I went over to Michelle. "Don't panic," I said.

"What was I thinking?" Michelle said. She ran both her hands through her hair.

"You just memorized the wrong scene, that's all," I said. "It's nothing to worry about."

Michelle rolled her eyes at me. "Tom, the scene has four lines," she said. "Don't you think I should have figured out it was the wrong scene?"

"Well, I think that the fact you're only line was 'yes,' should have been a tip-off," I admitted.

Michelle looked restless. I quickly held my hand up. "But — even so. It was an honest mistake, Michelle. You need to roll with it, and do the scene right." I took her hand and clasped it, lightly. "You can do it, Michelle. Just be calm."

"Did you see how that woman looked at me?" Michelle said.

"I get the feeling that Avika Spiegelman doesn't get many thrills out of life," I said. "Think of her as an object of pity, not of fear."

"She made me feel like an idiot, Tom. Like I'm back in grade school and the nuns are out to get me."

I grinned. "That's a pretty good simile, Michelle," I said.

"A what?" Michelle said.

Rajiv came back in the office with scripts in hand.

"Listen," I said. "Practice the scene with Rajiv. I'll track down Roland and schmooze the man. It's what you pay me the big bucks for."

Michelle smiled wanly as I exited.

Roland's office was tucked into a corner of the studio lot; to the left were huge sound sets. To the right was a little park in the center of a collection of offices. Roland was in the little park, standing. Avika Spiegelman stood next to him. As I got closer, it became clear that Avika was chewing Roland out over something. Before I could hear what it was, however, she saw me approach, clammed up, shot Roland a look and walked away from him. He stood there, a rueful little grin on his face, as I came up.

"Looks like you two had a nice chat," I said.

"Lovely," Roland said, watching Avika walk back into the office. "It reminded me of some of the more painful dental experiences of my life."

"Up the anesthesia," I suggested.

"Or simply get defanged," Roland said. "Which is, now that I think about it, the process I'm undergoing at the moment. Tom, would you mind terribly if I had a smoke?"

"Not at all," I said.

"Thanks," Roland said. He fished out a Marlboro, and lit up. "I'm trying to quit," he said. "But I'm afraid now's not a good time."

"The audition is that bad?" I said.

"Well, Tom, we haven't really had the audition yet, have we," Roland said. "We have to actually have lines read to see if they're being done properly."

"Ouch," I said, on behalf of my client.

Roland picked up on it. "Sorry about that, Tom," he said. "I'm don't mean to run Michelle down. She's a lovely girl. And I'm afraid I haven't been straightforward with her or with you about this reading."

"What do you mean?" I said.

Roland took a long drag on his cigarette before answering. "To be brief," he said, "I have less than a month left on my option for Hard Memories. If I don't have the lead cast by that time, I'll lose the option. The buzzards are already circling, you know."

"I didn't know," I said.

"Yes. Well, that's why Michelle is having a reading today, not because of your own work last week. In fact, once it became clear Ellen was going to drop, I told Rajiv to do whatever he could to encourage Miss Beck to read. I don't really expect her to be brilliant, mind you. But if she was passable, I thought I might convince Ms. Spiegelman to let us make the attempt. Michelle is, as you say, quite a draw at the moment."

"Not to be rude, Roland," I said. "But why does it matter what Avika thinks? You're the director and producer."

"Funny about that," Roland said. "One of the conditions the Spiegelman family put on my optioning the official biography was the right of refusal for the lead actress. At the time, when I had everyone from Ellen Merlow to Meryl Streep interested in the script, I considered it the least of my worries."

"I take it that Avika isn't impressed so far," I said.

Roland used his cigarette as a pointer towards the office. "In our conversation prior to your arrival, Ms. Spiegelman declared that she's met pets who are smarter than Miss Beck."

"Well, so have I," I said, truthfully. "But they haven't brought in $300 million with their last two films."

"And I wish you the best of luck convincing Ms. Spiegelman with that argument," Roland said.

"I didn't realize you had so much riding on this audition," I said.

"That's why I said I was sorry, Tom," Roland said. "I wasn't entirely honest with you on the matter. I don't know that it would have changed anything if I had; still, I try to be more honest than the typical Hollywood producer."

"You have other projects in the pipe, I'm sure," I said.

"No, not really," Roland said, and brought back the rueful smile. "I'm a prestige producer, Tom. One of those fellows you hire when your studio has been cranking out one too many action films, and you need to throw in an Oscar contender to prove you still care about the art of filmmaking. None of my films actually make money. Even The Green Fields only broke even, and that after video. So I tend to work one project at a time. I've been thinking about that Kordus project, but you know where we are on that one. Which reminds me, have you looked at that script yet?'

"I did," I said. "It's very good." Actually, it wasn't just good, it was astonishingly good. And written by a 23-year-old film student. Reading it, I had made the mental note to myself to get him to hire me as his agent, or steal him away from whichever one he currently had.

"It is, isn't it?" Roland puffed a final puff on his cigarette and threw it to the ground, snuffing it out. "If I don't manage to pull this project's chestnuts out of the fire, I'll have a nice long time to fiddle with it. Come on, Tom. Let's get back for the second act." We headed back.

Back in the office, Rajiv had pulled up a chair and was sitting with Michelle, going over scene 29. Avika, upon seeing Roland and me enter, pointedly looked at her watch and then at us both. "Well," Roland said. "Are we ready to begin again?"

Michelle looked for me, uncertain. I smiled back at her and gave her a thumbs-up signal. Rajiv rolled his chair back and took his position behind the video recorder. Roland sat down again and nodded to Avika. Avika recited her line.

My phone rang.

"Sorry," I said, after everyone glared at me. I ducked out of the office.

It was Miranda. "Carl wants to know when you're getting into the office," she said.

"Probably not long now," I said. "Michelle is self-destructing at the moment. Did he say why?"

"He mentioned something about someone needing a dog ASAP, and that Marcella would have details," she said. "I have no idea what that means. It sounds like code, and I've lost my secret decoder ring."

"I know what it means," I said. "But I can't. I have to be with Michelle this afternoon. I promised her I would go with her to have to her latex mask made."

"I'm just passing along messages," Miranda said. "I can't give you permission to defy the orders of your CEO."

I sighed. "Is Carl in right now?" I asked.

"Let me check," Miranda said, and put me on hold. My hold music, I was shocked to discover, was Olivia Newton-John. I was going to have to have someone drag my Muzak out of the Seventies. Before it became thoroughly intolerable, Miranda came back on the line.

"Marcella says he's in a meeting right now but can schedule three minutes for you if you really need it. She also notes that his tone indicated that you probably don't want to need those three minutes."

The door to Roland's office opened up and Roland popped his head out. "Tom," he said. "I think you'd better come in here. We've had a development."