Page 37 of Faking the Pass
The statement caused me to look up and give her a probing look.
“What are you talking about? You’re very smart. You always were.”
“Youreallydon’t remember much about me, do you?” Rosie asked. “I may have had some acting talent back then, but it was pretty muchallI was good at in school. There’s a reason I didn’t go to college—I mean, other than the money thing. No scholarship offers for Miss Two-point-four.”
She was smiling, but there was a hint of pain in Rosie’s eyes. It bothered me.
“Your GPA doesn’t necessarily indicate intelligence. It takes very high intelligence to act,” I said. “Not only do you have to remember tons of scripted dialogue, you have to understand the source material so you can interpret those words into believable emotions that other people can see and feel. What was your best class in school?”
“Other than Theater? English. But I completely sucked at anything having to do with numbers, so math and science classes were torture.”
Her cheeks colored, and she dropped her gaze to the countertop.
“Trying to memorize multiplication tables was a lost cause. Even now, I can’t remember numbers at all. I can’t doanymath in my head—even the simplest equations. I’d be screwed without the calculator on my phone.”
Her hand started moving in the air in front of her, as if she was writing on a white board.
“It’s like, I see the numbers in my mind, but while I’m trying to add or multiply them, they sort of dissolve and blow away.”
Rosie’s fingers spread in apoofgesture in the air before she dropped them to the counter.
“That’s why I cleaned houses instead of waiting tables or working retail in L.A.. Apart from acting, I’m just a big ole dum-dum.”
Her smile and sing-song tone covered real pain. And I couldn’t stand to hear her talk herself down like that, especially when she was clearly so smart.
“It sounds like you might have a learning disability that was never diagnosed. Have you ever heard of dyscalculia?”
“No.”
“It’s like dyslexia but for numbers instead of words. There’s speculation that Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison and even Einstein had it. They weren’t dumb.”
She nodded slowly, listening. “Interesting. Well, I’ve definitely always been a words-girl with no head for numbers.”
I started to say something, then stopped, thinking better of it. Then I decided to just go ahead and say it.
“Speaking of words, I want to ask you for a favor.”
“Sure, go ahead,” Rosie said. “Seeing as you’re housing and feeding me, ask for more than one.”
“Try not to talk about yourself that way. Words have power, you know? You’ve gotta be careful with them, especially when it comes to what you say about yourself.”
Rosie’s face flushed.
Shit.I shouldn’t have said it. Now she was going to tell me to go to hell, and I’d probably deserve it.
But she didn’t. She just said a quiet “okay,” then changed the subject.
“So… let’s talk about you, Mr. Zen Mindset Guru,” she said. “Other than thinking happy thoughts and eating a perfect diet, how is your life these days? Is there a woman somewhere who’s going to be furious when she finds out about your unexpected ‘house guest?’”
I chuckled and shook my head, looking down as I moved the salmon burgers from the frying pan to the plates I’d set out for them.
“Nah. No one serious. I’ve had a few girlfriends, but they all didn’t work out for one reason or another.”
In truth, it had always been the same reason.
I’d had a string of unsuccessful relationships, all of which had ended because the women said I was too focused on football and didn’t have enough time and attention left over for them.
My most recent girlfriend had told me she felt sorry for the woman I did eventually marry because she was destined to be miserable and lonely.
