Page 30 of The Summer Show
“None of these rooms have blackout curtains.”
Not to be contradictory, but this suite had regular curtains and sheers hanging over the floor to ceiling windows, fluttering and billowing at the whim of the A/C.
“Do you have trouble sleeping without them?”
“Frustrating. You’re frustrating.”
“Okay.” I pointed to the door. “I’m going to leave now because you’re weird and I have to go meet with the casting director. But anyway, Ana wanted me to check on you, and I did that. Should I take a photo? Do you think she’d like that?”
“She knows what I look like.”
“Yeah, but I was thinking a proof of life thing.”
“Does it seem like I’ve been abducted?”
“No.” I was so flustered by the Nick-ness of Nick Merrick that my words were tripping over themselves. I really needed to get out of the library more and maybe meet some men. The only men I met these days were husbands and dads, which meant they were automatically assigned to my “no” list. “Bye!”
“Room key.” He swiped it off the table and sauntered over to where I was sweating. His body heat reached out and enveloped me as he opened my pocket and dropped the card inside. “In case you need privacy.”
“But this is your space.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not much of a talker. I won’t disturb you.” He blew out a sigh. “Hey. Don’t do the show. Please.”
“Why?”
“Because I intend to win. I have to win.”
“And you think I can beat you?”
“No, I know I can beat you. But I don’t want to.”
“Why not?”
“Because you were nice to me on a plane when I didn’t deserve it.”
I nodded once and moved to the door. I touched the handle. Turned. The conversation felt frayed and unfinished. Who knows? Maybe it was just me that felt that this moment needed proper closure.
The words formed in my head first, and even though they had my permission to be spoken, I experienced a slight jolt of shock that I said the words at all.
“I’m a librarian because once upon a time, someone burned my books.”
Nick didn’t utter a word as I closed the door behind me. But that was okay because now the conversation felt completed.
eleven
When you think of the words “casting director” what image springs to mind?
See, in my head I was at Hotel Ble to meet a thirty-something woman with sleek, ironed hair pulled into a tight, smooth ponytail that doubled as an inexpensive temporary facelift. I imagined this woman to be bone-thin—breakfast was a green smoothie, lunch was three almonds and a grape, and dinner was salmon served with spinach and oxygen-and-water dressing—and always dressed in slimming black so that she was like a black cat whisker on a white background. She wore ballet flats, exclusively.
I couldn’t wear ballet flats. They did something unflattering to my feet, a sort of de-evolution where my tootsies became puddles of skin. Maybe I’d have better luck if my lunch was three almonds and a grape.
My imagination failed me. Completely.
They say you’re never supposed to judge a book by its cover, and I tried my hardest to live by that adage, but the woman cooking up a feast in the casting director’s suite didn’t look like a casting director at all. First of all, she had to be in her sixties or seventies, and her shoes weren’t ballet flats, they were wood-heeled clogs. The same Dr. Scholl’s clogs that made a reappearance on the top trend lists every decade or so. Twice in my lifetime they’d been peak popular, so I figured they were due for a resurgence. But probably not because of GTH’s casting director.
Why not?
Because she dressed like Ana’s grandmother and great-grandmother, except that there was a lot more of this woman and not quite enough neckline to cover the entire patch of real estate, if you catch my drift. She had corkscrew curls in shades of white and gray, and the moment I walked in she dropped a grape leaf on the counter and clacked over to hug and kiss me on both cheeks.