The Break(41)

“Hello, Harrison,” I say. WTA is a first-name-only kind of place. Even when recognizable actors come in, we still use first names; our higher-ups coach us to act casual with them and never starstruck. Last week I rode the elevator with an actress I’ve loved since I was little and she starred in my favorite Disney show, and I felt like I was going to pee my pants, but on the outside I was calm as pond water.

“June,” Harrison says, staring down into my cubicle. There’s an adorable dimple in his smooth skin, and his eyes are the darkest blue. He always gets this look on his face like he’s delighted to see me. It’s really sweet, and frankly, it makes me feel so good. “Working hard, I trust?” he asks. He has a formal way of speaking that I love.

Kai’s out of Harrison’s sight line, and I catch her roll her eyes. “Gotta go,” she says, and then she takes off down the hall. I watch her slip through a doorway and disappear.

“I am,” I say to Harrison. “Well, I’m reading right now.” I gesture at the next screenplay I’m about to start, something someone submitted to us to consider for one of Louisa’s actresses. Sometimes I catch myself thinking of Louisa and me as an us, and it gives me a little buzz.



“I wish my assistant was an industrious reader like you,” Harrison says.

I grin. Harrison’s assistant is a sixty-five-year-old woman named Madge who meticulously runs his whole show and has worked for him forever. So no matter what he says, I’ve been at WTA long enough to know he’d never give her up, and that even if she were an industrious reader, he’s way too much of a control freak to hand over scripts to an assistant. I smile and let these things go unsaid.

“Have you had lunch yet?” he asks.

My heart picks up. “Um,” I stall. He’s never asked me anything like that before, nothing that could even hint at the idea of us hanging out beyond the glamorous perimeter of WTA. I feel the furious urge to lie, but the truth is I just ate. And I don’t have enough money to buy lunch twice, even if the likelihood is that he would pay. Plus, I would feel ridiculous asking Louisa to go to lunch twice in one day.

“I just got back, actually,” I say. His eyes are so bright in this light. He always looks like he’s up to something, like he’s toying with an idea for an adventure he might include you in, if you’re lucky.

“Oh,” he says. How old is he? Early thirties, maybe? “Well, then how about coffee after work. I’d take you for a drink, but I’m sober.”

My blood starts moving faster. He’s asking me on a date. Coffee is a date, right?

“I would like that,” I say, my words careful. I’m so nervous I can’t breathe right. I’m definitely interested, but I’m not sure if I’m not supposed to see anyone outside the office like that. But maybe he means as friends? I mean, I go out with Kai, so what’s the difference?

A whole lot, probably. What if Louisa gets mad?

Or what if Harrison wants to take me out because he thinks I have something special and the agency should represent me?

He smiles his perfect grin and I smile back, wondering where in the world this is going to go, and hoping it’s somewhere good.



“Great,” he says. “One of my writers, Gabe O’Sullivan, has a table reading at eight. So if you’re still free after that coffee we could grab dinner, too, and catch the reading.”

Gabe O’Sullivan. Writer of the blockbuster movie Enemy among a bunch of others. And a table reading? That’s when actors get together to read through a script start to finish, and it’s the kind of thing only insiders get to see. There’s no blocking (when the director moves them around), it’s just a first read to hear what everyone sounds like together and to get a feel for the play or film script. I’ve never been to one, of course—I’ve only read about them in my acting books. “Is it a new play?” I ask. “I thought he only wrote movies.”

A relaxed grin settles on Harrison’s face. He likes talking about his clients. A lot of the agents here are like that; they don’t seem comfortable in the spotlight the way the actors do, but they like championing someone else. Louisa says that for some agents (and I think she’d put Harrison in this category) it’s partly ego—they get a rush negotiating the deals and going to power lunches that Louisa says are exactly as you imagine them to be: producers, directors, actors, and writers all sitting around a table talking about projects that may or may not come to fruition.

I would still give anything to be at that table.

“Gabe writes everything,” Harrison says, leaning farther into my cubicle, confident now. “The man is a force.”

“A force,” I repeat. “I like that.”

He waits. I study his face, seeing only the slightest bit of nervousness left on it.

“I’d love to see a table reading,” I say, grinning, putting an end to any doubt he might have. I can’t keep the excitement out of my voice, and I know he hears it. He’s smiling, too.

“It’s a date then,” he says. “Come to my office when you’re done working. Don’t let Louisa keep you too late.”



A date. I shove down the wish that he’d called it a business meeting, or whatever you’d call it when you take out a person you think might be right for your agency. But you never know—this could all lead anywhere. The point is that someone like him wants to hang out with someone like me. And that could be a very good thing.