narrative defied history, mythology, literary tradition, and all common sense.”
Lawrence sighed. “She enjoyed torturing us, once she found out you were involved. The French can be très passive-aggressive.”
His parents looked at each other, rolled their eyes, and chuckled at the memory.
Something in that fond amusement, their easy, shared dismissal of seven years of grinding work and effort and hard-won accomplishment—
One time on set, a careless fall from Rumpelstiltskin had cracked a couple of Marcus’s ribs. This felt like that, somehow. Like his chest had caved in, just a little.
Before today, his parents hadn’t seen him for nearly a year. Hadn’t shared a meal with him for longer than that.
For all their supposed desire for his company, had they truly missed him for a single moment? Could he even call whatever emotion they felt for him love, when they didn’t either understand or respect anything he did, anything he was?
His mouth opened, and suddenly he seemed to be telling them about that one role. That one script they’d hate, if possible, even more than Gods of the Gates.
“I’ve been offered the part of Mark Antony in a modern-day remake of Julius Caesar.” His voice was breezy. A lazy taunt. Unpleasantly familiar to all of them. “The director intends to make Cleopatra the main protagonist of the story.”
In the worst, most exploitative possible way, of course. Marcus had told his agent he’d rather return to bartending than work with that director and that script.
Watching R.J. and Ron willfully misinterpret E. Wade’s iterations of Juno and Dido for seven years had been painful enough. He didn’t need to lend his time and talents—such as they might be—to yet another story ready to equate women’s ambition with instability and evil. The violent sex scenes, numerous and full of dubious consent at best, had only been the poisonous icing atop a cake already tainted by toxic masculinity.
No, he wasn’t going anywhere near that misogynistic train wreck of a movie, or that genial predator of a director.
Somehow, though, he was still talking, talking, talking. “They’re all vampires, of course. Oh, and Caesar comes back from being staked somehow, intent on revenge, and starts killing senators one by one, in the grisliest possible fashion.” His most vapid smile in place, he ran his fingers through his hair. “Stylistically, it’s very Marc Bolan and David Bowie, so I’d be rocking guyliner, and in the ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears’ scene, I’d only wear a strategic coating of glitter and a smile to give my big speech. I figure I’d better start putting some chicken breasts in my pockets now, right?”
A deathly silence fell over the dining room, and he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment.
Fuck. Fuck.
Apparently, he was still an asshole teenager. Striking out when hurt. Playacting the Worst Possible Son. Phrasing the truth to inflict maximum distress, then making shit up, anything he could imagine that would horrify his parents.
He was a thirty-nine-year-old man. This had to stop.
“You’re . . .” His father visibly swallowed. “You’re considering that role?”
He almost said it. Almost shrugged and answered, Why not? The director says I’d look fantastic in the costumes.
His water glass was going to break if he kept gripping it so tightly.
He put it down very gently, removing his fingers from the fragile glass shell one by one.
The truth. This time, he would tell them the unvarnished truth, with no affectations adopted for self-protection.
“No, Dad.” His voice was even. Toneless, verging on bored. It was as much grace as he could muster in that moment. “No, I’m not considering the role. I had my agent turn it down immediately. Not because it violated Roman history, but because I deserve better as an actor, and I demand better in my directors and my scripts.”
His parents glanced at each other again, lost for words. Stunned, perhaps, that he considered himself someone who had standards.
“I’m glad you’re considering your choices more carefully this time,” his mother finally said, offering a cautious smile. “That Julius Caesar remake excluded, almost anything would be an improvement over your last project.”
No wonder they considered him the stupidest member of their family. He still hadn’t learned.
The chair screeched beneath him when he rose to his feet.
“I’d better go,” he told them. “Thank you again for lunch.”
They didn’t protest as he left the dining room, gathered his jacket and keys, and dispensed generic good wishes with a rictus smile. His father gave him a polite dip of the chin in the postage-stamp entry hall, which