Page 25 of Love Scenes

This shifts the mood between Joseph and me. Our waiter makes another attempt at getting our food order. It’s Joseph this time who tells him we won’t be getting anything more. He throws two twenties on the table, and we exit.

Joseph waves at the group as we walk past, and I call out a goodbye.

They break out into hysterical laughter once again.

As soon as we’re in the car, Joseph wastes no time picking up where we left off before the interruption. “The way I behaved on that set was clearly a much bigger thing than anyone let me believe. I really am sorry, Sloane.” He reflects for a moment. “You said something the other day when we were rehearsing. I’ll butcher your words, but it was something about how saying sorry doesn’t fix it. Changing does.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s what I was thinking about when the girls came up to us. I want to put the money I made from that shoot towards something else. A charity or organization of some sort. Is that appropriate? And I’m not talking about your foundation. I do plan to donate to that too, by the way. I could look into names of the crew members who worked on that shoot with us. See if I can sendthem something? I don’t know what I’m saying really. Just that more should be done and that seems a good place to start.”

“That’s a good idea,” I say. Truthfully, it is. But it’s also entirely too much, processing his desire to do real, tangible things to make amends for his past behavior. I lean my head against the window, watching storefronts pass by in a neon blur. “I left set yesterday because my mom accused me of wanting to sleep with you.”

The car takes an unexpected swerve to the right.

Joseph’s hand presses across my chest as if he could somehow hold me back from harm. “Shit. I’m sorry. Thought I saw a squirrel. Your mother saidwhat?”

“That I missed my chance to sleep with you in Ireland,” I elaborate. “And since I’m not playing Elise, I must stop my quest to bed you so that this well-oiled production machine isn’t ruined by our hot-and-heavy affair. And because of that I learned that no one in my family believed me when I said you were terrible to work with. So there you have it. That’s why I didn’t show up today.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

I turn up the volume on the music, filling the quiet with Crosby, Stills, and Nash, paying close attention to my cuticles. Headfirst and silently panicking.

“That’s fucked,” Joseph says after a while.

“Indeed.”

We spend the rest of the ride in silence.

When Joseph parks in my driveway, he almost leans over to hug me but thinks better of it and stops. “You’ve got about every right to never come back to set again. I understand if you don’t. But if it matters, I haven’t had an acting coach I liked until you.And I’ve been a foolish bastard. Never realized that I’ve only had good scene partners up to now too.”

He’s trying, but it’s late, and I’m tired. “It’s a blessing you can’t understand until you’ve worked with someone who sucks.” I get out of the car and put a hand up in goodbye, ready to crawl back into my corner of the canyon, needing solitude and darkness to make sense of what’s just happened.

I spent an evening with Joseph Donovan, and he wasn’t insufferable.

6

On my return to set, day five of production, I opt for a slow approach through the soundstage, detouring solely to see how I’m greeted. Tyler catches sight of me first, waving from a distance then making a hard pivot in the other direction, busying herself with anything but me.

My mother sees me next. She says nothing at all.

My stepdad throws out a jovial “Hello, Sloane!” with a big gap-toothed grin, and it is scraps to a starving dog.

I subsist on it all the way to Joseph’s trailer, reminding myself that I am back because I’ve found a way to be truly valuable to a production, and for the first time in my life, it’s not only because I’m the daughter of famous people.

Fanfare is simultaneously the lifeblood of my craft and the bane of my existence, because praise is a drug that must be given in exact doses. Too much and you’re left embarrassed and vulnerable. Too little and you crave it.

Then there’s the worst-case scenario: expecting it and receiving nothing at all.

Joseph is ready for my arrival this time, opening the doorbefore my fist can knock. “You came,” he says, eyes wide and smile grateful.

“Who knows what would have happened if you were left to your own devices too long.”

“Chaos,” he assures me. Despite my firmly rooted desire to never be impressed by him, he manages to hit the exact sweet spot I’m missing. “See your mam yet?”

“I did. She looked at me and kept walking.”