Just An Ordinary Girl ~A Johnny Depp Story~

Competitive Practice

There was an explosion of cheers and Gore leaped out of his seat for the second time today and shook my hand enthusiastically.
"That's great! Fantastic!" he beamed and turned to Keira and Orlando, who were muttering something in Johnny's ear and nudging him persistently, though he appeared thoughtful. "Okay, you two go and tell the other actors and actresses and crew members we begin filming as soon as Alice's learned her lines," he said, and then turned to Johnny as the other two left his side. "Show Alice to the free trailer, please," he smiled.
Johnny nodded to me. "Come on," he smiled, taking a tiny gold key from Gore's hand that he'd just fished out of his jeans pocket, and leading me out of the little hut.
We walked down a sandy, sun baked path until we came into a clearing where a group of huge white trailers sat. Johnny laughed at my wonder-struck expression.
"This one's yours," Johnny grinned, unlocking the door swiftly. We stepped inside and I glanced around happily. It was just as big on the inside as it looked on the outside, with a plush double bed in the corner and a dressing table next to the door with a TV on it. There was a chair by the window looking out over the set, and I thought I caught a glimpse of a small lake glinting in the baking Caribbean sun.
"This is nice," I laughed, continuing to look out of the window. I cast my gaze to the side of my trailer. "Oh, who do those ones belong to?" I asked, glancing at the four other trailers.
"Well, that one's mine," he said, indicating to the one furthest away, "And that one is Bill Nighy's," he informed me, pointing to the next one along. "And next to it is Keira's and the one closest to yours is Orlando's," he grinned at my nervous expression.
"Is he always that...full-on?" I asked, frowning as I remembered the look on his face as he watched me audition.
"Uh...well, he's quite flirtatious, yeah, but even I've never seen him quite that bad," he laughed.
"I guess he really likes you!"
I blushed modestly. "Do you think I should-"
"Here's the script," Johnny cut me off, handing me the thick booklet from earlier.
"Thanks," I mumbled, taking it from him gently.
"And I'm...I'm not trying to sound patronizing Alice, but I...I'm really proud of you," he said quietly, causing me to blush scarlet.
We stood awkwardly in silence, until suddenly there was a knock on the door.
"Hold on one second, I guess I'd better get that!" I smiled and slipped off to open the door, revealing a smiling Orlando, leaning casually on the door frame.
"Hey, Alice," He grinned smoothly, his dark eyes glinting.
"Ah, so you do know my name," I said teasingly.
He blinked, stumped for a second, but then continued, refusing to be put off. "I couldn't help but notice your trailer is situated directly next to mine, so I thought I'd come and say hey and invite you to-"
"Um...I'm going to go," Johnny suddenly muttered from behind me. "I'll see you around Alice...Orlando," he nodded awkwardly to each of us and left my trailer, heading back up the path we'd just come down.
"Well that was weird," Orlando pointed out, looking amused.
"Mmm," I nodded in agreement, willing Johnny to come back here and not leave me on my own with him.
"Anyway, did Johnny ask you about it?" Orlando asked tearing his gaze away from Johnny's departing figure and focusing back on me again.
"About...?" I frowned.
"Going out sometime," Orlando said slowly, looking just as confused as me. "Keira thought we should go out and maybe grab a coffee next week so we can all get to know you. We wanted to do it tonight, but you need to get cracking with your lines I guess."
"Oh...er...thanks, but I don't really-" I began, but Orlando was watching me beseechingly with his big dark eyes.
"Okay, I'd love to," I smiled weakly.
"Great!" He beamed. "I'll make sure Johnny will be there too. I'll come and knock on your door at eight on the night, okay?" And with that he was gone. I frowned to myself.
Why had Johnny 'forgotten' to invite me?
"Ah well," I mumbled to myself, before breaking into a massive, excited smile as I gazed around my gorgeous trailer. I kicked my shoes off quickly and lay down my bed, script in hand.
I had better get started...
A week passed, and I began to feel sure I'd learned my lines. There were a lot, but Orlando, usually accompanied by Keira constantly visited me in their spare time, running through them over and over with me. They tried to act subtle, but it was obvious that they wanted to do some of the more interesting scenes, and as I was in them if I didn't learn my words they'd have to wait even longer than they already had.
I saw Johnny almost as much as them too, though it wasn't when he came and visited me...he'd barely done that so far, keeping to himself. The only chance I got to see him was watching him act out his scenes in view of my window, in full costume and full-on Jack Sparrow swagger. At one point I got the feeling he glanced across the set and caught sight of me grinning across at him from my window, watching him perform with fascination, but a second later his eyes flitted away, back to the scene, and it had all happened so quickly I couldn't be sure it had even happened in the first place...
There was a sudden knock on the door that jolted me out of my thoughts, and back to reality.
"Come in," I mumbled, frowning at the script for a second before snapping it shut, finished with it for a while. Orlando's face emerged, as he poked his head round the door and shot me a cheeky smile before slipping inside, and pulling a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket.
"Hey," I smiled, feeling slightly disappointed that once again, Johnny wasn't the one to visit me.
