"Come on everyone, let's do this again. Concentrate on what you are doing so this will be our last try and we can move to the next scene in the morning." The man said strictly as he raised his head from the camera and looked directly at the handful of actors standing in front of him.
"Remember," he added with a deep sigh hinting at impatience, his eyes boring into the only woman's within the group, "you are in an awkward elevator ride with a group of strangers. There's nothing to laugh, or giggle about..."
"Fine, fine, I get it." She said, trying to conceal her own impatience as she preceded the men into the fake elevator, lights and cameras following their every move.
She forced herself to look serious as her eyes met Neil's-- he stood right at her side again, shrouded head to toe in a flowing black cloak like the other guys, the corners of his lips twitching with a suppressed smile, soliciting a corresponding smile from her too easily. This was going to be a very long evening...
"No, you do not smile, Juliana, for goodness' sake! Not again. You are going to visit your father, who is unwell. Be a good girl, remember that and stay serious until Lucas says his line!"
"Ok, I promise. Come on, let's get this done." She replied as the rest of the guys crowded the glass box-- a would be elevator-- and the transparent doors slid closed behind them.
The projection of a cityscape blurred beyond the glass wall creating an impression of a moving elevator, the effect strengthened by the light shudder of the four glass walls.
Juliana blinked, acting out an attempt to blink away tears of pity for a sick father. She let her gaze stroll from the impressive view of a sprawling city gilded by the long rays of the setting sun she could not appreciate because of her grief to her companions, pretending to notice their weird attire for the first time.
"'So, I bet you're wondering why I've gathered you all here today," Lucas intoned, repeating the well memorized line for the umpteenth time that day, his gloved hand reaching for the emergency stop button.
"Stop, perfect, well done everyone!" The words reached them through the glass even as Juliana burst out laughing.
"Come here, silly girl," Neil said, pulling her into an embrace. "Let's grab something to eat, it's been a long day."
"That's your fault, if you did not make me laugh all those times..."
"You two! Either you start behaving yourselves as professionals or I won't let you do any more scenes together, understand?"
"Yes, boss," they said in unison, and, holding hands, headed toward the changing rooms.
Their colleagues' eyes followed them down the hall like the rumours of them being together, a couple. But despite what everyone was thinking, they were friends, fullstop. Juliana wasn't ready to take the next step, not just yet... There was something about Neil, in the way he spoke or looked at her sometimes, that never failed to conjure up the image of her father in her mind, making her want to giggle in the most inappropriate moments.
After the meal they took in the company of a pair of their friends and a couple of drinks alone later, Neil walked with Juliana to her nearby flat and left her, sighing, once she offered him the usual chaste, friendly kiss outside her door.
The moment she let herself in her phone rang, her sister's name flashing on the screen the only source of light in the dark flat apart from the weak beam of a street lamp.
She listened to the flood of her sister's words, not leaving the tininiest gap for Juliana to say a word, switching on the lights then taking her shoes off, until it finally stopped.
"Hi," she said then, "I'm sorry to hear that Dad felt unwell again, but really, you know as well as I do that there's nothing wrong with him, we took him to all the doctors we know... Anyway, I have an morning off tomorrow. I'll go to see him... Yes, don't worry... No, you don't need to come, I know you have no one to leave the baby with and it's pointless to drag him to the other end of the city... Good night to you too."
When Juliana got up the following morning, later than usual, she tried to call Neil to let him know where she was going. However, all she managed to do was leaving a message, his phone was off.
He must be at the set already, Juliana realised as she got ready and took the elevator to the garage, then tried hard not to think about her reasons to keep their relationship at friendship as she drove across the city, happy that she had woken up late and thus had avoided the worst of the rush hour.
It was just like her father to live in one of the tallest, poshest buildings, she mused as she parked at the curb outside the entrance. She shook her head, trying to fight the sudden sense of vertigo as she looked up, towards the windows of her father's penthouse, perfectly invisible from where she stood. Juliana smiled at the uniformed doorman who rushed to open the door for her, then, chattering amiably, accompanied her to the glass elevator offering a magnificent view of the city as it rose from the ground.
Surprisingly, the elevator stopped only a few floors higher and a group of strange men, all dressed in black suits, poured inside, pushing Juliana flat against the glass.
"Hey, watch out!" She complained, trying to see the stranger's eyes standing closest to her through the dark lenses of his sunglasses.
She gasped when she recognized him. "N... Neil. What are you doing here...?"
Her voice broke even as another man, apparently their leader, said, "So, I bet you are wondering why I've gathered you all here today."
Several things happened contemporaneously then. The man pushed the emergency button making the lift shoot upwards at triple speed. And while Neil stretched his arm towards her to prevent her from falling, she recognized their leader.
"Dad?" She whispered, unbelieving. "What the..."
"Oh, hello, Juliana, I didn't know you were coming. But as you are here... This is my younger daughter, everyone, she's the one who will take this mission from me when the time comes..."
Juliana tried to understand something, anything as she clung to Neil's strong body, the only thing that seemed real, while the world as she knew it blurred to nothingness and started reforming into some weird, new reality.
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