The dressing room was small and functional, the kind of space that came with remote locations. A mirror ringed with lights. A couch that had seen better decades. A table covered in scripts, notes, and coffee cups in various stages of emptiness. Outside, the crew was setting up for the next scene — the distant clatter of equipment, voices calling instructions, the particular hum of a production in motion.
Franz sat on the couch with his script open in his lap. He'd been reviewing the same scene for twenty minutes. The words were familiar now — he'd run them enough times, but he kept going over them anyway. It was easier to focus on the script than on the decision he'd been turning over in his mind for weeks.
The door opened. Monica entered with a cup of coffee in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. She set the coffee on the table in front of him without being asked.
"You've been staring at that page for half an hour," she said. "You haven't turned it once."
