He stopped her with a finger. “Un momento,” he muttered, turning to the waitress who had appeared and ordering another bottle of wine. Leah looked at her glass—it was half-full, and she was already feeling very light-headed. She couldn’t possibly drink any more. But Adolfo turned back to her, all smiles, and before she could admit as much, he said, “Come and tell me now of your life.”
“Oh. That,” she said, rubbing her forehead a moment. “It’s really not very interesting. I grew up in Connecticut. I studied acting, worked on Broadway, like you. And then I met this guy in New York,” she said, and glanced up at Adolfo. “You know . . . that guy.”
“Oh,” he said breezily, “The bastard.”
“Right, him,” Leah agreed. “When he and I broke up—I mean, we didn’t actually break up, but it was more like . . . well, okay, he dumped me,” she admitted, and put her hand to her head again. She was feeling very woozy all of a sudden.
“And then?” Adolfo asked.
And then . . . there was so much. A shining career, a high-powered agent promising her fame and success. The huge crash and burn.
“And then I really didn’t want to be in New York anymore. So I moved to L.A.” That was all she could force herself to say. She smiled up at him; his face, she noticed, had softened. Or her vision had blurred. “Have you managed to find enough work?” she asked.
He nodded.
“That’s great. What films?”
The question seemed to take him aback. “Films, Here and there. Many films,” he said again, then sipped from his glass.
Why was he acting so weird about it? Life came so much easier to men in Hollywood that she assumed he’d worked on dozens of films. Even Brad, who really wasn’t that talented, had way more roles than she did. Granted, none of them were good roles—who wanted to be an extra Trojan in a cast of a thousand Trojans, for god’s sake? But nevertheless, Brad still had more opportunities than Leah had been able to scrounge up. And now Frances, her agent, was telling her she was almost too old to work.
Leah was beginning to feel too old for anything, and for some insane reason, an image of Michael popped into her head—sitting around a campfire, cute and perky Ariel on one side, and pretty, younger-than-Leah Jill on the other side. Neither woman had come out tonight, so in all probability, they were sitting exactly where she imagined them. Great. She hoped the three of them had a marvelous time together.
“No, no, what is this frown?” Adolfo asked, and tenderly touched two fingers to the corner of her mouth. “What has made you sad?”
Leah shook her head. “I’m not sad, I was just . . . just thinking of how long I have been in L.A.”
“How long?”
She snorted, drank more wine, then shook her head. “A lifetime, pal. A thirty-four-year lifetime.” She laughed at her own lame joke and drank more wine, and noticed, a little groggily, how Adolfo’s eyes sparkled mischievously when he laughed, which he was doing right at that moment as he looked down at her, and how his lips seemed so full and kissable.
Kisses. She liked kissing, she thought, and propped her head, which was suddenly feeling very heavy, on her fist. She liked kissing a lot, but she would rather be kissing Michael than Adolfo. Not that there was anything wrong with Adolfo, no—lots of women would be killing themselves to kiss him. And she might kiss him, but really she preferred—
“Hey!”
Trudy’s face was suddenly looming large in front of Leah’s, startling her out of her wits and almost off her stool.
“What’s the matter? You look drunk,” Trudy announced to all of Washington State.
“I’m not drunk,” Leah said. Only . . . her head did feel a whole lot fuzzier than it had just a moment ago.
“Okay, so who is your friend?” Trudy asked, smiled at a smiling Adolfo. “He’s really cute.”
“Thank you,” Adolfo said with a bow.
“Oooh, and he has an accent,” Trudy gushed. “Could this be Adolfo? The Adolfo?”
A camera lens suddenly appeared over Trudy’s shoulder, and it caught Leah off guard. Adolfo, too, apparently. He suddenly stood up and turned away.
“Excuse me,” he said with a wink to Leah, and walked in the direction of the men’s room.
“But wait! I didn’t get to meet him,” Trudy pouted, plopping down on the stool Adolfo had vacated. “Girl, Adolfo is hot.”
Leah moved to one side, away from the camera. “What is with this camera?” she demanded jabbing a thumb in the guy’s direction. “Does he have to film us?”
“What? Oh! That’s Chuck,” Trudy happily shouted to be heard over the din. “Don’t worry. He’ll make us look good. Right, Chuck?”
A man’s head appeared above the camera, and he smiled a little leeringly at Trudy. “If you ask me nicely, baby,” he drawled, and pointed his camera right at Trudy, who struck a kittenish pose and smiled seductively for a moment before turning her attention back to Leah.
“So that’s the guy, huh?” she asked again.
“Yes, that’s him, the lighting guy.”