was clearly marked on the second set map I handed out yesterday morning.’
‘Could we not just meet at the set?’
He looked at her like it was the year eighteen hundred and she’d just suggested women should have the vote. He consulted his clipboard with such aggression that a lock of extremely blond hair actually fell out of place.
‘He’s hungover,’ mouthed Short Guy to Naomi.
‘Actually, Andy, I think you will find I am not hungover. It was indeed a bit of a mad one last night and it may be true that I found a lobster costume among six other inexplicable ... items in my bed this morning. But I got up at six a.m. and did my abs to Abba. And I am feeling much better.’
‘You did your what?’ snorted Naomi.
‘I did my abs to Abba.’ I was beginning to respect Eddie. He was a male in his early twenties who didn’t feel the need to justify his love of Abba.
‘I usually do legs to The Mikado, but I wasn’t feeling up to singing along to opera this morning,’ he said, as if that completely cleared up our confusion.
Naomi (who I’m confident had never listened to, far less exercised to, Abba) checked her watch and consulted her own clipboard. It was a stand-off. ‘Can we just leave it that I’ll get Elektra to set no later than ten a.m.? I have no idea where meeting point 3A is, so we’ll meet just inside the main door.’
‘Meeting point 3A is just inside the main door,’ said Andy, who was trying and failing to be helpful.
Eddie glared at Naomi.
Naomi glared back. ‘It’s my job,’ she said fiercely. ‘Why don’t you go check on Carlo Winn? He’s unchaperoned. Also I’m pretty sure I heard him doing abs to One Direction earlier on.’
It was a lie, but an effective one.
*