Page 51 of Two-Step
I blink. “What do you mean?”
Shetsks,looking at me like I’m slow. “With Jonathan, of course.”
I screw up my face. “The director?”
“Don’t make that face, Iris,” she hisses. “You’ll have lines between your brows before you’re thirty and you can forget about landing roles like this one.”
I make my face go blank. Thank God for acting classes. I can completely change my expression with almost no warning.
“And, of course, I mean Jonathan Reynolds.” She throws her hands out and looks from left to right. “What other Jonathan do you know?”
I ignore this jab. “What do you mean? Missing an opportunity?”
“You don’tpay attention to him,” she accuses.
My spine straightens and my stomach knots. I go over the last four weeks in my mind, thinking of every exchange, every cue, every instruction I’ve gotten from my director. As far as directors go, Jonathan isn’t bad. He’s patient. He gives clear expectations, and he’s open to artistic interpretation. Most of the time.
I might not agree with all of his calls, especially with the way he thinks Raven Blackwell should deliver some of her lines, but I’ve done everything he’s asked of me the way he’s asked. And the one time he shot down one of my suggestions, it was no big deal. I totally respected his call.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Moira. I think we have a good rapport—”
She puts up her hands to silence me, and I stop talking.
“Yes. Yes. That’s all fine. In fact, that’s what I’m trying to say. You get along great,” she says, her eyes widening. “I think you should make the most of that.”
I frown. “O...kay?”
She stares at me with a loaded look. Silence descends.
I stare back. My stomach growls.
Moira rolls her eyes at the ceiling and gives an exasperated huff. “You should beniceto him. Flirt a little.”
“What?!”
Moira has never—ever—suggested I flirt with anyone.
She gives a little shrug. “He’s single. You’re single.”
I gape at her for a second. “So?”
She looks at me with something between a smile and a sneer. “His star is rising, especially with the studio. It wouldn’t be such a bad thing for the two of you to be seen together.”
“Seen together? Like out? On a date?”
“Well, what else?”
“But, I’m not…” I pause and debate whether or not to keep going, but it seems relevant. “I’m not attracted to him.”
“Pfft.”She waves her hand like this is trivial. “I’m not telling you to marry him. I’m telling you to flirt. Go out on a few dates. Preferably in public, and if someone snaps a picture of you holding hands or kissing, so much the better.”
My eyebrows climb halfway up my forehead. “I-I-I realize he’s at a good point in his career, Moira, but what would that possibly—”
She cocks her head at a surly angle. “The last candid anyone tagged you in was a picture of you, Ramon, and your friend eating subways on a park bench.”
“They were poboys,” I correct.
Moria scowls. “Beneath it was the caption, ‘which one is Raven ravishing?’”
