the actress

two; in which actors begin to act

LEI
"Th..thank you"
I try my best to deliver a smile, but I'm afraid that it only slightly resembles one. Katelen takes my hand and pulls me down next to her. With a bump, I sit on the bench and pretend to grin with the rest of the new actors, until the last chooser has applied to be a director. Poor soul. The chances of her making it are low. My eyes scour the hall for Roald, or Malle, any inch of familiarity that isn't Katelen and her constant babbling and socialising with our new colleges. Malle escapes my eyes, but Roald's pale hair with his streak of blue could never hide from me. He sees me too, and gives a nervous smile, which I return with a reassuring thumbs up.
You're going to be fine.
You're going to be great.
I wish I could shake his shoulders and tell him so. I'm sort of in my own world when Katelen taps me on the shoulder, pulling me up and whispering something about going to set. Compliant, I follow in her direction.
"I hope we're placed near together. And that we're written as friends, I'd hate to be your enemy. God, imagine that, us being enemies!" She chuckles a little at the thought "Lei?" I snap my head up and manage to pull out a genuine grin for her "We'll never truly be enemies, even if that's how they write us" she looks at me, bright, youthful. We always used to tease her, because she looked so much younger than eighteen. We used to nickname her 'petit sœur' even though she's the oldest out of us all. I'll miss it, the steady friendship we all had. The days spent under the oak tree, laughing about the other people and books and what it would be like to live in the old days. Malle was always sure she was born in the wrong century. She was, she was meant to be with the girls from the twenty first, with those funny converse shoes and the two little buns on her head she loved to wear. There's no dress code, as such, rather just you wear the simple clothes from the markets with no patterns, no excess fabric. Her and Roald agree that it's far too boring for them. We used to tease them for that too, their constant love of being extraordinary.
How I'm supposed to act like they don't exist, I don't know.
We reach the set in no time. It looks shockingly like the writers town, but more trimmed, more perfect. From the front of the line, a boy calls out "oi! The grass, it ain't real!". He looks confused, at first, but then laughs in bemusement. The woman that crushed me with her welcoming hug and smile walks calmly to the front and holds her hands in the air for attention.
"Your parents will be waiting" she pauses for a moment, smiling, as various voices arise 'parents?' 'Our parents?'
"The one and only ones. They'll have your name on their boards, you'll know it's them" she gave a conservative little giggle, and lifted her hands in the air once more "they'll explain everything to you. Good luck!"
And then, out of the houses, adults appeared. Tall ones, small ones, adults were everywhere- looking eagerly for their children. Katelen took my hand for a moment and squeezed it. "Catch up soon?" She whispered "I think I've seen them!" a little squeal from her, and she was gone. I turn in a full circle, slowly, searching for my own parents. And that's when I see them. I know it's them, without even reading their board. The woman has the flaming red hair that I have, cascading down her back. I damn hope I got the wavy hair gene. The man, he's a little different, but he seems warm; he looks as if he cares about everything. I glance down at their sign, just to check that it's definitely them, and it reads: 'Lei Cooper. Nineteenth of August. Allanor and Kendrick Cooper.'
I breath in and out, today's previous events gone, erased from my mind because these...these are my parents.
I stumble towards them, my breath short, my heart rate rising in delight.
Allanor, my mother, looks me straight in the eye and a smile bursts out of her lips. "Lei" she says, beginning to walk towards me. "Kendrick, it's our Lei"
I speed up my pace towards them and it's not long until I'm running. I stop just in front of my mother, and laugh breathlessly, as she raises her hand to my cheek.
The same spot that Malle touched it.
"My girl..." she has tears in her eyes, and I'm terribly afraid that I do too.
"Welcome home" my father has his hand on her shoulder as he speaks to me for the the first time. American. His accent comes to me as a shock, although I like it. "Mum...dad..." I swallow, breathing heavily.
"You've grown so much, Lei" my father smiles softly as my mother nods in agreement.
"Well, you didn't expect me to shrink did you?" I choke out, laughing a little. They join in, both of them, and it feels good. After we stop, my father gives a nod and places his arm around my mother's waist. "Listen, Lei.." he begins "we though that we should tell you now, to avoid any confusion..."
Thoughts begin to rush through my mind, surging with a powerful paranoia. They're only seeing me sometimes. They're sending my to university. They've arranged for me to marry a stranger.
"-you've got a younger brother and sister." My father looks grim, as if he expects me to cry, or storm away, but I am the epitome of calm in this moment. Siblings. I have siblings. The corners of my mouth twitch up and a grin spreads across my face like a wildfire.
"You're...you're ok with that?" My father looks confused, and a little unsettled. I brush his doubt off, however, and wrap my arms around him into a hug "I'd say that I was more than ok"
It takes him a second, but he's soon hugging me back. My mother watches on, like one of those housewives from old films. I hope she isn't one of them. "We'll leave them to introduce themselves" she says, smiling "once we get home and get dinner cooking."
The idea of food warms me, and I take the arm that she offers me and walk in time with her and my father.
Upon reaching their home- my home- my mother squeezes my arm and lets me go. She opens the door and calls out, letting the other residents know they're home. Two pairs of footprints echo on the stairs and once I'm through the door I'm greeted by two pairs of grey eyes, not unlike my own.
"The name's Delaney." One of the pairs of eyes, a girl, speaks first. She's striking, not unlike our mother, but has the soft face and full lips that our father has. Her short hair is wild, and free, although she gives the impression that she's the formidable force that controls it, instead of the other way round. "You must be Lei. My sister." She smiles sweetly.
"Our sister" corrects a second voice, this time belonging to a boy, scarcely younger than myself. He has a hint of our fathers American drawl, but it's whisked up with an Oxford accent. How he's picked up that whilst living in Birmingham, I'll never guess. "I'm Stefan." he sneers a little, giving the impression that he's not too keen on me. I smile at them, attempting to pull off an appearance of experience, and not that I have no idea what was going on. Which, to be fair, is true.