“Just as a side note, you’re the most infuriating person to have an argument with.”
He looked surprised. “We’re not having an argument. We’re discussing your immediate future in your chosen occupation.” He flipped through another couple of pages of the script and considered her shrewdly. “I suppose it’s only fair that you get the screen bug out of your system. This doesn’t seem like complete trash.”
“I do not have the screen—”
“Have you been offered the role or are you still auditioning?”
She hesitated. “I had—have,” she corrected hastily, “a callback for a third audition next week.”
“Had or have?”
“Have. I have another audition next week.”
She didn’t like the way he was looking at her.
“You’re faltering.”
“I am not. I’m just...” Lainie realised she was chewing on her thumbnail again and removed her hand with an exasperated sound. She sighed. “I have...reservations.”
“About the role? Don’t do it, then. Listen to your instincts.”
“Yes, well, my instincts are telling me it’s a great role, and I would be rubbish in it.”
His eyebrows went up. “You’re nervous.”
She set her chin mutinously.
“Get over it.” Richard was uncompromising. His eyes didn’t leave her face. “You wouldn’t get a callback if they didn’t think you had the right potential for the part. If you get it, and you want it, you do it well. And you believe you can do it well. There’s no room in this industry for self-sabotage. There are plenty of people who will claw you down at the first opportunity. If you let them, you shouldn’t be there. Time to look into teaching.”
Lainie was silent.
“You’re a competent actor. Grow a spine and act like it.”
“I seem to have downgraded from ‘talented.’” She looked at him. “You don’t believe in coddling, do you?”
“Do you need to be coddled?”
Sometimes. Particularly at certain times of the month. But not, apparently, when it came to her career. Sarah’s sympathy for her nerves, when they’d spoken about it on the phone, had made her feel even more uncertain. Richard’s dictatorial straight talk made her sit a little taller.
She looked from the script to his cool expression. “Thanks.”
“For the record, I still think you would be better off sticking to the stage.” He carefully returned the script to the coffee table. “And I think you’ve misinterpreted the character’s emotional response on the second page.”
His eyes went to her phone, also lying on the table. “Is that a relative?” he asked idly, looking at Hannah’s photo on her screen background.
Lainie’s gaze also went to the freckled smile. “That’s my little sister. Hannah.”
“Cute.”
“Yes, she was.”
He stopped moving. “Was?” he asked after an extended pause.
Lainie picked up the phone, wrapping her fingers around it. It was a protective gesture, as if she could physically hold her sister’s memory close, safeguarding it from any insensitive response.
“She died from cervical cancer.” She never whitewashed the circumstances; she wasn’t going to hedge about her sister’s life and death to avoid a conversational gaffe. “About eighteen months ago, when she was sixteen. She was one of the youngest reported cases.”
For at least thirty seconds, he said nothing at all. She knew; she was counting in her head. Stress tic. Eventually, and very, very gently, he reached over and took the phone from her resisting grip. He turned it over to look more closely at the photo.
“She looks like you,” he said, and Lainie smiled faintly.
“I always thought so. She didn’t.”
“It’s the eyes. Green as the sea and full of devils. She looks like a handful.”
“Are you implying, by any chance, that it runs in the family?”
“Would I be so uncivil?”
Her smile grew. “She was a handful. She was a moody, stroppy little piece of work with too many piercings and at least one tattoo Mum didn’t know about. She could get under my skin like no one else on earth.” Her eyes turned ironical on him. “At the time.” She added calmly, “And she was the relentless, pesky, foulmouthed light of my life.”
“Hence the charity.” Richard’s face was unreadable. “You launched Shining Lights yourself?”
“Not exactly. I made a general nuisance of myself in some very influential buildings to get a few balls rolling, but it’s a subject that unfortunately hits close to home for a lot of people. They came forward, a foundation was established and things have taken off from there. We have a great director. Albeit a slightly misguided one when it comes to organising a Fun Run during the coldest autumn in five years.” She took back her phone, rubbing her thumb over the screen.