Free Girls on Film by Zoey Dean Page A

me.” She headed for the stairs.
    “Anna, a moment?” Margaret asked.
    Anna turned back and waited.
    “Your father told me how disappointed you were when the internship over at Randall Prescott’s agency fell through,” Margaret said. “I feel partly responsible for that—I had a terrible argument with him over one of his clients who jumped ship. He’s filed suit, in fact.”
    “That’s all right,” Anna said automatically.
    “Actually, it isn’t, but it’s kind of you to say so. In any event, I think your father has told you that I’m involved in a new startup called Apex. I’m partnering with a few maverick agents from CAA and Paradigm. We’re all taking our clients with us—it will cause quite a stir in the trades tomorrow.”
    “I wish you the best of luck.”
    Margaret smiled. “Thank you, it’s very exciting. Now, here’s my point. There’s going to be a lot of work to do. If you’re still interested in an internship, we’d love to offer you the position. It’ll be after school, though, not instead of it.”
    “Told you I’d come through,” her father put in.
    Anna was pleased despite the fact that if she accepted, she’d still have to attend high school classes. “That sounds great. What would I be doing?”
    “Some of it will be sheer drudgery, I’m afraid. You’re going to get to know the photocopy machine very well. But part of our mission is to turn young playwrights into screenwriters. Those young people need to get around town, be seen at the right places, and meet the right people. Believe me, they’d prefer to be seen with someone closer to their own age than their agent.”
    “That sounds … intriguing,” Anna admitted.
    “And of course, you’d have the opportunity to do a lot of reading—we’d encourage that. Wouldn’t want you escorting a writer around town without being familiar with his work. He’d loathe that.”
    “Or she,” Anna added with a smile.
    “Touché.” Margaret tipped her head at Anna. “You and I will get along just fine.”
    “That’s incredibly nice of you,” Anna said.
    Margaret laughed. “Why do you sound so surprised?”
    Because I’ve disliked you from the first moment I saw you on New Year’s Eve, for no better reason than that you’re my father’s girlfriend
, Anna thought.
    She didn’t say it, though.
    “I’m just pleased,” were the perfect words she chose to utter.
    “Good. Can you stop by after school tomorrow and meet everyone? Your dad has the address.”
    Ana turned toward the stairs again. “That’s fine.”
    “You won’t forget about talking to Susan, will you?” her father asked.
    “No. In fact, I’ll call her now.”
    Anna excused herself and went up to her room. She clicked on the TV as she got ready for bed. As she brushed her teeth in the bathroom, she heard, “And now we return to
Piper’s Dream
.”
    How ironic. Anna clicked off the TV Sometimes fame and fortune just weren’t what they were cracked up to be.
    She was about to wash her face when she remembered about calling her sister. Just as she reached for the phone by her bed, it rang.
    She picked it up. “Yes?”
    “Don’t hang up. Please.”
    Ben. Anna would know that voice anywhere. Her heart tap danced at double time. “Why are you calling me? There’s nothing else to say.”
    “If you looked into my eyes, you’d know that isn’t true.”
    “That’s perfectly all right, I can use my imagination,” she said frostily.
    “Or you could look out your window.”
    She paused for a moment to absorb it all. It felt strange to be the object of such a dogged pursuit. When she felt ready, she went to the picture window that over-looked the back garden. There was gorgeous Ben in a pool of light, his electric blue eyes glowing in the evening sky. The balcony scene from
Romeo and Juliet
came to mind. “
Come, night; come, Romeo
.” Anna had fallen in love with that play at age ten, when she’d seen it performed in a Broadway revival. She’d