"Miss Cross, I come bearing important news," he grinned, unfolding the scrap of paper quickly, his eyes scanning over it. I paused expectantly.
"O...kay," he muttered, glancing up from the paper for a second. "According to Gore I have to..." he paused, before clearing his throat and reading aloud. "Orlando...make sure...blah blah blah...okay, here it is. Please make sure you teach Alice just some basic sword fighting, as it is of utmost importance she can vaguely use one for some of the later scenes," he concluded, causing me to laugh by imitating Gore's voice to perfection.
"So, you're going to teach me to use a sword?" I asked sceptically. Orlando didn't really look like the type of guy who would know about that sort of stuff.
"They're just my instructions, Alice. Not that I'd object, of course," he added quickly. I sighed, though to be honest I was in fact quite excited about learning to sword fight, and quickly grabbed my trainers and my bottle of water, following Orlando out of the trailer and up the pathway. He stopped at the set and quickly grabbed a couple of what looked like fencing swords, and smiled encouragingly at me, pressing one into my hand as we paused by the lake.
I gazed at it uncertainly. "How do I-"
"You hold it like this," Orlando answered me, taking my hand and moving it down to the hilt, positioning my arm so it was raised threateningly. "That looks about-"
"Wrong," a voice answered from behind me, and my heart leapt as I recognized it to be Johnny's. I felt a hand on my shoulder softly move my arm downwards so the weapon was lower.
"There. It was too high before," he murmured, and I turned to see him leaving quickly, heading back in the direction of the set without even shooting us a backwards glance.
Orlando cleared his throat, looking irritated and embarrassed at being corrected. "Anyway...right, basically, I'm going to come towards you with my sword, and basically I want you to deflect my moves, okay? It's just a practice. Defense is important," he concluded seriously, as I smiled, trying to look impressed and enthralled by this fascinating information.
There was no time to be sarcastic however, as Orlando moved fast towards me, his sword flashing quickly through the air. I clashed mine against his with ease, holding him back as he repeatedly tried to press forward forcefully. He blinked, looking slightly impressed as I mirrored each of his moves precisely, obviously expecting me to need a lot of tutoring.
"Oh, you're good!" he grinned, breathing heavily as our battle grew more intense. "But are you good enough for this?!" he asked, swapping his sword to his other hand at lightning speed and attempting to do some damage with the rubber-ended tip that was obviously put there for safety, but looked aghast when I once again simply blocked him.
"Oh, look at that. I guess I am good enough for that!" I teased, causing him to flush indignantly. We continued battling for several more minutes until we had to pause, panting for breath. I grinned across at him as he scowled, clearly wanting to be the best at a sport he had practiced for such a long time and took a sip from my water bottle, wriggling my fingers at the same time which had gone numb from gripping the hilt so tightly. Orlando smiled, watching me wince as they uncurled stiffly.
"Ready to stop?" He asked smugly. I glowered at him.
"No," I lied, throwing down my water bottle and getting ready for another 'practice' battle, though by now we both knew that this was so much more competitive and serious than that; this was a struggle between the two of us, trying to prove who was the stronger sex, who would break first. And it was not going to be me.
"Come on Orlando, keep up!" I panted teasingly, as our swords clashed together repeatedly, realizing that the roles between us had now been reversed; I was now the one driving him back, my moves too fast for him to retaliate. All he could possibly do was defend himself as he had taught me. I couldn't help but feel however that he wasn't putting all of the effort I had seen before into our fight this time though, his brown eyes flitting distractedly from our flashing swords to my determined face occasionally.
Quite suddenly, he dropped his weapon with a clatter onto the path, sending up a small cloud of dust, and he caught the end of mine as quick as a wink, despite my cry of annoyance that he had ended something I was winning. I opened my mouth to voice my opinion, but Orlando stunned me into closing it immediately by saying firmly, "Date me."
"You what?!" I hissed in surprise, letting my sword-arm fall to my side loosely.
"Go on a date with me," he smiled, watching me. I gazed at him, grinning.
"Are you serious? Look...no offense...I'm really flattered, but I...I don't need to go on a date with you anyway! We're already all going out tomorrow night!" I said a bit pathetically.
"Yeah, but I'm talking about a date. A date alone, without the entire cast of Pirates of the Caribbean!" he said seriously, before we both started laughing at how ridiculous that sentence had sounded.
"Look, I'm sorry...but no. Just no," I grinned, shaking my head. He stared at me, his expression unreadable, before shrugging.
"It was worth a try," he sighed, smiling casually. "I'll ask again later, shall I?" And with that, he was gone, heading back towards the set breezily, not looking remotely disheartened.
I grinned in surprise, before shaking my head in despair and dropping my sword down next to his. Upon turning around, I saw that Johnny was standing at the edge of the set in full Jack Sparrow costume, observing the scene that had just happened between us with his kohl-rimmed eyes, a slight grin on his face.
"What's funny?" I asked, sauntering over and gazing at him defiantly, my hands on my hips. He shrugged.
"Nothing. Got told a funny joke just now, that's all," he said, still smiling amused. "You fight well," he added, before turning on his heel and leaving me to watch him go with an expression of confusion on my face, and a severely aching hand...