The casting was at 9:40 in one of those glass buildings by the canal where the lobby is bigger than my whole flat. I skated there, obviously. Eleven minutes door to door, which the tram has never once managed, and I know because I've raced it. The tram knows too.
Here is the thing about arriving at a casting on inline skates: the entrance matters less than the stop. Anyone can roll through a door. The stop is the audition. I hit the marble doing a respectable pace, went low, and finished with a T-stop that squeaked like a basketball final, exactly one metre from the front desk. The receptionist looked at me over her glasses for a long moment. Then she picked up the phone, dialled upstairs, and said, and I quote, "Your nine-forty is here. You'll want to come down."
They came down. Three of them, one still holding a pastry. The client was a sportswear brand who had spent two days watching girls walk in, sit down, and hold a tennis racket like it might be evidence in a trial. What they wanted, it turned out, was somebody who actually moves. We did the casting right there in the lobby - twice past the reception desk, once backwards, one lap around a very good-natured security guard named Andris who has since followed me on Instagram.
I got the booking before I got my skates off. The producer's email that afternoon had a subject line I have screenshotted and will never delete: "the one with the wheels - CONFIRMED."
My agent keeps suggesting, gently, that I could arrive like a normal person and show them the skating after. And she's right, and I understand the argument, and I am never going to do it. Castings are memory contests. Everyone in that room is beautiful. Only one of us squeaked.