Page 31 of Love Scenes

Daya, good sport that she is, starts clapping. “I truly cannot wait to see this.”

“It’s going to look magnificent!” Guy chimes in. “Tyler has aplan for it that will entrance the audience! She doesn’t need this old man at all!” He sneaks in a wink to me.

Right when Dad is about to choke on a piece of the garlic bread he made, Mom and Melanie pull back, laughing.

Powell, brat that he is, has to add a punch-up anyways. “My score is going to besensual,” he assures, teasing.

He makes no mention of the fact that he’s been on set every day since the blowup between Mom and me. No other composer needs to visit daily to understand what kind of music the movie requires. Powell is there to keep the peace, because he’s always been the Mom whisperer, her last-born child but her number one lackey.

“It’ll besomething, that’s for sure.” I take the dig solely to watch Powell’s cheeks redden in indignation.

He was born with an excellent ear. Barely a day passed that Mom and Dad didn’t discuss it, even post-divorce. It was the one thing they agreed upon: Powell’s otherworldly gift for music.

“Fuck off, Sloane,” he curses.

“Fuck yourself, Powell,” I curse back.

“That’s enough of that,” Dad says, stern. “Sarai is here.”

“You say fuck all the time,” Sarai adds.

Her timing is so hilarious that Tyler and I die laughing. We lock eyes from down the table, this whole sequence uniting us so fast we’ve forgotten all that’s transpired in the last few days. The realization dawns on both of us at the same time, and we sit back in perfect unison.

“Hey now,” Melanie warns. “I don’t care what your father says in private, we don’t speak like that at the dinner table.”

“Sorry,” Sarai mumbles. Her watering eyes remind me she’s only eleven, and she can’t yet see how funny this will one day be to her.

“No, no. I’m sorry. I started it,” I say.

Mom shakes her head in disappointment. Suddenly I’m right there in the trenches with Sarai, feeling embarrassed for no real reason, fighting not to show it on my face.

Our meal continues with the usual industry talk. Mom plays coy on whether she’ll act again after this. Sarai complains about not being asked to be in the movie. We make it all the way around the table, ending on Powell explaining what he’s planning for his upcoming drag show.

No one asks what’s next for me.

Pretending not to notice, I lean into Joseph. “Who invited you to this?”

“Daya,” he tells me. It’s the most random answer of all, made stranger by the fact that he follows up with “And I have no idea why.” He takes a bite of spaghetti. “Nice company, though.”

I assumed it was Guy. Or maybe even some cruel test from my mother. Daya is a plot twist. Why would she want Joseph here? I try to recall the whole meal, remembering the few times she attempted to pull Joseph into the conversation at large, each effort stifled by someone else shifting the talk in a new direction. She’ll learn eventually that anything you want to say in the family has to get out in under five seconds or it’s lost forever.

When Dad and Daya leave the room to bring out dessert, the conversation turns to Joseph.

“Ready for tomorrow’s sex scene?” Guy asks him with a mischievous laugh. It’s cruel timing made even crueler by the fact that this is a land mine of a talking point.

Tomorrow will be another closed set.

“Sure.” Joseph’s leg presses into mine ever so slightly, some sign of solidarity that I think I’m making up until he turns to me and makes quick but meaningful eye contact, remindingme he’s very aware of the entire dynamic between my mother, him, and me.

Dad and Daya interrupt the moment by bursting into the room carrying a huge sheet cake with an active sparkler atop it, fireworking upward in an explosion of golden light. The spectacle isalmostas bright and shiny as the gigantic diamond now on Daya’s left hand.

“We’re engaged!” Dad and Daya announce in unison.

8

My mother calls me on my drive to the studio, at 6:04 in the morning. My hair is in the same half bun I slept in. Without looking down to check, I’m almost positive I have on two different shoes. I am running so behind I didn’t even stop for coffee. So there is no room in my morning schedule for an argument over today’s closed set, or Dad’s new engagement, or Joseph daring to look at me, or whatever it may be.

Mom calls again. And again.