“Mallory!” she fake gasps. “This is a family show!”
I chuckle as I drop into my seat and wait for her to perform her magic.
Eight hours later, I don’t think even Cindy has enough magic to make me stay on this set another second.
“Is this going to be a problem, Mallory?” Sam asks, scowling at me so hard I want to melt into the floor.
Obviously, the director wasn’t looking for any input from me about the scene. When will I learn to keep my mouth shut?
“No, it’s fine.” Grown women ask each other to help them shower all the time for no reason whatsoever. Totally normal.
Pamela rolls her eyes but I’m not sure if it’s at me or the director. Either way, she’ll have the privilege of soaping me up in the shower when we shoot the scene later in the week.
Now that I’ve been properly chastised in front of everyone, we’re dismissed for the day.
“Total jerk-off material,” Pamela whispers when the director turns his incendiary gaze on one of the show’s many writers. “You know our biggest demographic is single males in the thirty-five to fifty-four years of age range, right?”
“That explains so much.” I slap my hand over my mouth to keep myself from laughing.
She giggles and bumps my elbow. Except for running a few lines this morning, we haven’t spoken much. Certainly, not about anything personal. I’m not sure what to say. Given that she and Andrew just broke up, and the way it happened, I don’t want to rub her nose in my engagement.
“Congratulations, by the way.” She nods to my ring.
“Oh.” I smile down at my hand. “Thank you.”
“How’d he propose?”
Since she asked, I give her the details but try not to gush too much.
“Shucks, that’s sweet.” Her voice lacks the usual mocking and actually seems sincere. “When you planning on tyin’ the knot?”
Since I don’t want to explain that we’re saving the public wedding for when my father’s out of prison, I go with a non-committal, “When everything settles down.”
“Oh, sugar, there will never be a ‘right time.’ Best do it quick, so you’ll be entitled to those juicy publishing royalties when you catch him in bed with the maid or somethin’.”
And there it is.
I’m too tired to give her a lengthy speech about how Chaser and Andrew are nothing alike. “Thanks for the advice.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Mallory
“Do I look like an innocent midwestern teenager?” I ask Chaser as I enter the living room.
He sets down his guitar and studies me. “Will you think I’m creepy if I say I totally would’ve tried to bang you in high school?” He adds an eyebrow wiggle that sets me off laughing.
“Maybe just a little.”
“Mallory,” he says more seriously. “You’re beautiful.”
“Beauty isn’t the point.”
He runs his gaze over me again. “Yes, I can see you playing a high school senior, no problem.”
“I probably haven’t worn these since I was a senior.” I run my hands over my yellow jeans. “You want to talk about being creepy, I drove by the high school last night just to see what kids are wearing these days.”
“Did you?” he chuckles.
“It was Marilyn’s suggestion. At least I have some character details. Half the time, I have no idea what the casting directors are looking for.” I bite my lip. “I still need to work on my Midwestern accent, though.”
“I doubt they’ll know the difference.”
“True. Marilyn just told me to talk “flat.” She seemed to assume the Midwest is one massive, uniform flatland of cornfields.”
He laughs even harder. “Sort of how everyone assumes if you’re from New York, you speak like a wise guy from Brooklyn?”
“Or tawk like you’re from Long Island,” I add in my best fast, hypernasal accent.
He shudders. “I’ve ridden through the Midwest and spent some time in a few states. Where’s your character supposed to be from?”
“Nebraska.”
“All right. From what I remember there’s no obvious pahk the cah kind of accent like Boston. It’s flat like she said. A more subtle merging of vowels in some words. Like cot and caught would sound the same. Stock and stalk. Dawn and Don.”
I softly repeat the examples to myself, getting a feel for what he’s describing.
“Honestly, though, if they’re Hollywood types who only spend time on either coast, they’ll never know the difference.” He holds his hands in the air. “That’s my totally unbiased, biker opinion.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Come here.” He holds his arms out and I happily wrap myself around him. He hugs me, slowly rocking