Page 13 of Marlowe Banks, Redesigned
His hand didn’t meet her cheek. Her first tear fell, unimpeded, lodging in the corner of her lips. He lowered his hand. Took a step back. Exhaled. The tension uncoiled from his body. With another breath, he turned and walked away.
“Cut!” Wes shouted.
Marlowe blinked herself into awareness.Window. Camera. Table. Producers.While she adjusted to reality, Angus marched to the table and slapped down his script.
“Are we done here?” he asked through gritted teeth.
Greg, Alejandra, and Wes exchanged a series of indecipherable glances.
“Go on.” Wes tipped his chin toward the door. “We’ll be in touch.”
“Can’t wait for that call.” Angus shot them one final glare before storming past Marlowe and out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Marlowe stared at it, stunned, feeling the echo in her bones. His warm regard, his almost-touch, his words had been fake. Of course they had. He was playing a part. They both were, weren’t they?
Marlowe wiped away the last of her tears and handed her script to Alejandra. With great effort, she forced herself not to apologize, a habit she was trying to stem. Instead, she pasted on a polite smile, thanked everyone for their time, and assured them she enjoyed the job she already had. It was a small lie housed in a bigger truth. So Babs abused her time and most of the errands were mindless. The next gig might be better. More importantly, Marlowe didn’t want to be an actress. She wanted to be a costume designer, or at least continue working in the field. She wanted to be part of the visual creation, the world and character development. New York was also calling her back, quiet but persistent. Maybe she should stop denying that call.
Babs was out on set but Cherry was shoe shopping at the laptop when Marlowe returned to the wardrobe office. Tossing out a lazy“Hey,” she trudged over to a pile of shopping bags Babs had left her to sort through for returns. A quick scan of the labels told Marlowe she’d be hitting every corner of the L.A. Basin, as usual.
“Well?” Cherry spun around in her chair. A few tendrils of hair escaped her French braid and danced across her enviably prominent cheekbones. She should’ve been the one to get a cameo. She’d be amazing on camera. Fierce and fabulous. “How did it go? Did you convince them you could pull a full Nicholas Sparks on cue?”
“Only if Nicholas Sparks specializes in extreme levels of humiliation.” Marlowe blew out a sigh as she located an envelope of receipts and started matching them with the bags and their contents. “I didn’t choke on the lines, not badly anyway, but Angus clearly thinks I’m worthless and I think he’s basically an ego jammed into a great pair of jeans. Together we have as much spark as a wet match.”
Cherry waggled her brows. “Wet matches can be dried and lit.”
“Whatever. Bad metaphor. Suffice to say I’m still Babs’s errand bitch for the next six weeks.” The words caught in Marlowe’s throat. Spoken aloud,six weekssounded like such a short period of time in which to make a What’s Next plan, one that might or might not include a return to New York. “If my waitress role has dead-ended, at least Babs will have no further motivation to punish me.”
“I wouldn’t count on that.” Cherry pointed a thumb at the shopping bags. “I’m pretty sure she bought half that stuff knowing it would need to be returned.”
“Awesome. And she probably wants it done in the next hour or she’ll send me off to shop for some obscure toy for her dog again. Or more of that fig and tomatillo jam that doesn’t exist.” Marlowe swallowed her frustration while aligning the remaining clothes to their receipts.
As she was about to haul everything to her car, someone knocked on the door. It opened a second later as a lanky guy in a ball cap and windbreaker peeked in.
“Delivery for”—he checked a small envelope—“Marlowe Banks.”
Marlowe swapped a confused look with Cherry before meeting the guy at the door. He held out a large vase of gorgeous pink-tipped white roses. Marlowe gasped, astonished that Kelvin had responded to her brusque text with such a romantic gesture, and so quickly, too. She signed for the flowers and took the vase. As she swept a thumb across a velvety petal, she reminded herself that Kelvin had always been sweet about flowers, though upon reflection, they were always offered when others could witness the gesture. Was he doing it again? Trying to look noble in front of her coworkers? Or was he simply being nice and she was warping the gesture, so determined to find peace with the breakup, she’d cling to any nuance she could classify as negative?
“For a girl who just got the most amazing bouquet of roses, you don’t look very happy,” Cherry said, already clearing a spot on the desk.
Marlowe set down the flowers, still frowning. “He sent out a not-so-subtle feeler about the potential to try again. I don’t know if he meant it or if he was just testing to see if I’d say yes. Either way, I told him it was definitely over.”
Cherry groaned. “So like a dude to want you more when you don’t want him.”
Marlowe slid the card out from underneath a ribbon. She turned it over in her hands, staring at her name in neatly printed block letters. This wasn’t what she wanted, the push-pull, the confusion, the constant questioning about whether or not she coulddo better. The gesture was just enough attention to inch the needle back toward a no, or at least for Kelvin to lodge himself in her thoughts when she was trying to let go. The flowers weren’t really romantic. They were a manipulation. Weren’t they?
“Don’t just stare at it,” Cherry chided. “Open it already. Then we can burn it.”
Marlowe removed the card from the envelope.
Sorry I’ve been such an asshole. You deserve better.
Angus
Chapter Six
Marlowe set the vase on her cracked laminate tabletop and wedged a folded napkin under the leg so the table didn’t seesaw. When the surface was as stable as it was ever going to get, she sat down to enjoy the fish tacos she’d picked up on her way home, now cold but still delicious and dripping with spicy mayo. She paused between tacos to pet the rose petals yet again, drawn to touch them the way an infant might reach for crinkly paper or some other sparkly toy. Marlowe hadn’t told Cherry that Angus sent the flowers. Lying felt weird but Cherry might slip and mention something while Babs was around. She also would’ve asked questions Marlowe didn’t want to answer, ones she couldn’t answer, not after his consistent irritation at her mere existence. What didYou deserve bettereven mean? Better than what? And how did he know what she deserved?
Recognizing that she was obsessing about a gesture that was probably intended as a simple apology, nothing more, Marlowe distracted herself by checking her email while she finished her dinner. Student loans. Electricity bill. Credit card statement. All things she’d deal with later. The first personal message was from her mom,a physics professor at Brown who’d achieved tenure early, published widely in her field, run the New York marathon every year since she was twenty-five, established an endowment for funding rescue work with endangered rhinos in Africa, and otherwise drilled into Marlowe that everything she wanted in life could be achieved with hard work. Marlowe still struggled to fully accept that theory. Her parents had divorced when she was six, so clearly some things didn’t turn out perfectly, no matter how much work was invested.
The email contained the same five questions as always, rephrased slightly with each iteration but otherwise consistent.
