Page 37 of The Spirit of Love
He’s quiet for a beat. Our footsteps crunch along the path.
“I work a lot,” he finally says. “Wow, that sounds pathetic.”
I sigh, saddened by the fact that lips shaped so much like Jude’s spoke to me in a cabin on an island just the other day about a love of hiking and fishing, cliff-diving and zip-lining. Jude must do something in his spare time. What’s he hiding? And why on earth should I open up to him if he’s this closed with me?
“How’d your other meetings go today?” I ask him. Aurora. Buster. Can any of them be counted on to help sabotage Jude’s working experience for me? Would any of them—I wonder—have told Jude he replaced me? Does he know?
He didn’t shoot at all today. He took meetings with the castand crew on the soundstage all day long. The word I got from Ivy is that he needed to get his bearings, and that he’s reordering my shooting schedule entirely, starting tomorrow.
“The meetings were pretty awkward,” he says. “I used a script.”
I stop walking and look over at him, his hands clasped behind his back.
“What? I was nervous.”
“Hand it over,” I say and put out my palm.
Jude sighs, knowing defeat. From his suit pocket, he passes me a crumpled piece of paper. I unfold it and read the rushed cursive:
What’s your favorite thing about the show?
How best can I help you reach your dreams?
What would you be doing with your life if not this?
I give him back the paper. “What ingenious questions. Truly genre-defying.”
“You’re harder to impress than Danny DeVito at a table read. I’m doing my best here, Fenny.”
“I’ll answer the third one,” I say.
“Really? Okay. Great.”
Jude faces me, and suddenly I feel a little nervous about what I’m about to say. Then I remember he deserves it. You don’t want none, don’t start none.
“I’d be a wilderness EMT,” I say. “You know? Search and Rescue. Somewhere cool like Catalina Island.”
Jude’s chin tips up slightly. He clears his throat. He licks hislips. “It feels like you’re trying to tell me something. Do you want to tell me something, Fenny?”
“Nope, it just seems like a cool job.”
“Uh-huh.” He nods, inscrutable. A beat passes when we just stare at each other. I go from wanting him to confess—that what, he ate Sam’s heart and stole his body?—to getting lost enough in our staring contest that I forget what we were talking about in the first place. My chest warms. I hold my breath. Finally, Jude looks away.
“Want to know what I’d be doing?” he asks, running a hand through his close-cropped dark hair.
“Why not.”
