Page 88 of Love Scenes

“My mom hated Melanie until she was best friends with her. You’ll win her over eventually. She’s not as tough of a sell as she seems. I think I finally got her to like me on the day we wrapped. Give yourself another thirty years with my dad and you’re set.”

“Perfect. Alex will be edging ninety and I’ll finally have the begrudging approval of his first ex-wife!”

I laugh. “Sounds about right.”

We eat over friendly conversation, Daya filling me in on how this season ofLucky Strike has been going so far. “Exhausting,” she says. “Never write your own show and then star in it. Except do. It’s a blast. But learn to love being awake more than you love the sight of your own pillow.”

We talk about her life before she had her break. She tells meabout her parents. How they’re extremely proud of her now, but she had to bust her ass to earn it from them. She shares that when her show premiered, everyone in her entire family made T-shirts with her face on it. Anytime she visits relatives, at least one of them is wearing it.

We go over some of the projects I’ve been in to read for lately. Glori and my agents have been scraping together a truly mixed bag of auditions: a recurring spot on a cable drama, a guest arc on a multi-cam sitcom, the lead in a paranormal thriller, even the older sister part in a Regency romance shooting in England next year.

My name carries a strange weight these days. Getting written offThe Seekerand then replacing Haven in my family’s film has everyone wondering if I’m trouble or if trouble has a bad habit of following me. It’s palpable in every casting office I enter, the conversation always starting with something like “It’s been quite the year for you, hasn’t it?”

My hope is that when they seeHorizons, it will prove something. Show that even though I’m not hiding from my parents’ legacy, and I know that nepotism has sailed me to the front of many lines, I’m still in the business I am meant for. I understand who I am.

Daya laughs generously at all my carefully considered jokes, especially the one about her being my favorite soon-to-be stepmother of all time. Still, she checks her phone several times throughout, a habit that seems born from nerves I don’t think I’m giving her. For how warm she is, there’s a slight edge to her demeanor. A well-disguised panic that only appears when she lights up her lock screen.

“Everything all right?” It takes courage for me to ask, closer to the end of our meal.

She’s been so understanding, keeping the conversation away from Joe even though her curiosity had her gripping the edge of the table when I told her we were cordial. I don’t want to push too far and upset her.

She sighs, biting back a sentence.

“If it’s about Joe, you can tell me. I promise I won’t be weird,” I assure her.

“It’s not him. It’s Alex.”

“Oh. Are you breaking up—” I pause. “With my dad?”

“No. It’s—” She shakes her head, then makes a clear decision. “He has a big doctor’s appointment today. They thought they noticed something abnormal with his heart on one of his follow-up exams, so he had to come out to a specialist in Burbank to get it checked out. I wasn’t supposed to tell any of you.”

“Fuck.” Now I’m as panicked as she is. “What do they think it is?”

“I don’t know. I’m so bad at remembering all the names and stuff. He told me he’d text me when he was done, and he hasn’t yet, so I’m getting worried.”

“Are we close to where he is?”

“Very close.”

I take out my purse and fish out three twenties. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go.”

My dad lovesattention. Always has. His mother, my gammy, who died when I was thirteen, always called him her golden boy, because he shone like a star in every room he entered, demanding to be noticed. Even in this doctor’s office, he can’t help but smile through his supposed disappointment that he’s been exposed.

“I’m sorry, babe. I caved,” Daya explains, kissing him on the cheek.

Dad pretends to cower, then opens his arms to me for a hug. “My Sloanius. Always squeezing the truth out of people.”

“Excuse me. Why didn’t you tell us?” I’m as mad as I am grateful to see that hint of a smirk on him, a little wink to this audience of two that he’s not the least bit upset by Daya’s reveal.

It’s hard not to love Alexander Ford.I read that once on the cover of a magazine from the nineties, captioning a tight shot of Dad’s laughing face, eyes crinkled up and hands on his cheeks. It’s true. It’s hard to do anything but love this man.

“You know me. I didn’t want to give everyone a scare,” he says.

“Too late now. I already told everyone,” I inform him.

“No you didn’t,” Daya says, mortified. She’s learned quite a bit about us, yet she hasn’t figured out the most basic truth of our family. There are no secrets, even when we want them.

Someone knocks on our door. It’s not the doctor coming in with results like we expect. It’s the front desk receptionist. “Excuse me. There’s a woman here with short black hair. She says she’s your daughter.” She looks at me. “Yourotherdaughter.”