Page 36 of Claim to Fame

Her heart fluttered in her chest at the gruff protectiveness in his tone. After another few beats of eating in silence, he nudged her milkshake closer to her. “It’s gonna melt.”

She took a long sip, letting the cold liquid cool her rapidly heating blood.

“What was your favorite role?” he asked.

“Bridget inBridget Jones’ Musical.”

She couldn’t help but smile thinking about it, how surprised she’d been to get the call back, the absolute shock when she’d gotten the part. Not because she hadn’t worked her ass off for it and nailed her audition, but because she’d started to think it might not happen for her. She might spend her entire career playing old women and witches, the occasional best friend, but never the romantic lead.

“Tell me about it,” he said.

So she did. In a red vinyl booth in a diner in Rhode Island, she told him what it was like to stand on stage and feel free, in a part that didn’t require her to squeeze herself into multiple layers of shapewear beneath her costume. She told him about the teenagers she’d meet at the stage door every night, girls in average sized bodies like her who said they saw in her the possibility of living out their own dreams, girls she wished she could spend the whole night talking to, encouraging, guiding them away from her own mistakes.

And when Ethan’s knee slowly pressed against hers beneath the linoleum tabletop again, she had a thought, fleeting and inconsequential, but so real she felt it in her bones—she’d sung for packed audiences, been picked apart and judged by thousands of people every night, and no one had ever seen her the way he did.

∞∞∞

Ethan hit the side of his computer monitor with the palm of his hand. “Come on,” he grunted.

“Dad? Are you in here?” Tessa’s call from the lobby had Ethan on his feet and striding out of his office.

“I’m here. Everything alright? Where’s Julie?” he asked as he nearly collided with Tessa in the hallway outside his office.

“Everything’s fine. I came by to drop off some things for you and Hannah but I saw the light on over here.” She lifted the stacked cardboard containers in her hands. “What are you doing in your office so late?”

Ethan took the containers from her, leading her back towards his office, the light spilling through the open door and casting shadows on the hallway.

“It’s not that late.”

“It’s almost midnight.”

Ethan set the containers on the edge of his desk and dragged his knuckles over his eyes. He’d been staring at the stupid computer screen for longer than he realized. “What are you doing out this late?”

“Julie finally went to sleep. I didn’t get a chance to bring these things over earlier.”

He gestured to the containers. “You didn’t need to do that.”

“We both know you don’t cook. You barely grocery shop. I wanted to make sure you had some things—muffins, a loaf of bread, a quiche. Nothing fancy.”

“Thanks, T. I appreciate it.”

“I know you do.”

“Next time, though, you call me and I’ll come pick them up. You don’t need to leave your house in the middle of the night for me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Why are you working so late?”

“Not working. Just…checking on some things.”

“Well, that’s cryptic.” Tessa rounded his desk, her eyes sweeping over his computer screen before they narrowed. “Are you Googling Hannah?”

“Trying to, but the stupid computer isn’t working.”

Tessa looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “You’re not serious. You don’t actually think this is how you Google something.” She leaned closer to the screen and read off: “Google, plus sign, Hannah Matthews, plus sign, bad things?”

“Then what the hell am I supposed to do?” he said.

Tessa leaned forward, her fingers flying over the keys on his keyboard. “First of all, you don’t need the plus signs. It’s not the nineties anymore.” He grunted, crossing his arms over his chest. “Second of all, it helps if you’re using an actual browser window and not the search bar on your desktop. That one’s for looking through your files and stuff, not finding things on the internet.”

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