This was a big change. “Do you know if we’ll be doing chemistry reads, or is this a done deal?”
“Done deal,” Riley said, sounding sympathetic. “The producers don’t want to delay production, and he’s finishing up a pilot, so there’s no time for a chemistry read.”
“Who is it?”
The phone connection broke for a second. “—shton Suarez.”
Jasmine blinked. “Wait, did you say Ashton Suarez?”
On either side of her, Ava’s and Michelle’s eyes widened.
“Yes,” Riley said. “Have you heard of him?”
“Um... yes.” Holy shit. Of course she had. Ashton Suarez was her grandmother’s favorite telenovela star. Esperanza had watched every show he’d been on for almost a decade. She was going to flip when she found out.
“Oh, good, that’ll make intros easier. You’ll meet him at the table read. Anyway, I’ll let you go now. Have fun with your family!”
Jasmine murmured a farewell to Riley and slowly lowered her phone to the table. It had been completely stupid to say his name out loud in front of her cousins.Cue overreaction in three... two...
Michelle grabbed Jasmine’s wrist in a tight grip, her brown eyes wide. “Ashton. Suarez,” she repeated. “AshtonFuckingSuarez...”
“He’s el león dorado!” Ava squealed.
Michelle flung her head back and pressed the back of her hand to her forehead, adopting a dramatic tone. “And el matador!”
“El hombre seductor!”
“El duque de amor!”
“I know, I know,” Jasmine cut in. The guy had been on something like twenty different Spanish soap operas, and they’d be here all day if her cousins continued to spout his various character names.
“I think the one where he played the Golden Lion was my favorite,” Ava mused. “It was likeThe GodfathermeetsIndiana Jones.”
“I liked the one where he was an old-timey sheriff.” Michelle fanned herself. “He cut quite the dashing figure in that uniform.”
“Okay, that’s e—” Jasmine began, but Ava cut her off.
“He played a villain recently, and I liked his beard. But I thought they killed him off too soon.”
“Ava!” Michelle’s jaw dropped, aghast. “Spoilers!”
Ava shrugged, entirely unapologetic. “If you spent more time with Abuela, you’d be caught up.”
While they went back and forth about Ashton’s best roles, Jasmine mulled over this latest news. Ashton Suarez was a solid fixture in telenovelas, and even though Jasmine’s Spanish wasn’t good enough for her to follow them fully, she’d seen him on Esperanza’s TV plenty of times over the years. He was a good-looking man, even if he had a tendency to overact sometimes.
Not that Jasmine was one to talk. Her role onThe Glamour Squad, a newer soap centered around a modeling agency, had required a level of melodramatics even her telenovela-loving abuela found a little ridiculous. Still, Jasmine’s back-from-the-dead trophy wife character, Cordelia, had stolen the show.Fans had loved Cordelia’s forbidden romance with Keane, the fashion photographer with a gambling addiction. For Jasmine, Cordelia would always hold a special place in her heart—the character had earned her a Daytime Emmy nom and won her the role of Carmen.
Never mind that she didn’t speak Spanish. Jasmine’s accent was perfect, even if her conversation skills left something to be desired. The last time she’d tried to gossip with her grandmother in Spanish, Esperanza had complained Jasmine was hurting her ears.
Her younger brother, Jeremy, had teased her when he found out she had to speak Spanish for the role, but he shut up real quick when Jasmine pointed out he knew even less of the language than she did. While Spanish had been Jasmine’s father’s first language, her mother, who was Puerto Rican and Filipina, knew very little Spanish or Tagalog, so English had been the main language in their home. Working on this show was going to be like a crash course in language immersion, and Jasmine sincerely hoped she was up to the challenge.
Michelle raised a hand, breaking into her thoughts. “Hold on. I’m getting an idea.”
Jasmine groaned. Michelle’s ideas were often brilliant but just as often got the three of them into trouble. Like the time they’d snuck out to a concert in New Jersey on a school night and missed the last bus back. They’d had to call their oldest cousin, Sammy, to pick them up. His silence had been expensive.
“I want to hear this idea,” said Ava.
Of course she did.Enabler. Jasmine made a face at her. “I don’t.”
