charge way more than that.”
“Yes, you should.” Coffee. She would be putting on some coffee at work right now. Kai wouldn’t drink it. She would put a kettle on for his tea because apparently proper tea didn’t come from K-cups, the pretentious bastard.
He would have to make his own tea. It was okay. He was a big boy.
“There was another reason I had to come,” Sarah admitted.
Kori could guess. “You have to be at work in a couple of hours.”
“I got Lila Daley to swap shifts with me. No. I had to come to make sure you’re still here at the end of the night. I heard what you said to Erin.”
“You were listening in?”
“It’s a hobby,” she admitted. “Also, no one tells me shit. I know you don’t tell me shit because I gossip like a schoolgirl, but you have to know I wouldn’t gossip about this. Kori, there’s no way Kai meant what he said.”
She’d heard this argument. She was still considering it, but she didn’t particularly want to talk about it at the moment. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve been thinking about finding a new job for a while.”
“What are you going to do now? Sling some burgers?” Sarah frowned her way. “Oh, maybe you can get a job as a maid.”
“My mother was a maid. I’m not sure where you’re going with this.”
“There’s nothing wrong with hard work, but this isn’t your job. It’s not what you were born to do. I’ve seen your movies.”
She felt her cheeks go pink. “I told you not to watch those.”
“Yeah, well, as we’ve learned this morning, I don’t always follow orders,” Sarah pointed out. “I’ve watched all of your movies because you’re my best friend and that means I’m your biggest fan. You’re so good. You’re funny and real and I love your characters and I want to know why you’re wasting it all? Why would you throw away your career and god, I need to understand why you would throw away Kai. I need to know those things because I’m pretty sure you’re also ready to throw away me.”
“It’s not like that.” But wasn’t it? Hadn’t she had friends in California that she’d distanced from? They’d done nothing wrong, but she’d stopped calling, stopped sending e-mails.
She’d simply stopped. Was she doing that again?
“I think it is. Serena gave you that script last week. Have you even picked it up? You told her you would help, but you shoved it to the side.”
Guilt sat in her gut over that. She knew she should be further along. “I read it. I made a few notes.”
“Then why haven’t you called her?”
Because getting back into that world meant opening herself up again. “You don’t understand what it’s like.”
Sarah stared at her. “Then tell me. Make me understand why you would ignore such an obvious gift. I thought about it all night. I think everything comes back to what happened to you in Hollywood. It’s why you won’t fight now.”
“I was criticized every single day.”
Sarah shook her head. “You had a shitty Master.”
“It wasn’t just Morgan. It’s everyone. You put your heart and soul into your work every day and once a year you get called in for a performance review with your boss. I got fifteen performance reviews every hour of every day, and it’s all on the Internet. My dialogue is stupid. The plot of this film desperately needed to find a writer whose head wasn’t stuck up her ass. Do you know what that’s like? And every minute of every day I was terrified that it would all be over.”
There was very little sympathy in Sarah’s stare. “That’s tough on you. No one in the whole world has ever had that happen.”
“Don’t be a bitch.” Very few people had to deal with that level of scrutiny.
Sarah waved her off. “I’m simply saying that we all have our issues. You had the greatest job in the world. You got to make a living doing what most people would kill to do. You don’t see Jared out there crying and quitting because some people think his show is stupid. That man gets told every single day that he’s a bad actor. Guess what—he doesn’t believe them. He gets up and does his job and he’s thankful for it.”
“No, apparently he murders people when the going gets tough.” Kori closed her eyes in shame. “I didn’t mean that.”
“I’m glad because he didn’t do this and if he’ll let me, I’m going to stand by