The camera’s red light flicks on.
With shaky hands, I administer first aid to the prone body of an invisible McCarthy as he slips in and out of consciousness, blood pumping from his wound. I look up at my husband standin and start to talk.
The scene is going fine until I hear something raw in my voice. There’s an almost imperceptible crack in the way I tell my husband that I still love him. And the full force of the words I’m saying hits me, the sadness of them, because after everything the man I love has done, I do still love him. It’s pathetic but it’s true. I do still love George. Even though he’s deliberately hurt me, even though he left me for dead, I still want him so much. I miss him so much. And suddenly I’m talking to my George. The barriers between O’Neill and me disappear and this is my chance to talk to George, even if George looks like a forty-year-old gay casting director. And suddenly all the script’s lines, as hackneyed as final-episode lines can be, are eloquent and fluid and exactly the questions I long to know the answers to—but I know can never really be answered.
Why did you do it?
Why did you lie to me, for so long?
When did things change between us?
He tells me he’s not the man I thought he was. But I never thought he was anything but himself. He tells me he tried for too long to be something he wasn’t.
I ask him what kind of a man he wants to be.
George looks away, his eyes won’t meet mine. And then I tell him that if he goes, I won’t follow him. I tell him to go. To run away. I don’t care where.
He looks at me sadly, he doesn’t believe me, he thinks I’ll make things harder for him. I suppose, in a way, that was always our problem. He isn’t going to go without hurting me. He’d erase me rather than run the risk of having me get in his way.
So I make my decision, kneeling over my wounded friend, to do what I have to do to survive. My husband looks away for a second, and in that moment I pull my hidden weapon from the back of my waistband and turn it on him. He freezes. I hold him in my sight, finger on the trigger. And suddenly I—Mia—I realize I would do it too. If this really were George, if he had done this, I would do this. I feel a hot tear roll down my face and I let my weapon recoil back in my hands.
When I look up, the execs are staring back at me, rapt, and George is gone.
I had forgotten about them.
The casting director turns off the camera with a nod.
I hastily wipe my eyes and scramble up from the carpet. I take a breath and dust gross office floor crumbs from my knees. God, what a weird job this is.
Realizing the show is over, executive eyes flutter hesitantly back to iPhones and laptops. I get a couple of fair play nods and a broad smile and a thumbs-up from one of the women as I gather my things and say my goodbyes.
Once we’re out in the corridor, the casting director pulls me to one side, close and conspiratorial. It’s a bit closer than I’d ideally like as I’m pretty sure my mascara has run and I’m strongly aware that I need to wipe my nose. But I’m interested to see where this is going.
“That was fan-tastic!” He clutches my upper arm firmly for emphasis. “Seriously. You in town for a few more days? God, tell me you are?”
“Yeah. Three weeks, actually.” I smile.
“Fantastic. You…missy”—he jiggles my upper arm again for emphasis—“are my new favorite actor.” He says this with a level of intensity that, I’m not sure he is aware, could have been specifically designed to terrify British people. Also, I note, he still has absolutely no clue as to what my name is. I am apparently now called Missy, not that it really matters. “I’ll call…” He flounders for a second. “Who are you with over here again?”
“Michael Spector at United.”