“I’m not talking about your personal life, idiot.” Jamie rolled his eyes. “I’m talking about your future. Fiona is a great kid and a brilliant actress, but you know as well as I do that she’s got a lot of fucking problems.”
Sam didn’t know what to say to that. “I mean,” he hedged finally, “everybody has problems, right?”
“Not like Fiona, they don’t,” Jamie countered. “Look, I know you’re on your way out the door here to do bigger and better things, and that’s great. Fuck, I want that for you, which is why the last thing I want to see happen is you fucking it up because you can’t keep your dick in your pants around a pretty girl, do you know what I’m saying?” He shook his head. “We’ve got one, maybe two colossal Fiona screwups to go before the network shitcans us altogether. You’re smart to be getting out now. Don’t let yourself get sucked back into her drama-queen bullshit.”
Sam thought of the way Fiona had looked at him in the second before he kissed her. He thought of the way her hair had felt in his hands. He thought of what it had been like to be around her for the last few months, like watching a not-very-experienced swimmer paddle out past the breakers; and yeah, for a second tonight it had felt like she was about to tell him what her deal was, that maybe she was about to let him see some secret part of herself she kept hidden from the rest of the world, but who even knew if any of that was legit or not? After all: she was a brilliant actress.
On top of which, he trusted Jamie. The guy might not have been his real dad, but the embarrassing truth was that for the last four years he’d been the closest thing Sam had to one. And if Jamie was telling him to get as far away from Fiona as humanly possible, then in all likelihood there was a damn good reason for that.
“Yeah, no, totally,” Sam said now, waving him off. “I hear you; you’re right. I don’t exactly think we’re going to be hanging out a whole lot once I’m done here.”
Jamie relaxed. “Smart guy,” he said with a grin, slapping Sam on the shoulder. “Let’s go get a beer.”
Fiona was standing by the bar when he got back inside, something clear and icy sweating in the glass in her hand; Jamie had stopped to talk to some studio guys near the doorway, his expression bright and animated. “What did he want?” Fiona asked, jerking her chin in Jamie’s direction.
Sam shook his head. “Nothing,” he said—his voice noticeably colder than it had been outside, even to his own ears. “Just career stuff.” He ignored the pang of regret in his gut as he watched Fiona’s expression flicker warily, reminding himself of all the opportunities waiting for him outside this studio: all the big-budget films he was going to star in, all the famous women he was going to meet. Jamie was right. He didn’t need anybody’s immature Family Network baggage dragging him down.
“I should go talk to some people,” he told Fiona, squeezing her arm before turning away toward the party. “I’ll see you around.”
Erin stages an intervention the following night at a hipster Mexican place she hates but knows he likes, with spicy cilantro cocktails and carnitas made of tofu. Sam orders a tequila gimlet, trying not to think about that first night with Fiona at his apartment. The bartender smiles as she sets the glass in front of him; Sam can tell objectively that she’s beautiful, with her dark red hair and a body for days, but just . . . nothing. She might as well be a dude.
“What’s the latest with Hipster Glasses?” he tries, wanting to talk about anything else besides his own ridiculous bullshit. “You guys still hanging out?”
“Every night this week,” Erin admits a little shyly. “Turns out I knew the right amount of feminist theory after all.”
Sam grins. “That’s awesome,” he says, and means it. Erin deserves somebody great. He listens as she tells him about some arty movie they saw and the day trip they took to the botanical garden, asking questions and holding his drink up so they can toast, but the truth is that as glad as Sam is for her, his heart just isn’t in it tonight. Finally he swallows the rest of his drink in two big gulps, then reaches for his jacket. “I’m going to go,” he says.
“Wait, already?” Erin’s eyes widen. “Come on,” she says, catching his arm. “It can’t be that bad.”
Sam opens his mouth, then closes it again, realizing with no small amount of horror that there’s an actual lump rising in his throat. “Dude,” he says finally, swallowing it down with some effort, “I’m broke as shit. Like, seriously, cannot-pay-for-these-drinks broke. My career is completely stalled. Russ didn’t even say anything about another audition. I’m doing a fat lot of nothing for my family, and I just took a gigantic steaming dump all over the closest thing I’ve ever had to a real relationship with a girl I might actually be in—” He breaks off abruptly, snapping his jaws shut one more time.
Erin’s eyebrows creep, just slightly. “A girl you might actually what, exactly?” she prompts.
“Actually nothing,” Sam says, glancing around the noisy restaurant to avoid meeting her eyes.
“Liar,” Erin says primly, and nods at the bartender for the check.
Back at his apartment he puts Supermarket Sweep on streaming and makes a list of things he could do for a living besides acting. Barista, he thinks. Gym teacher at a private school where you don’t have to have a teaching certificate and they don’t care if you’ve never taught gym, or anything, ever before. He’s just typing how to become a referee in the NBA into Google when his phone rings on the coffee table. “Is this Sam Fox?” a woman’s voice asks when he answers.
Sam hesitates, a quick orange lick of anxiety flaring inside his rib cage. He just talked to his mom a couple of days ago, he reminds himself; if anything was really wrong, Adam would have called. Still, for a second he almost says no. “Yes . . . ?”
“This is Estelle Halliday,” the voice reports. “What are you doing tomorrow morning?”
Sam blinks in surprise, then looks around his filthy apartment. “I—probably nothing,” he says honestly.
“Good,” Estelle says, her diction crisp and regal. “I was wondering if you might like to try out for a play.”
Chapter Nineteen
Fiona
Fiona spends the better part of Saturday morning flat on her back on the stage at the theater, staring up at their fire hazard of a lighting rig and trying to figure out how to tell everybody that they’re going to have to cancel the show. She thought it was the noble, grown-up thing, to deliver the news in person, but now that she’s actually waiting for them to show up she feels like an asshole of the first magnitude for dragging the entire cast all the way downtown to attend the epitome of a meeting that could have been an email. She wonders if it’s too late to call them all again and tell them not to come. She’s just digging her phone out of her pocket when she hears the door open at the back of the theater and the sound of someone clearing his throat.
Fiona sits up so fast she gets dizzy, blinking out at the dark, empty house. She can’t see his face in the glare of the stage lights but right away she recognizes the broad, solid outline of his body, the TV-star line of his jaw.
“Hi,” he calls, lifting a cautious hand in greeting. “I’m Sam Fox. I’m here for an audition?”
Fiona snorts to cover the sharp, hopeful sound of her inhale, using her hand to shade her eyes. “Excuse me?”
“A gulf has opened up between us,” he tells her, voice booming as he strides up the center aisle, “I see that now. But Nora, couldn’t we bridge that gulf?” He plants his feet just before he reaches the stage—shoulders back and chest puffed, completely in character as a wounded, arrogant husband. “Can I never be more than a stranger to you?”
Fiona laughs, but the laugh turns into something else halfway out, her breath catching like broken glass inside her chest. “Why are you reciting my play to me?” she asks.
Sam drops his arms and just like that he’s himself again, his smile a little bit sheepish. “I learned it,” he confesses quietly. “I stayed up all night. I learned the whole thing. I’m ready.”
Fiona gazes at him for a moment, not understanding. “Why?”
Sam shrugs. “Because I think maybe I’m falling in love with you,” he explains, “and because I heard you needed a Torvald.” He shakes his head. “Estelle told me your guy fell off a curb or something? I don’t understand how you break your ankle falling off a curb.”
“It’s not a real thing,” Fiona agrees faintly. Then, in spite of herself, never quite as tough or cool or unbreakable as she wants to be: “Go back to the other part.”
“Sorry.” Sam smiles at that, slow and teasing. “Which part, exactly?”