Chapter 242

Back in my room, I immediately set Julian to work on his assigned task: teaching Elva more magic tricks. This time he had a pack of playing cards and started to show Elva how to shuffle them. Elva’s tiny hands could hardly wrap around the deck. When she tried to shuffle like he showed her, it made a big mess.

Elva looked at the mess nervously at first, then her wide eyes found Julian’s. She probably expected him to yell at her.

Instead, he just laughed. “We’ll work on that.”

Seeing his bright smile and laugh, Elva immediately mimicked it, until they both were a giggling mess in a sea of cards.

I couldn’t help but feel warmth watching them. It was nice to see so many people I care about making each other happy.

I wondered if some of my hostility was related to the changes in Julian. He was usually so confident and charismatic, but put him in the room with Bridget, he shifted into a shy schoolboy. It was pretty alarming.

To see him shift back just as easily gave me a sense of relief.

Elva and Julian played with the cards for a while. Julian correctly guessed Elva’s chosen card every time. Elva made a mess of the deck every time she tried to cut it. It was chaos and fun, and when it was over, I felt a little sad that it had ended so soon.

Julian left Elva for a moment. She was busying trying to flip the cards between her fingers like Julian could do, but of course, her small fingers struggled to grip the cards, let alone turn them.

Julian came to join me instead. I was sitting at a small table with a cup of coffee, not doing much of anything. Julian took the open seat beside me.

“Something’s bothering you,” he said.

I hated how transparent I was, that everyone who cared about me could see straight through me as if I was made of glass.

Still, I thought Bridget might be too sensitive a subject. Julian would likely only deny he acted differently around her. Or worse, he would clam up and stop talking to me altogether. Julian’s feelings for Bridget ran deeply, in ways I didn’t truly understand since I didn’t know the full story.

But, with a laundry list of things that were bothering me, it wasn’t difficult to simply jump to the next thing.

“I’m nervous about the upcoming event,” I said.

“The stage play?”

I nodded. “I’m not sure I would make a convincing actress.” I was very bad at hiding my true thoughts, for instance. Or my true emotions.

“Oh, it’s not that hard,” Julian said. “The only thing you have to do is not care a tiny bit about what anyone else thinks.”

I laughed. “You make that sound so easy.”

“Isn’t it?” Julian grinned.

I groaned good-naturedly. “No!”

“Here, come here, I’ll show you.”

Julian stood from his chair and I stood too. He walked closer to me.

“We don’t have the script yet, but consider this. A man, much like me, comes walking into your life with no right to be there, and you want to tell me off. How would you do it?”

I rolled my eyes.

“There!” he said, pointing. “That’s perfect.”

“I’m rolling my eyes at you, Julian, not at the character you are trying to play.”

“Same difference,” he said.

“No it’s not!” I laughed.

“It is if you imagine I’m the one doing it.”

“You are ridiculous,” I said. “This is never going to work.”

“Humor me.”

Julian continued his lesson for a while yet, though as we spent more time laughing than we did any actual training, while Julian shot off totally useless phrases like, “Be the person you need to be,” and, “Acting is like dancing.” Whatever that meant.

After a while, I began to suspect he was just trying to make me laugh. Maybe putting me at ease was part of his helping me?

I didn’t know. By the end of Julian’s visit, I had no misconceptions that I was going to be a better actor, but I did at least feel better about it, knowing Julian would be there to support me and make me laugh.

Later that afternoon, the candidates were called into the ballroom to start practice for the show. I immediately found Veronica, who seemed totally indifferent beside Susie, who seemed so nervous she was about to shake right out of her skin. Her eyes kept darting around. She worried her hands together.

Tiffany was helping pass out the scripts for Bridget, who seemed to be handing out orders like they were candy. Nathan took the full brunt of it. Bridget, at his ear, was waving his arms in dramatic fashion.

I waited patiently until Tiffany reached us.

“Isn’t this great?” she said as she gave us each a copy of the script. “I’m so excited. Bridget says I’ll have a big part.”

Bridget says? Wasn’t this supposed to be a competition for the candidates? Why would Bridget get to decide anything?

I looked at the title of the script. Fated Love Forever.

A love story.

A love story with only one romance. Who would be the leads?

“Are we going to do auditions?” I asked Tiffany before she could get away.

“Oh, no,” Tiffany said. “Bridget already picked the parts that are best for us.”

“She did?” Susie asked.

“Yes, each of your scripts are marked,” Tiffany said.

Susie immediately opened her script, reading through. I did the same.

Obviously, I wasn’t selected as lead. In fact, the more I looked, I didn’t see any lines at all. Wait. There was one.

Exactly one.

And the line was assigned to a nameless character: Maid.

I frowned. Okay, so I knew I wasn’t the greatest actress, but… to not even have a name? I felt like I was being set up for failure.

Since Tiffany seemed to be so in the know, I tugged her arm to get her attention. “Who are the leads?”

I knew Bridget would be one, of course. Surely Julian would be the male lead. Out of him and Nicholas, Julian would be the better actor by far. Nicholas was far too earnest.

Tiffany looked at me and her bright smile wavered. “You aren’t going to like it.”

I knew before she said a single word who the leading man would be.

“Nicholas,” Tiffany said.

I looked across the room, where Bridget had stopped giving direction to Nathan to talk to Nicholas instead. He was holding his script and frowning out it. Every now and then, he would motion to the edge of the room, where Julian was talking with Brian. Julian was frowning again.

Olivia and Lilliana, nearby, were frowning too.

As a silence swept over the room, Olivia raised her hand.

“You have a question, Olivia?” Nathan asked.

“Forgive me,” Olivia said. “I am just curious how these parts were decided.”

She was being diplomatic. We all wanted to know why Bridget got to decide anything. But if Olivia so obviously called out Bridget, a favorite of the crown, she would diminish her own standing.

Bridget placed her hand on Nathan’s arm, stopping him from replying.

“I can cover this question, Nathan,” she said.

He nodded, allowing her.

“It’s simple really. As a professional actress, I’ve been able to assess your abilities these past few days that I’ve been here. So, I assigned each person the part that would be the absolute very best for you to excel. These are the parts you were born to play.”

I looked at my script again.

The parts we were born to play…

A maid?