The first candidate smiled at the camera before he had even begun.
Aurora turned down the volume.
"This is the introduction."
Leon took his hand off the edge of the table.
"I know."
"Couldn't tell from your face."
He looked at the screen. Aurora restarted the video.
The actor gave his name, age, and agency. Then the image changed: an almost empty kitchen, a table, a woman's voice off-camera.
The cake scene.
Aurora recognized the dialogue before the first line came.
Want a slice?
The candidate looked up. He let a few seconds pass, settled back against his chair, and gave the hint of a smile.
"Yeah."
Aurora picked up her pen.
Beside her, Leon said,
"No."
She paused the video.
"We've watched eleven seconds."
"That's enough."
Mia, sitting across the table with Rachel, leaned forward to look at the file name.
"Should I put him down as a very pessimistic maybe?"
"Put him down as a no," Leon replied.
Aurora went back to the beginning of the scene.
Thomas had sent the material that morning: an initial selection of introductions and recorded auditions, along with an email asking them to identify who deserved a second look. They still had to find the six candidates they would bring in for an in-person audition.
Aurora had imagined they would at least make it to the second line before they started arguing.
"What doesn't work?" she asked.
Leon pointed at the screen.
"He already knows she likes him."
Aurora watched the actor's movement again. The smile, the pause, the way he waited for the off-camera voice to continue.
Rachel nodded.
"He's playing it like an invitation."
"He's accepting a slice of cake," Leon said.
Aurora erased the note she had just started writing.
"We're watching the rest anyway."
Leon leaned back in his chair.
He didn't argue.
At the end of the scene, Aurora wrote a single word beside the name.
No.
Mia saw it and wisely lowered her eyes to her laptop.
---
The second candidate didn't smile.
He barely did anything.
He stayed seated while the off-camera voice spoke to him, answered without changing his expression, then went back to staring at a point somewhere beyond the camera.
Leon waited until the video ended.
"No."
Aurora put down her pen.
"At least you let this one finish."
"You wanted to watch all of them to the end."
"I'd also like to choose someone before I retire."
Rachel hid a smile behind her mug.
Leon looked back at the frozen frame on the screen.
"He's not listening to her."
Aurora dragged the cursor back.
The girl's voice started again.
The actor waited for his line.
It was different.
He was waiting for his turn to speak, with the concentration of someone afraid of missing his cue. When the voice hesitated, nothing changed on his face. When it stopped, he answered.
Aurora looked at Leon.
"So the first one does too much. The second one does too little."
"The first one wants something from her. The second one isn't interested."
"And him?"
Leon turned his head slightly.
"He's there."
Aurora stared at him.
It was an irritating answer.
Mostly because she knew exactly what he meant.
She opened the next file.
---
After almost an hour, they had rejected four candidates and left a question mark beside the fifth.
Mia got up to answer her phone. Rachel gathered a few pages.
"I need to check with Thomas to see if we already have everyone's availability for next week. I'll send you the other two as soon as they come in."
Aurora nodded without taking her eyes off the monitor.
The next candidate had used a shot that was too wide. An empty chair, half a door, and the edge of a bookcase were visible. The person reading the lines to him sounded too far away.
The actor listened to the question.
Want a slice?
He lowered his eyes to the table, then looked up again.
"Yeah."
No smile.
But when the woman's voice continued, he moved the phone in front of him, clearing the space beside his elbow.
Aurora straightened.
The scene continued.
How is it?
The guy finished chewing.
"Good."
The video ended.
Aurora didn't touch the mouse.
Leon said,
"No."
She turned toward him.
"We're watching this one again."
"He's too soft."
"Where?"
"In the second half."
"I asked where."
Leon looked at her. Then he reached for the laptop.
Aurora let him turn it toward himself.
He took the video back to the middle.
"Here."
The guy was listening to the off-camera voice. He had tilted his head and softened his gaze.
"He's reassuring her before she's even asked him anything," Leon said.
Aurora watched the scene through to the end.
"Yeah."
He moved to close the file.
She stopped him by placing two fingers on the edge of the laptop.
"Wait."
She took the video back to the beginning.
