Shall I tell you a joke about butter?
Better not, it might spread.
Silence I can do.
Unfortunately, by the time I’ve squeezed through the yelling paps – sunglasses on, baseball cap tugged firmly down – the class is in full sway. Jemima’s crouched in the corner, pretending to lick her leg; Zach is roaring; Ivy is bouncing across the room on her haunches and Mia is sliding on her stomach, making sssssssss noises.
My phone pings.
A selfie of me uploads to my Instagram: I’m lying on the floor, smiling, surrounded by paper butterflies.
I shudder. Genevieve needs to be paid overtime.
‘Come in, Faith!’ Mr Hamilton calls. ‘Put the mobile device away and pick an animal! And sunglasses and cap off, please! You’re not in Hollywood now!’
Embarrassed, I remove them and blink.
Diego is soaring round the room with his arms held out rigid: every now and then he swoops on Theo, who squeaks and tries to climb under a chair. Rafe and Zoe are charging at each other.
Swallowing, I try to work out what animal I am. Shame mouse is already taken.
‘Ah,’ I say. ‘I think I’ll be—’
‘Keep it to yourself, please! Interact with your classmates without telling anyone what you are! Let your actions speak for themselves!’
So I roll up in a tight ball and put my hands over my head. Then I wait for the noise to stop.
‘Great!’ At last, there’s a loud clap. ‘Take a break, everyone! After this, we’ll be using Spolin’s theory to explore living in the moment of the scene!’
Stiffly, I unroll from my ball and stand up. Good luck, Mr Hamilton. My grandmother’s been trying and failing to teach me that for a solid year.
My classmates have headed straight to the sofa corner, where they’re keenly discussing this morning’s exercise. (‘What was up with your eagle, Diego?’ ‘I was a kestrel.’)
Awkwardly, I pull my cap on, fix my sunglasses and go and sit with them, hunching down as small as possible in my seat. Keep yourself to yourself, Faith.
My phone pings again. Surreptitiously, I glance at it: it’s me in a blue ballgown, spinning in circles.
Ironic, really, that before Photoshop my waist was eight centimetres thicker, my biceps more defined and that dress was actually yellow. I shove the phone back in my pocket.
‘Who is this Spoon dude anyway?’ Jemima’s asking.
‘Viola Spolin was a very famous theatre academic and acting coach,’ Rafe says with a small eye-roll. ‘I personally lean more towards method acting as demonstrated by Lee Strasberg.’
‘Is he the guy that invented jeans?’
‘No.’
‘What about Chekhov?’ Zach is looking at the itinerary for the rest of the week. ‘Is that the same thing? Meisner? Adler? Uta Hagen? Who are these people?’
There’s a collective silence.
‘Well,’ Rafe intones, ‘why don’t we ask the famous girl? She must know everything about the world of acting.’
They all turn to me with expectant faces.
Don’t say anything.
‘Umm.’ I hunch down further as my phone pings again. ‘Chekhov is more about a physical body connection. Meisner encourages actors to respond directly to the environment. Adler emphasises imagination over emotional recall, Hagen tells students to insert their own experiences into a scene while Spolin focuses on improv.’
Then I tug my baseball cap over my face. I’ve spent a long, tedious year learning that stuff; it seemed churlish not to answer the question.
Sorry, Genevieve.
‘Why are you even here!’ Zoe throws her hands up. ‘You already know it all! If I was you, I wouldn’t be wasting my time with us lot. I’d be at A-list parties, eating caviar, making out with really beautiful—’
‘BECAUSE SHE CAN’T ACT!’ Rafe roars. ‘Have you not been watching? She is terrible. She’s the worst in the class! Fame means nothing if you don’t have the talent to do anything with it!’
I think I’ve found Mercy’s dream boy.
‘Actually, Rafe,’ Zoe says witheringly, ‘the Valentines are bona-fide acting royalty. We’re lucky to share air with one of them.’
