Deja Who (Insighter #1)(40)

She debated another few seconds, which Archer misread, and he turned toward the door. “Oh. Sorry. I’ll let you take—”

She shook her head. “That’s not why I’m hesitating.” Adorable. He’d been in her house for the Scene. The Final Blowoff Scene. Why would Leah care if he overheard a phone call? She picked up the phone, viper-quick, as if she was afraid she would lose her nerve if she didn’t pick it up in a hurry. “What.”

Nellie’s charming contralto murmured in her ear. “Darling, thank you for picking up. You so rarely do. Rude, but then, you were never afraid of showing off your, ah, less appealing qualities.”

“What. Is. It.”

“Darling, you sound so chilly, even for you.” She had the nerve, the colossal fucking nerve, to sound chiding. Disappointed, even. Leah wondered if she was in danger of biting through her lower lip. When my teeth meet I will know I chomped too far. “I wanted to let you know that it looks like Mother Daughter Hookers Heroes is going to be picked up! Tom is on his way to Hollywood right now to work out the details; I insisted he get in on this from the very beginning. I simply refuse to get reamed on the gross again.”

Leah bit back a hysterical giggle. So . . . many things . . . to mock . . . She wondered if it was possible to have a sarcasm stroke. “This has nothing to do with me.”

“Darling, of course it does. I cannot star in Mother Daughter Hookers Heroes without a daughter.”

“So hire one.”

“That’s part of the hook,” she explained patiently, as if Leah didn’t know all the steps in the Hollywood dance. As if she hadn’t known since first grade, if Nellie would have allowed her to attend first grade instead of hiring tutors to cram her full of multiplication tables and “see spot run” between shoots. “It’s our comeback, not my comeback and some silly little nobody absolutely no one wants to see.”

“You have always overestimated my stardom, because of course it allowed you to overestimate yours. No one knows who I am—or was.”

“Is that any way for Little Miss Huggies to talk?”

“Former Little Miss Huggies. No.”

“That’s just the stage fright talking.”

“No.”

“So I’m going to messenger the script to you and—”

“No.”

“—you’ll have to be ready to take a studio meeting first thing Monday.”

“No.”

“Remember, jewel tones make your skin seem less sallow. And stripes make you seem . . . thick. Absolutely no stripes, darling. And your hair is . . .” A pause while It searched for the right word. “. . . fine. Literally fine; maybe you should try a thickening serum? Something to give you a little body?”

“No! For fuck’s sake, no! A thousand times no, how are you not getting this? Even for you? No!”

“All right, but at least use some hot rollers to give yourself a little bounce.”

Leah pinched the skin above her nose and told herself to stop chewing her lower lip. “No to everything. No to the comeback. No to body. No to stripes. No.”

“At last you’re speaking sense. You could be pretty, but not with the distraction of horizontal stripes. Remember that dreadful two piece you wore for the Fourth of July special? You looked so very thick.”

“I was two.”

“Yes, well, you’re not getting any younger.”

“Pay attention: no to everything. Comebacks, stripes, my matricidal urges, your utter inability to care for anyone but yourself, no.”

“Don’t be difficult, dear.”

“No to the Mommy and Me Fuck Fest television show.”

“I don’t understand.” Her contralto, even when she sounded flat and disbelieving, was still lovely. Leah actually shivered at the power of her voice, and was furious all over again that even she, who knew all of her tricks, wasn’t immune to her oldest, and best.

The second-to-worst thing: she could make you think she cared.

The worst thing: not only did she not care, she really didn’t understand.

Leah took a breath, held it for the count of five, then forced it out through her nose. “What? What was it? Exactly what was it about our meeting the other day that left you any doubt as to my feelings about being in your life at all, never mind going back to Hollywood with you? I will not do this, do you understand? I will never, never do this. Not again, not once, not for an HBO special and not for a toilet paper commercial.”

Archer, leaning against her desk, was trying to give the impression of a man who isn’t hearing every single awful word. If his eyes got any bigger, they would fall right out of his skull and hit the carpet: plop! In her current grim mood, that might make her laugh. Her mother’s legacy was clear: Leah was a terrible person.

“I used to love you, but you managed to stomp that flat by the time I had to take you to court. Now I don’t even like you, do you hear me? I don’t roll my eyes and tell myself that you’ll never change but that it doesn’t matter. I don’t joke about you with my boyfriend—”

“Darling, you don’t have boyfriends. Which reminds me, the producer is a lovely woman in her thirties who also happens to be gay, so if you could see your way to being extra extra friendly to her during the meeting and also after the meeting, we could get a head start on—”