Free Undeniable by Liz Bankes Page A

trousers with slightly less messy hair than usual. He brushes it away from his eyes and fiddles with his collar.
    ‘Well, this feels wrong.’ He wrinkles his nose.
    ‘It was your idea!’ I reply, hoping that he’s changed his mind.
    He’s making out like I dragged him here. He was the one who spotted the poster for the Friday evening television-industry event on a notice board in the Student Union. Then we talked about
how awful the idea of networking was. He told me how Heidi Adams had told him he should ‘totally’ go tonight, because he could ‘totally’ get an agent and
‘totally’ get some advert work. I told him that if he wanted to take the advice of a total knob that was up to him.
    He thought it over for a moment. ‘We could go and laugh at people being dicks. And there’s free food.’
    So here we are.
    We haven’t talked about the kiss. Or sleeping in his bed.
    I’m wearing my green skater dress, jazzed up with my gold heels. It’s a dress that keeps the boobs under control. They went a bit wild the other day when I was wearing a strappy top
and had to run around and find some extras who had gone missing. One of the cameramen kept making comments it.
    I take a breath and try to look more awake. To be honest the last thing I wanted to do was come out after spending all day doing things like making lots of half-eaten Pot Noodles – so that
a scene with Tom and Priya arguing while he eats one could be shot lots of times – and holding a branch out of shot for
an hour
.
    I emailed Mia to ask if she thought it would be a good idea to make up a fake name for the evening, but she said not to. I said it would be good in case I did anything awful and then
they’d be looking for someone else, but she pointed out that there would probably be people from my work there who would know me anyway. She does spoil my fun sometimes.
    Granny said that the mingling and free drinks were all part of the fun. She put the emphasis on ‘free drinks’.
    Spencer turns to me as we go in the door. ‘So if it’s awful, we leave?’ He holds out his hand to make the bargain.
    I go to shake it and then stop. ‘Not until after I’ve found the canapés.’
    He nods. ‘Deal.’ We shake on it, and his touch is electric-jolt time again.
    As I scan the room, I realise that none of the other actors from
The Halls
are here. I suppose they’ve already made it and don’t need to come to things like this. Except I do
spot the angry skull man who produces the show. His name is Colin, but I think Angry Skull suits him better. I’ll definitely need to avoid him.
    Looking out of the windows is actually okay if you pretend that the view is just a picture and we are not really hundreds of metres in the air. It’s amazing – miles and miles of
twinkling lights.
    Spencer swipes a couple of champagne glasses from a tray near the door and hands me one. In the meantime, a woman with a round face and pointy nose has approached us. She tells us eagerly, and a
bit spittily, that we need to put on nametags and points us to a table with labels and pens on it. The temptation is too much. I look at Spencer.
    ‘I have to do it,’ I tell him as I scribble my chosen name onto a label.
    Spencer leans over to read it and laughs. ‘And who will I be?’ he says.
    I take another label. ‘You can be called Storm and your job is Clown.’
    It is hilarious watching people’s eyes flick down to our nametags as they walk past us. So far we have mingled only with each other. The event isn’t that busy, with it being the
holidays, and most people seem to be students. They must have come up specially for this, judging by the expressions of desperation as they search the room for anyone who might be important.
    Then Spencer and I are approached by a girl who is quite wide-eyed and is doing a smile that is so big it must be hurting her face. Her nametag says
Helen
and underneath she’s
written
actress, writer, director, performance pot
. I am