This Is What Happy Looks Like(30)
Author: Jennifer E. Smith

“At the moment, I think I’d take a million dollars,” she said, brushing the crumbs off the table so that the dog, who was beside her in a flash, could finish it off. “The cookie wasn’t nearly as delicious as advertised.”

“Bagel seems to disagree.”

“His palate is similar to that of a vacuum cleaner,” she said, looking down at him fondly. “So are you ready for your scene tomorrow?”

He shrugged, but it wasn’t very convincing.

“I bet you were supposed to be learning your lines instead of hanging out with me all afternoon,” she said, leaning forward on her elbows. “Do you know them?”

“More or less,” he said, folding a piece of pizza in half. Bagel, who had taken up a new post beside him, thumped his tail a few times, and Graham tossed him the crust. “I’ve been carrying them around in my pocket all day, so I’m hoping there’s been some osmosis action.”

“I’m sure all the great actors rely on osmosis,” she said, then reached a hand across the table. “Can I see? We could practice.”

Graham sat back in his chair. “It’s okay,” he said, suddenly embarrassed. Acting on set was one thing; acting in front of the girl you liked was another. He wasn’t about to get into character in front of Ellie. “I’ll be fine.

“Come on,” she said, bobbing her outstretched hand. “It’ll be fun.”

“Fine,” he said, sitting up to pull the folded papers from his back pocket. “But I’m not doing it for real, okay? Just running the lines.”

“I don’t get to see the full Graham Larkin effect?” she teased, taking the section of script from him. “I guess I’ll just have to stop by the set tomorrow.”

“You’ll have to be a pretty good swimmer then,” he told her. “We’re gonna be filming out on a boat.”

“Okay, Ahab,” she said, studying the lines on the page. When she looked up again, her face seemed somehow different; her lips were pouty, and she was looking at him from underneath her eyelashes. She tossed her hair in an exaggerated way, and it took Graham a moment to realize where he’d seen the gesture before: she was mimicking Olivia.

“Not bad,” he said, but he was also relieved when she dropped the act and examined the script one more time with a more familiar expression.

“Okay, here we go,” she said, clearing her throat. “ ‘Where are you going, Jasper?’ ” She stopped and looked up with raised eyebrows. “Your name is Jasper?”

He shrugged, and she continued.

“ ‘Come back!’ ” she shouted with a melodramatic flourish, loud enough to cause Bagel to lurch up, his collar jangling, his head cocked to one side.

Graham reached down and gave him a little pat. “That was great,” he told Ellie. “Not at all over the top.”

“I never said I wasn’t doing it for real,” she pointed out. “Your line.”

“ ‘I need to be alone right now,’ ” Graham said in a flat voice to underscore the fact that he wasn’t really playing along. “ ‘I just need some time to think.’ ”

Ellie tilted her head to one side. “I know I’m not an expert, but I’m betting you could do it with a little more feeling.”

“Everyone’s a critic, Bagel,” he told the little dog, who whined at him in sympathy as Ellie turned back to the script.

“ ‘You have no idea what you need right now. You have no idea—’ ” She paused there, her eyes still on the page.

Graham honestly couldn’t remember what came next. He’d planned to study his lines later in the hotel room, and his call time wasn’t until noon tomorrow, so he’d have the morning too. He’d memorized whole scenes before with less time than that to spare.

“You’re supposed to kiss me,” Ellie said, looking up at him with an unreadable expression. Graham’s stomach dipped, and he stared across the table at her, unable to formulate a response. The room was quiet except for the ticking of the clock above the stove and the soft breathing of the dog, and it took a moment for Ellie to shake her head. When she spoke, her voice sounded very bright. “It’s in the script,” she said, pointing at the page without taking her eyes off Graham.

He nodded quickly. “Right,” he said, blinking fast.

“You’re supposed to kiss me,” she said again, then blushed and held up the crumpled papers. “I mean, Olivia. Or—” She glanced at the words. “Zoe. Really? Jasper and Zoe? Who writes this stuff?”

She was back to examining the script now, but Graham wasn’t really listening. Her words were still rolling around in his head: You’re supposed to kiss me.

She was right, of course. He was supposed to kiss her. He was supposed to kiss her just a little while ago, when he arrived at the house. He was supposed to kiss her earlier today on the beach. And that day in town. And that first night, right outside on her porch.

Suddenly, it seemed there were about a million times he was supposed to have kissed her, even without the benefit of a script, even without any sort of direction. Almost without thinking about it, he placed his hands on the table and scraped back his chair. It wasn’t until she smiled at him that he realized he was smiling too.

“I think it’s important,” he said as he stood up, “to follow the script.”

“Yeah?” she said, her smile widening.

But a light swept across the darkened windows above the sink then, disappearing briefly before landing squarely in Graham’s eyes again. He stepped aside, blinking, and when he turned back to Ellie, she was up and out of her chair.

“Shoot,” she muttered. “She’s home early.”

“Who?” Graham asked, feeling disoriented. A moment ago, everything had been in slow motion, and now it was as if someone had yelled “Cut!” and the spell was broken. I was supposed to kiss her, he thought, and the whole evening felt suddenly like a song that had been switched off before the last bars had played, leaving only a wrenching sense of incompleteness.

“My mom,” Ellie was saying as she cleared the table. “She must not have been a fan of the book.”

Outside, the headlights went out, and Graham could hear a car door slam. Bagel went trotting over to the back door, and a minute later, Ellie’s mom appeared, her face tightening when she noticed Graham standing there in the middle of her kitchen, his hands in his pockets.