And I’ve just found Grandma’s dream girl.
My classmates turn to stare once more, and suddenly I’m so sick and so tired of always always always keeping my mouth shut.
Something inside me pops.
‘He’s right,’ I say, taking my stupid sunglasses off and tossing them on the floor. ‘I can’t act.’
A warm tingle rushes through me: whoosh.
‘I’m sure you—’
‘Nope.’ Another whoosh. ‘I. Can’t. Act. At all. If you want the truth, I’m in this class because I am so bad at acting, my family are terrified that I will single-handedly destroy their precious reputation.’
OMG, that felt so good.
The class blinks and it’s like the floodgates have opened and I can’t stop, don’t want to stop …
‘What’s a cow’s favourite party game?’ I take my baseball cap off and rub my bald head. ‘Mooo-sical chairs. What do you call a fake noodle? An impasta. Want to hear a joke about construction? I’m still working on it. What did the cheese say to itself in the mirror? Hallou-mi. What’s green and has two wheels? Grass, I lied about the wheels.’
Bewildered silence.
Whoosh.
‘Yeah,’ I say, grinning wildly.
Whoosh.
‘Can’t tell jokes, either. No timing. Not funny. I don’t like dogs, and what kind of monster doesn’t like dogs? I wear the same pair of running leggings for, like, eight days in a row and frankly they smell and it’s gross. And look.’
I pull out my phone and it obligingly pings with a new post on my feed.
A picture of slender brown feet wearing silk ballet shoes.
‘That’s not even me.’ I show them all. ‘An extremely irritated blonde is sitting in the back of a limo stuck in traffic somewhere, updating my social media. I don’t even have access to my accounts any more. Everything you read about me is fake. Always has been.’
Silence.
But I’m suddenly warm all over – and so freaking relieved I could cry. Scarlett was right. I don’t have to care what they think, I don’t have to care what they think, I don’t have to care what they—
‘Erm.’ Zoe coughs. ‘I photoshop my nose smaller in every single photo I post online, wear loads of make-up and hashtag “no make-up”. You’re not that special, Faith Valentine.’
‘I once pretended to go to Glastonbury,’ Ivy chips in. ‘Got all dressed up, took photos of me dancing at the back of a field. Never been. Hate crowds.’
‘Ooh!’ Theo claps his hands. ‘I faked a girlfriend to make my ex jealous! My flatmate took a photo of me on the sofa with my eyes shut and I posted it with: Hate it when bae watches me sleep #newlove.’
‘I buy expensive clothes I can’t afford, tuck the tags in, take photos in them, hashtag “ad” and “influencer”, then send them back.’ Jemima flushes.
‘I fake hobbies,’ Diego admits loudly. ‘A lot.’
‘My boyfriend and I hate each other,’ Mia whispers. ‘We spend all day screaming and I cry and I cry and then, when he’s stomped off home, I post a picture of us, curled up on the sofa together, and put hearts all round it.’
‘I pay for followers,’ Zach admits, grinning. ‘I’m followed by, like, sixteen thousand robots in Russia.’
We all instinctively turn to look at Rafe.
‘Pathetic,’ he says, wrinkling his nose. ‘What kind of world are we living in? I eschew social media.’ He pauses, then looks at the floor. ‘But my dachshund’s account is pretty awesome. Do you want to see it?’
Everyone is now howling with laughter. Bent double, snorting, making ugly ack-ack-ack noises. Every time one of us makes eye contact, it starts all over again. We’re all so busy editing a perfect version of ourselves, we don’t notice everyone else is faking it too.
‘Right!’ Mr Hamilton returns. ‘Make a circle!’
In one united motion, the entire class drops to the floor and puts their hands over their heads. Then we all collapse in hysterics.
‘Very funny,’ I laugh as warmth and brightness flood through me until I’m shining everywhere. ‘Now I get it.’
And I don’t feel famous any more.
I feel seen.