Page 101 of Let’s Make a Scene

“Jack!” Liam greets him.

“Shhhhhh!” Patty hisses, her eyes sliding to the door to the adjoining room where Priya is safely tucked in bed, and we all freeze. If she hears Jack’s name, she’ll be straight in here. “Uncle Jack” earned her immediate, undying devotion the very first time they met when he produced a Barbie Dreamhouse, seemingly out of thin air. By helping her set it all up and then playing Barbies with her for an hour while totally committing to doing all the different voices, Jack Turner-Jones claimed another heart, and Priya has been hopelessly obsessed with him ever since.

She’s not the only one. That particular scene did something unforgivable to my body’s biological clock. My ovaries have yet to recover.

“How did it go?” I ask him now. He was filming much later than the rest of us, so it’s been an incredibly long day for him.

He collapses on the sofa beside me. “Good, I think. Hattie was unbelievable, had half the crew in tears.”

“I hid some pepperoni pizza for you,” I say, producing a box from under the sofa.

“Betrayed!” Liam howls, chewing on his vegan pizza crust. “Although actually,” he adds thoughtfully, “this is pretty good. Really, Jack, you should think about going vegan.”

Jack doesn’t answer, already tucking into the pizza, as if he’s suddenly realized he’s famished. It can hit you like that after a long day’s shoot. Unthinkingly, I reach up and gently push his hair back from his face, my fingers rubbing over his scalp. He leans into my hand and sighs.

Then we both freeze, realizing at the same time that Brooke isn’t here, that we don’t have to pretend right now.

Fortunately, my friends are distracted, busy bickering over pizza once more, and I pull my hand away, neither of us acknowledging that anything happened. The story of our lives right now.

“So,” Jack says, leaning back after demolishing another slice of pizza, “what have you guys been up to?”

“Epic dance party with Priya,” Arjun says, handing Jack a beer.

“Sorry I missed that,” Jack smirks. “As I recall your moves were always… enthusiastic.”

“Let’s just say I haven’t lost my touch.” Arjun buffs his fingernails on his T-shirt.

“Then we watched Dirty Dancing.” Hannah gestures to the screen.

“And now we’re on our third re-watch of the last scene,” Patty says.

“A classic,” Jack agrees, swigging his beer. He looks happy and relaxed, slipping so easily into the group.

“I was just saying that I have a lot of thoughts about this scene,” I say. “I know it’s a dance scene but the acting is perfect. So many little touches.”

“Oh, yeah.” Jack nods.

I hit play, and Patrick Swayze stands at the side of the stage, taking off his leather jacket. “Crooking the finger at her?” I say.

“The way she smiles when he dips her,” Jack gestures at the screen with his bottle.

“The nose kiss!” Liam and Patty squeal at the same time.

On screen, Swayze and Jennifer Grey continue to dance. So young and in love.

“When she laughs,” Jack says softly, his eyes on the screen. “Such a great laugh.”

“When he kisses her hand.” Hannah sighs, sinking back against the nest of cushions she and Priya built on the floor.

“The lift,” Liam says reverently, and then we all sigh.

“I can do that, you know?” Jack says, offhand, and five pairs of eyes instantly lock on him.

“What… What do you mean?” Hannah asks, and it’s unlike her to sound so breathless.

Jack looks a bit startled by our intensity. “Just that I used to do a lot of dance classes and I learned this one. I haven’t done it since I was about nineteen, but yeah…” He trails off and actually looks slightly embarrassed, but that might be because we’re all staring at him with wide, unblinking owl-eyes.

“You can do the lift?” Patty’s voice is unsteady. She gestures at the screen. “This lift?”