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  It’s easy for Etienne. He’s A-list now. He’s forgotten what it’s like to be starting out. Despair slams me. Plus, his looks work in his favor.

  “Hey, Lily,” Nic yells. “There’s someone here to see you.”

  It’s Pat Landsberg, striding across the studio. She stops in front of us and smiles. “Good afternoon, Lily. We need to talk.”

  “You turned Damarais down but you still want us to write the termination letter to June?” Mom says after they arrive at Uncle Mike’s and we’re sitting at the dining room table. She shakes her head. “I don’t understand. What happened?”

  I grip my soda. “It doesn’t matter.”

  You need a more homogenized look.

  Maybe surgery would have made me easier to cast, but easy isn’t always better. Changing my face would have been selling out. I couldn’t do it. And I can’t talk about it with my parents yet either. It’s too painful.

  Mom studies me carefully. “The sparkle is gone from your eyes. I don’t like to see that.”

  “I’m tired. It’s been a long week.” I tap the script Pat gave me. “This will make it better.” I look at Dad. “You’ll call June, right? And the lawyer after that?”

  Yesterday at the studio, Pat was highly critical of June. I don’t think she likes Damarais much either. When I told her I’d turned Hill and Taylor down, she suggested I forget about having an agent. She told me to hire a good entertainment lawyer instead. She gave me the name of a lawyer she trusts and then handed me a script. “We want you to play Meagan,” she’d said. “It’s an amazing part about the daughter of a congresswoman. Meaty and deep. The kind of role that doesn’t come along often. Especially for a newcomer.”

  “Pat’s contract is complex. Maybe June should take a look at it,” Mom says to Dad.

  “No!”

  In unison, their heads pivot to me. “June knows about the role of Meagan,” I admit. “She asked Pat to cast another one of her clients instead.”

  Dad’s mouth drops open.

  Mom’s eyes widen. “Really?”

  I nod. “Yeah. And she hasn’t been around much these last few weeks either. She’s been busy meeting with casting directors and doing stuff for her other clients.”

  “No wonder you have issues with her.” Mom looks at Dad. “Lily’s right. We need to terminate her contract.”

  I don’t want to think about June. I slide the script across the table. “You should read this. It’s a great story.”

  Dad gulps the last of his tea. “If you take this on, you’d be shooting in Washington for over two months.”

  “I know.” And that’s the catch. We don’t know anybody in DC. “But opportunities like this don’t come along every day. And I know I said the same thing about the role of Iris, but it’s true. I can’t turn down good offers this early in my career.”

  And it is a career, and I’m in it for the long haul, but I’m still a newbie and I need to make smart choices about roles.

  Mom looks at Dad again. “Mother could fly down and stay with Mike. I could go with Lily. Be her chaperone.”

  Mom would do that?

  “With the amount of money they’re offering, I could take a temporary leave of absence from work,” she adds. “Lily can afford to pay me to act as manager for a couple of months.”

  Mom’s right. The fee is huge. Massive.

  “We could rent a temporary apartment,” Mom adds. “It’ll be summer. Lily won’t have school, so the timing works well. You could join us after. We’ve never seen the east coast before.”

  Dad clears his throat. “Let me make some calls.” He picks up the script. “And we’ll need to read this. Without an agent, Lily needs us looking out for her.”

  No one will care about your career as much as you, Etienne had said. He was right about lots of things, but he was wrong about that. I jump up to hug Mom and Dad. My parents care as much as I do.

  An hour later, I’m standing in front of the closet, wrapped in a fluffy bath towel and trying to decide what to wear for dinner out, when there’s a knock on the door.

  “Come in.”

  It’s Samantha, white mug in hand and wearing the ugliest green sweatshirt ever created. “You owe me two hundred and fifty dollars. Some guy named Sean came by and—”

  “Ssssh!” I yank her into the room.

  “Watch the coffee,” she screeches, holding her mug up.

  I slam the door and retrieve my robe from the bathroom. When I come out, she’s in the easy chair, her feet propped up on the bed. “He says you were supposed to meet him here at seven last night.”

  I was, but by the time I finished with Pat and got home, it was after eight. And Sean was the last thing on my mind.

  Samantha’s eyes are unreadable over the rim of her white mug. “He says you were paying him to do your math homework.”

  I retrieve my purse. “Yeah, and if you tell my parents, I swear I will kill you.”

  “Seriously.” She smirks. “You paid him?”

  “Yeah, I paid him and I feel rotten about it, but please don’t tell my parents,” I plead. “I’ll tell them myself. They need to hear it from me.” I’m not sure when I’ll tell them—maybe at dinner, maybe when we get home—but I will. I hand her the money I’d set aside for Sean. “You might be a math whiz, but I’m only half Asian. I don’t do numbers.”

  Startled, she stops her mug midway to her mouth. I brace myself. Here it comes. In her eyes, I’m not Asian at all.

  “You think because I’m full I can do math?” She snorts. “Science, yeah, but not math. Mom’s had a tutor on retainer since I was ten.” She runs a finger around the rim of her mug. “It must be a family thing if numbers mess us both up.”

  A family thing. Warmth unfurls in my belly. I cannot believe she has said it.

  She averts her gaze, picks at a stray thread on her ugly green sweatshirt. “I could show you some stuff. I mean, if you want. You don’t have to, but numbers are numbers anywhere, and the tutor showed me some tricks.” Her cheeks are flushed when she finally looks up. “But if you want to do it yourself—I mean, with Sean—that’s okay too. I totally get it.”

  Sam’s nervous, I suddenly realize. Not snotty but shy. “Sure,” I say. Because I still have to write the final. And now that shooting’s nearly done, I owe it to myself, and to my parents, to at least try. “That would be great.”

  “Cool.” She gulps more coffee. “Mom said—” She stops. “I wonder—” She stops again. “Could I come watch a shoot? I’m on reading break next week. Mom said she’d drive me. Would that be okay?”

  The warmth spreads through me. “Of course. My mom and dad are coming Monday. Come with them.”

  “Great.” She fidgets with her hair. “Do you think you could…I mean, I kind of wonder…would you introduce me to Etienne Quinn?”

  There’s a crazed, dazed fangirl look in her eyes. So like me. I smile. “For sure.”

  She blushes. “He’s, like, totally hot.”

  I grin. “The hottest thing since fire. Plus, he smells.”

  She wrinkles her nose. “Smells?”

  “Like maple-sugar bacon.”

  She frowns.

  “He does.” I start to laugh. “And seriously, it’s the best smell in the world.”

  Laura Langston is the author of Last Ride, Hannah's Touch and Exit Point in the Orca Soundings series, as well as teen novels and picture books. Laura lives in Victoria, British Columbia.

 

 

 
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