Unsympathetic Magic - Laura Resnick [74]
“So who knows?” Jeff said with a smile in his voice. “Maybe you and I will wind up working together on The Dirty Thirty sometime.”
“I’d like that.” I was being honest about that, at least. Jeff was very talented, and he was great to work with. This was, in fact, the reason I had fallen for him five years ago. And being dazzled back then by my own exciting new experiences as an actress in the Big Apple, it had taken me a while to realize that working with Jeff was the only time I was in love with him. The rest of the time I was just rather fond of him in an exasperated way. And I still was now, I realized. “But I don’t think we’re likely to meet on the show, Jeff. I’m just doing a guest spot and have only one more scene to film.”
“Really? From the way Mike talked about you, I thought—”
“He talked about me?” I said with reflexive revulsion.
“Yeah. I got the impression from him that there was a rapport between you two.”
“What?” I believed in zombies and dark magic, but I found it hard to believe that Michael Nolan had hinted that he liked me.
“Or, uh, maybe he meant more that it was a rapport between your characters,” Jeff said uncertainly. “It sounded to me as if he was pleased with the scenes you two have done. He seems to think that you and he—or, I guess, your characters—are interesting together.”
“Oh. Well. That’s good to know.” It had never occurred to me that Nolan had noticed me or my character. I supposed I should feel flattered that he felt some professional respect for me. But I was skeptical that he did. The notion was probably just Jeff’s imagination at work again. “In any case, I’m not scheduled to do any more work on the show after this episode.”
“Oh,” he said. “That’s too bad. But, hey, you got a guest spot on a hot TV show. Here’s hoping I get one, too.”
“Is that what you were doing out in LA?” I asked. “Trying to get into TV?”
“Yeah. Nothing was really happening for me here, so I moved out there when I got cast in a TV pilot, but the show didn’t get picked up. I wound up doing three more pilots that year, but nothing panned out.” He sighed. “The second year, I couldn’t even get auditions anymore. So a few months ago, I decided it was time to come back to New York.”
Falling right into my old habit of trying to encourage Jeff about his career, I said, “And you got work almost as soon as you came back. So returning to New York was a good decision.”
He gave a morose little grunt of assent.
I urged, “So tell me about this gladiator role.”
“You don’t think the shaved head looks good on me, do you?”
“Are you working in a play?” I asked.
“Other people think this is a good look for me. What don’t you like about it?”
“This conversation is starting to feel all too familiar,” I said wearily.
“Is it the shape of my head?” he asked. “Do you think my skull is bulbous?”
I made a heroic effort to be patient with him. “Tell me about the job. Does it involve combat scenes?”
“I’ve been thinking about getting some head shots this way, to show more casting directors that I can do this look.” He asked anxiously, “Do you think that’s a bad idea?”
I gave up and snapped, “You know, you’re the reason I decided not to date any more actors! Are you aware that men in other professions don’t do this to women? I mean, do you think Lopez has ever dragged me through a marathon of talking about his voice or his appearance, the way you used to do? Do you think he frets to me about—”
“Who’s Lopez?” Jeff asked.
I realized what I’d said. “No one. Never mind.”
“Why does that name sound—Oh! Do you mean Connor Lopez? The really good-looking cop?”
“My point is—”
“The guy who sprung you from the slammer, right?”
Eager to distract him, I said, “I don’t like the bald head. It doesn’t suit you at all.”
“So that’s why the guy got out of bed in the middle of the night to get you out of jail. I thought it sounded a little above and beyond the call of duty,