14. Luke
LUKE
Steven calls on a Tuesday morning with the kind of voice that means good news he's been sitting on.
"Netflix. Limited series. Six episodes. Love interest, recurring. Straight offer, no audition."
"What's the part?"
"Man who falls for a woman in a complicated marriage. He asks her to leave. It's a slow burn. Character work."
"Send it."
"Already did. Luke — this is the right move right now. Your image is shifting. The tabloids are running softer pieces. People are starting to talk about you differently." A pause. "Anna is good for you. Professionally."
"You talked to Delia?"
"It's our job to protect you."
"From myself?"
"Whatever it takes."
"Any word on the Sentinel?"
"Rock this Netflix show, it's a good role. Shows you can have vulnerability. The Sentinel isn't just action, it's vulnerability they don't think you can pull off. Got it."
"Fine. Say yes to Netflix."
"Done."
I read it that afternoon on the terrace with Zeke asleep across my feet.
It's good. Better than I expected. The character has something real going on underneath — a man who loves someone he can't have cleanly, who has to decide whether the love is worth the cost. Good cast.
Anna comes downstairs in the morning in workout clothes and stops in front of me.
"I hit my goal."
"Fifteen pounds," she says. Trying to sound casual. Not quite getting there.
"Can you take a picture of me? I want to send it to Delia."
"Sure." I get up.
She hands me her phone.
She poses. Looks great.
I take three. She looks at all of them and picks the one she likes.
"You got your hair done?"
"Delia sent me to her person."
"Looks great," I say.
"Glad you think so, you paid for it."
She sends the picture.
She goes for a swim.
I should be reading the script. Learning my lines. I watch her.
By afternoon I'm eating lunch. Running my lines.
She comes down from a shower. Hair still wet.
"I'll run those with you if you want?"
"I could use some help."
We run the lines a dozen times. I have them down.
"It's well written," Anna says.
I do it twice. Both times it lands flat. The words are right. The blocking is right. Something underneath is wrong.
Anna sits across from me with the script in her lap.
"Can I be honest?"
"Go right ahead."
"You're performing it," she says.
"I know."
"You're doing the thing where you decide how the character feels instead of just feeling it."
"I know."
"You love her. This should be scary. You're about to lose the woman you love."
"Yeah, I wish they would shoot this first but that's what it is."
"You're trying to look vulnerable."
I put the script down.
"I know."
She thinks for a moment.
"Use a substitution. Think of someone real. A woman you loved. The first time you saw her. Something specific — not a feeling, a moment."
I think of Camille.
Nothing happens.
"It may not be the obvious person, it's tricky. Try someone else. You have to dig for the right choice. You feel it when it's right."
I try again. A woman I dated two years ago. Someone before that.
Nothing.
I look at Anna. Into her eyes.
Something shifts.
We do it again.
When I finish Anna is quiet for a second. I move closer as it says at the end of the scene for the kiss.
She looks like she wants me to.
"That's the one," she says. "That's it."
"That worked, right?"
"Whatever you did, it worked. You fooled me."
"Who do you use?" I say. "For substitution?"
Something moves across her face.
"I'm not telling you," she says. "It's private." She holds the script against her chest. "I write mine in a journal. You never tell anyone what you're using. It will lose its effectiveness if you share it."
"Why?"
"Because the second you say it out loud it stops working." She stands up. "The substitution only works when it belongs entirely to you."
"Thanks."
"Yeah, I believe you were in love and needed her that time."
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"You went deep, that's what happened."
"Yeah."
She goes upstairs.
I watch her.
The Private Paradise viewing party is Anna's idea.
She invites people from Joe Rankin's class — actors I've never met, the struggling version of the life she was living three months ago. Chloe and Alex. A couple of people from Delia's office.
Elle with her camera because Delia insisted.
I order enough food for twice as many people and put it on the kitchen island and let Nina handle the rest.
The actors from class arrive in groups. They're loud and easy and clearly devoted to Anna in the particular way people are when they watched someone they believed in finally get a shot.
She gives them a tour of the downstairs part of the house.
They shake my hand and try not to make a big deal out of who I am. They tell me which roles they love me in. One guy mentions a movie I was never in.
Alex shakes my hand and looks at me with the particular expression of a man taking stock of someone important to someone he loves. I pass whatever test that is, I think.
Chloe hugs me like we've met before, which we haven't, but it feels like we have.
She finds a moment when we're alone. "Hey, she really likes you. Don't fuck her over okay. She's never done this before."
Anna comes over. "Let's go."
Fifteen of us crowd into my little screening room. It seats ten comfortably.
The episode runs.
Everyone is attentive, warm, the particular focused silence of actors watching other actors work. Anna is sitting on the floor between Chloe and Alex with her knees pulled up, watching the screen.
Her scene comes.
Twenty seconds.
The room goes quiet.
Not because anyone is being polite. Because people stop talking.
Anna appears on screen.
Nobody looks away.
I don't either.
She's not doing anything big. No crying. No speech. No moment written to go viral.
She's just there.
Present.
Alive.
The camera finds her and suddenly the scene feels different from it did on the page.
I pause the screen when it's over.
For a second nobody says anything.
Then the room erupts in applause.
People talking over each other.
Laughing.
Pointing at the screen.
"That was incredible."
"Anna, oh my God."
"You were so?—"
Then a voice from somewhere to my left.
"I mean. It's three lines. Blink and you miss it."
The room goes quiet again.
Different kind of quiet.
I turn.
One of the class actors. Young. The kind of young that hasn't learned yet what you don't say out loud.
"What the fuck is your problem?"
I look at him for one second.
"I was kidding, it was great."
"Get out of my house," I say.
Completely flat. No performance in it.
He blinks. "I was just?—"
"Get out."
"What?"
"Get the fuck out of my house. Now."
He grabs his jacket.
The room stays quiet for another beat.
Then Chloe starts talking loudly about how brilliant the scene was and Alex refills everyone's drinks and the party resumes like a car that stalled and found the ignition again.
I walk the asshole out the front door.
I go to the kitchen and get water and stand there for a minute.
She comes in.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah."
"You didn't have to do that."
"Go back to your friends."
She goes back to the party.
I stand in the kitchen a moment longer.
I pound my fist on the counter.
From the screening room I can hear Chloe's voice carrying over everyone else, telling someone exactly what Anna's performance meant and why they should remember the name.
I lean against the counter.
Watching everyone adore her.
Later, after everyone has gone, and the house has gone quiet and Nina has materialized and dematerialized like she always does, leaving no evidence of fifteen people behind, Anna sits on the couch with Zeke and her shoes off.
"Thank you for tonight," she says. "Good night."
She goes upstairs.
I follow her upstairs.
She looks at me. "What?"
"You were great."
"Thanks. That means a lot."
She stands there a moment. Waiting.
"Good night," I say.
She goes to her room.
Leaves the door open.
I walk to my room.