“One reason is that our program at school has trouble competing with the bigwigs down in London, so we decided that perhaps sponsorship of the film festival would give us the right exposure at the right place. In the end, there can only be so many winners, and when the festival is over and the failed filmmakers want to quit, that’s when we want to steal them, take advantage of their low self-esteem, and bring them into our program.”
I purse my lips. “That’s a very pessimistic way of looking at things.”
“I’m a realist,” he says brightly.
“An opportunist.”
“Same thing.”
Well, we could actually use some more sponsors. “All right, well I’ll have to run this past Margaret and Ted, but I think this is something we’d like to work with you on. What’s the other thing?”
“You come work for me.”
“Excuse me?”
He looks around the closet office, squinting his eyes at a wet spot on the ceiling where it leaks when it rains (and it rains all the time. I actually have a bucket just for that). “You seem like a bright girl. I’m starting to write my book and I need a research assistant.”
“You’re an author?”
“No, not yet,” he says, looking away briefly. “But that’s what professors do in their spare time, you know. Academic papers, journals. Always writing. Honestly, I’m feeling the pressure, but I can’t do it on my own. I’m such a slow writer to begin with, and anything extra bogs me down.”
“What’s your book about?”
“Tragic clowns. Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin. Their performances in early cinema.”
Could this man be any more perfect? I’m freaking obsessed with Keaton, Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Harold Lloyd, all of them, ever since my father got me watching them when I was little. Shit, it’s tempting. Really tempting. But Professor Blue Eyes is barking up the wrong tree.
“I’m flattered, I think,” I tell him, “but there’s no way I could handle two jobs. I literally work here all day long. The intern life. No breaks, no fun.”
“You’ll only have to work a few hours a day, and if you want more work, that’s fine too. I’ll pay you forty pounds an hour.”
Forty pounds an hour? To do research on Buster Keaton?
It’s like a real dream job landed in my lap. And a job at that, not a payless internship.
But I can’t exactly leave the film fest high and dry either.
“Can I talk it over with the people here?” I ask him. “Maybe we can work something out.”
“Of course,” he says, giving me a sly smile, like he already knows I’ll be working for him. He stands up and puts his business card on the pile of scripts. “When you have an answer about both questions, give me a call.” He peers down at me with a tilt of his head. “It was nice meeting you, Natasha.”
Then he’s ducking out the door, and he’s gone.
CHAPTER THREE
Natasha
London, England
Present Day
I wake up with that uneasy feeling. You know, the one that tells you your alarm didn’t go off like it should have this morning and you’re totally fucked.
I open one eye and blink at the ceiling. The light in the room seems a bit off, and I can hear the shower running next door along with 90s gangster rap, which means Melissa is already up. I’m usually out the door way before she is.
I roll over and pick up my phone.
9:50 a.m.
SHIT.
My first class starts at eleven, and I’m all the way out at Wembley.
I leap out of bed, throwing the blankets aside, and quickly search my room for something to wear. I pick up a pair of jeans, but yesterday I spilled tomato sauce all over them when Melissa and I went to the football match. Which makes me think I didn’t take a shower when we got home last night, and there’s no way I’m showing up for Professor Irving’s class smelling like beer and meat pie.
I throw on my robe and hurry out into the hall, pounding on the bathroom door.
“I overslept!” I yell. “How long are you going to be?”
For a second I don’t think she can hear me over the blaring of R. Kelly, but then the water turns off and she yells back, “Give me a minute!”
I wait until the door opens and she appears, face flushed from the shower, hair wrapped up in a towel. “I was wondering if you were ever going to wake up,” she says. “Here, it’s all yours.”
“You could have tried to wake me up,” I tell her. “You know I have class at eleven.”
She rolls her eyes. “Who am I, your mother?” Then she sashays back to her room.
I know she’s got a point, but still. Sometimes I think Melissa wants me to fail just so I’ll be at her level. She says I care far too much about school, but after everything I’ve been through, I have no choice but to throw myself into the program. I was gone for nearly four years, and aside from a few credits here and there, I basically have to start my master’s degree all over again. The degree at King’s College is modeled differently than it was at Met, as well. Meanwhile, Melissa didn’t even go to her classes last week because she was at the bars off-campus, searching for prey.
I jump into the shower, washing my hair and conditioning at record speed. Even if Melissa didn’t go to her classes, I went to mine, and I learned what a pain in the ass it’s going to be to try and get back on track. What if there was no point in coming to King’s College? What if I should have stayed in France with my father and just left my education as it was? The fact that I have to do everything over is both disheartening and staggering.