Page 106 of Let’s Make a Scene

“So… this really seems like a private conversation,” Steve Carell pipes up, edging away. “I think I should just—” He starts clutching hopelessly at the long black fabric that surrounds us, desperately searching for a way out.

“And I can’t believe you’re making me fight with you in front of Steve Carell!” I yell.

Jack ignores this completely, stepping into my touch, crowding my space, wrapping me up in the feel and sight and scent of him so that I can’t think. It’s a low-down, dirty tactic, and I want to claw at him like a cat.

“Just admit it,” he says, like it’s a dare. “Just admit that you have feelings for me.”

“Oh, I have feelings for you,” I snap. “Loads of them. Animosity, anger, frustration… the list goes on and on.”

“Cynthie,” his voice softens. He doesn’t say anything else, just my name, and my stomach does a vicious loop-the-loop.

The moment stretches out between us, time slowing.

“I’m so sick of this, Jack. You want me to tell you that I have feelings for you? What if I did? What then? You and I are so different. Sometimes I feel like you’re from another planet.”

“Just because our backgrounds are different—” Jack starts.

“It’s not just that!” I exclaim. “And the fact you don’t get it only proves my point. You have everything you’ve ever wanted. You were literally born with it all. I moved to LA three days ago. My first film just won an MTV Movie Award! And I couldn’t even be excited about it. Everything I’ve worked my whole life for… the impossible dream, the one that no one—and I mean no one—believed could come true, the one I’ve had to fight and claw for… is happening. It’s happening to me right now. You’re the one who’s always banging on about professionalism, and taking the work seriously, and that’s what I’m trying to do.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with this situation.”

“Don’t you? I’m saying we don’t need the distraction, either of us. Especially when I know perfectly well that you’re just using me to avoid dealing with the things you’re unhappy about.”

“Don’t say that,” he grits out.

“It’s true,” I insist, feeling reckless, feeling like I’m holding a stick of dynamite in one hand and a match in the other. “You couldn’t even bear the thought of introducing me to your parents when Lorna asked you to. You don’t want me in your world. You know I don’t belong there… You just want to get out of it for a while.”

“That’s not what happened.” Jack finally looks troubled. “You misunderstood.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I mutter, trying to shrug off the hurt. I’m used to people thinking I’m not good enough. I thrive on it, on proving them wrong. Why should it sting that Jack feels like that too?

“Is that really what you think of me?” Jack demands. “That I’m some entitled prick who has everything he wants? And you’re just, what? A convenient distraction?”

“You haven’t given me a single reason to think anything else.”

“I see,” he says hollowly, after a moment. “Maybe you’re right about one thing. God knows I’m not happy,” he says the word on a derisive laugh. “But at least I’m not so scared of letting my guard down that I push people away.”

My temper leaps. “You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know you better than you want me to. I see you and you hate that.”

“Yeah?” I glare at him, my heart beating so hard that my whole body is shaking with it, tiny tremors like something seismic is happening inside me. “Well, I see you too. And what I see is an arrogant, overprivileged boy who’s not used to hearing the word no.” The pain that flashes in his face then strikes me like a blow, but I don’t flinch. “Fairy tales and happily-ever-afters are for fools, Jack. That’s not real. Trust me,” I say as coldly as I can manage, “this isn’t that kind of movie.”

We’re interrupted then by a young woman who ducks through one of the curtains.

“Hi!” she says, cheerfully.

“Oh, thank god,” Steve Carell whispers.

“Sorry to keep you so long, I’m here to take you to the green room.”

“No need,” Jack replies, not even looking at me. “Could you just point me toward the exit? I have a flight to catch.”

And that’s the last I see of Jack for a long, long time.

NOW THIRTEEN YEARS LATER

Chapter 35 JACK