"Watch the phone."
Leon stayed still.
The actor moved it.
"That isn't in the directions," Aurora continued. "We never told him to make room for her."
"I see it."
"The others acted detached. This one thought about what to do while she was talking to him."
Leon watched the gesture again.
Aurora let the video continue.
"The second half doesn't work," she said. "But I want to know if he can change it."
"We have other candidates."
"And we'll watch them. We ask him for a second audition with a different direction."
Leon turned toward her.
Aurora held his gaze.
"I'm not saying he's the one. I'm saying I want to know if he could be."
Laughter came from the hallway, followed by the sound of the elevator doors.
Leon looked back at the video.
"Without that smile at the end."
Aurora opened the document with their notes.
"And without tilting his head every time she talks."
"Yeah."
She wrote down the request.
For the first time that morning, something other than a rejection appeared beside a name.
---
When Mia came back, Aurora showed her the note.
Her friend read it.
"A second audition."
"With specific directions."
Mia looked at Leon.
"So they do exist."
"Who?"
"People who can survive this room."
Her phone vibrated in her hand again.
Mia read the message and sighed.
"Rachel wants me in there. We have to choose the scenes for the actresses."
Aurora looked at the open list.
"I'll be there in a bit."
"Take ten minutes. At this point, you've earned them."
When the door closed behind her, Aurora sent the request to Thomas.
Leon had already opened another file.
"Let's take a break," she said.
He left the cursor where it was.
Aurora stood and walked over to the pitcher on the cabinet. She poured herself a glass of water, drank, and stayed by the window.
From there, she could see the inner courtyard. A delivery guy was trying to hold the door open with one foot while balancing three packages on top of one another.
Aurora watched him manage it on his second attempt.
"You don't have to check every answer before you give it."
She turned around.
Leon was still sitting down.
"What?"
"When you disagree. You can just say it."
Aurora lowered the glass.
"I thought I just did."
"After."
"After what?"
"After trying to find a way not to."
She opened her mouth, then closed it again.
She had missed the way he noticed things.
The way he chose to point them out, considerably less so.
"I'm trying to work with you."
"You are."
Aurora set the glass down.
"You make everything seem so simple."
Leon didn't answer.
It was worse when he didn't answer. He left her room to keep going, and she always ended up filling it.
"We can talk about shots, actors, deadlines. Then we're alone and you keep acting exactly the same way."
"What am I supposed to talk about?"
"I'm not asking you to talk about anything."
He waited.
Aurora ran her thumb along the edge of her watch.
"We were together, Leon."
Saying it out loud changed the room.
Suddenly, none of the actors on the screen were important enough to look at.
Leon placed his hand beside the laptop.
"I know."
Aurora felt a sharp response rise in her throat. She held it back.
"Then you'll understand why this isn't always easy for me."
He lowered his eyes for a moment.
When he looked at her again, his voice was still calm.
"It's been a while."
"I noticed."
Leon said nothing else.
Aurora picked up her notebook from the table.
It was exactly the kind of conversation she would have preferred to avoid: a few words, with enough space between them to hold everything she was afraid of.
She reached the door.
"Aurora."
She stopped with her hand on the handle.
"The second audition," he said. "You're right to ask for it."
She turned around.
Leon had turned the laptop, and the guy sitting at the table was back on the screen.
For a moment, Aurora almost felt annoyed.
They were already back there.
Then she looked more closely.
The video was paused on the moment when he moved the phone aside.
"Let's see what he does with a different direction," she replied.
She left before the conversation could change again.
---
There was no one in the hallway.
Aurora walked back to her desk, set down her notebook, and remained standing.
We were together.
She hadn't told him anything he didn't already know.
And yet, until that moment, neither of them had said those words aloud.
She lowered her eyes to the casting pages.
The cake scene was on top.
She remembered that night. The plate offered with an excuse, his brief answer, the way he had gotten up from the couch and joined her at the table.
But she remembered another night, too.
Long after that cake.
Two plates waiting to be washed, a window open to the summer heat, and Leon standing beside the sink.
She had asked him why he kept looking at her.
And that time, he had answered.