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reminded Sarah that they didn’t know what happened here.
    Just a fainting spell, some kind of an attack?
    Another … accident?
    “So, you’re feeling better?” Sarah said brightly.
    The actress produced a small laugh. “Why, yes. I don’t know what happened — but to be honest, I feel ready to get back to work. Don’t need the crew getting any more mad at me.”
    Jack came closer, nodded. “Don’t think you should worry about them right about now, Zoë,” he said. “Important thing, find out what happened, get better.”
    “Well,” she said, “I’m just feeling a bit silly. Something a teenager would do. Maybe it was not having that breakfast? Doing that big scene on an empty stomach …”
    Sarah looked at Jack. Outside in the waiting room, they had discussed what might have happened. But with no information, for now it remained a mystery.
    Though neither of them used the word ‘accident’.
    “And you’ve seen a doctor?” Sarah said.
    “Yes. Soon as they wheeled me in here. Then again, a while ago. But — well, I haven’t been told anything. How is Alphonso dealing with this? He must be frantic — and so mad!”
    Having seen the sputtering director in action — all that crazed intensity — Sarah could well imagine that he was none too happy scrambling around to shoot other scenes with his leading lady in hospital.
    “Don’t know,” Sarah said. “We came straight here.”
    The actress nodded. Then she reached out for Sarah’s hand.
    “Thank you for that. Was feeling kind of alone on the set. Having the two of you — like guardian angels,” she said smiling, “makes a ton of difference.”
    “Glad to be there for you, Zoë. We were wondering … has anything like this happened to you before …?”
    Zoë looked away.
    Finding out what had happened would depend on the girl’s complete honesty and trust of them.
    She shook her head.
    Then, she said quietly … “Once …”
    *
    Jack had pulled a pair of chairs close to the bed, and he and Sarah sat down.
    “When I spent a summer performing with RADA. And I just felt, well, that I should trim down. You know, actresses, needing to be so thin and all that.”
    Sarah nodded. Not a fear that was unknown to her. She knew the pressures young women were under, had felt them herself … and she now looked at Chloe hoping that she was strong enough — and supported enough –that any unhealthy habits could be avoided.
    “So — I cut my food intake to bits, lot of yogurt, fruit. Not much protein, I’m afraid. Then once, while rehearsing some wickedly athletic scenes from The Taming of the Shrew , I spun around …”
    A grin, and Sarah could almost see it as Zoë described it.
    “And when I stopped the room kept spinning around. In minutes, I fell flat on my face.”
    “Oh, dear,” Sarah said. Then smiling back … “Does fit that play though.”
    Zoë laughed. “Yes. No one made a big deal of it. But one of the directors, a woman with white hair who’d make the perfect grandmother if she wasn’t also the fiercest director ever, came up to me. And she said one word …”
    Jack looked at Sarah. They waited …
    “And that word was: eat.”
    A pause.
    She knew how to deliver a line …
    “So I did.”
    And they all laughed.
    “Put in a lot of hours at Pizza Express,” the actress said, still laughing.
    And when the laughter subsided …
    “And today, that felt the same?”
    Zoë hesitated.
    And then: “No. To be honest, not at all, save for the collapsing part. That was the same.”
    “So what did today feel like?”
    “Well, I was off to the side while they reset the scene, the lights … and then when Alphonso called ‘action’, I walked onto the lit set. And then—”
    The actress looked away.
    “First, it felt like a tightening in my stomach. All of a sudden — wham! Then the room went blurry … I could feel my heart racing. Barely felt myself collapsing to the floor. And next thing I know — I’m here.”
    “And that