mind took him on a downward spiral that started with spilled coffee and ended with tanking his career.
The next scene showed Carmen at work, interacting with her assistant, and then her father. Ashton tuned in enough to catch his cue from Peter, then sat up straight, calling on all his years of experience to speak his lines while mentally beating himself up for blowing his first impression with Jasmine.
They got through the reunion scene, but a later part called for an argument in Spanish.
“You have a lot of nerve coming back here to ask for my help,” Jasmine said from beside him.
Ashton was so attuned to her every movement, he didn’t miss his cue. His character shot back a retort, which he delivered in strong, rapid Spanish. He paused at the end of his lines, waiting for Jasmine’s response. It was supposed to start with, “¿Y quién diablos piensas que eres?” A sort of, “Who the hell do you think you are?” And then she would put him in his place.
Except Jasmine stumbled over her lines, messing up the vowels. She paused, stared intently at the script in front of her, and he imagined her repeating the words in her head. She started again and made it through the entire passage, albeit slowly, and without the fierceness she’d displayed when speaking her lines in English.
They finished the scene, but Jasmine’s difficulty with Spanish puzzled him. Ashton replayed the coffee moment over again in his head, recalling her long pause and the way she’d stared at him after his poor attempt at a joke . . .
Wait, was it possible she didn’t speak Spanish?
Carmen in Charge had a bilingual script, cast, and crew. It was a big part of the promo for the show. How was this going to work if the lead actress wasn’t fluent?
He listened to Jasmine work her way through a scene in Spanish with Miriam Perez. Maybe he wasn’t being fair. Jasmine’s accent was spot on, even if her pronunciation was a little inconsistent.
It was something he particularly worried about for himself. While his English was good, he still had an accent and sometimes came across idioms he didn’t immediately recognize or that didn’t translate easily to Spanish. Would wider American audiences accept a new leading man with a Puerto Rican accent? A few Spanish-speaking actors had achieved success—guys like Javier Bardem, Diego Luna, and Gael García Bernal. Was there still room in that lexicon for Ashton Suarez?
The sudden silence made him blink. Jasmine stared at him expectantly. No, not just Jasmine. Everyone was staring at him. Puñeta. It was his line.
In his rush to flip the page, Ashton knocked over his drinking glass. Lemon water splashed all over his script and the table. He shoved back his chair before it could get on his pants. To his left, Jasmine leaped out of her seat like she’d been stuck with a pin.
Ashton imagined a sinkhole opening beneath him and swallowing him up. That would be preferable to whatever was happening to him today.
“Did it get on you?” he asked under his breath.
“Not this time,” she answered.
It was amazing how much mortification could feel like heartburn.
A pair of PAs rushed in with paper towels to sop up the mess, and Ashton leaned back to get out of their way. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Too much caffeine.”
Jasmine turned a laugh into a cough.
She was laughing at him. Was it a good laugh? Like a haha, we have a shared joke about coffee kind of laugh? Or a bad laugh, like, you clumsy idiot, always spilling drinks?
He didn’t dare look at her to find out, and everyone was waiting for him. His neck felt hot. Another PA handed him a fresh script. This time, he would give it his complete attention. Something he should have been doing anyway. On any other set, on any other day, he would have.
But today . . . today sucked.
Somehow, Ashton got through it. Even though nerves made his skin feel too tight, and he couldn’t stop fidgeting. He was like Yadiel trying to sit through Sunday mass. It was the most awkward table read he’d ever participated in.
Marquita made her closing speech, and this time, Ashton listened.
“That was a great start, team! I’m so excited to be embarking on this journey with all of you. Now, enjoy the rest of the weekend, and I’ll see you at the studio Monday morning, bright and early.”
Before Ashton could turn to Jasmine to apologize for almost spilling another