Birds of California(34)
Once he’s gone she scrolls her phone for a while, but it’s too nice to spend an hour sitting alone in the passenger seat of this farcical car, so she glances around to make sure nobody with a camera is lurking at the edges of the parking lot, then gets out and climbs up onto the hood. She leans back against the warm metal and closes her eyes, letting the sunshine make patterns on the insides of her eyelids. She’s thinking about ordering a ham and cheese omelet at breakfast. She’s thinking about changing the blocking of the final scene in the play. She’s thinking about saying screw it and telling Sam to take her back to his apartment when someone calls her name across the parking lot.
Fiona opens her eyes, scrambling upright like an instinct. Feeling her entire body go cold.
“Um,” she says, instinctively rearranging her face into a mask of cheery, girlish, Riley Bird surprise. “Hi, Jamie.”
Chapter Ten
Sam
The audition is for Hot Rookie Fireman with a Tragic Military Past, and it actually goes amazingly, mind-bendingly well. Sam is shocked, honestly; it’s rare that he can feel himself nailing something in real time, slipping seamlessly into a character like he imagines legitimate actors do. He thinks of telling Fiona she’s his good luck charm, then imagines listening to her fake barfing sounds all the way to breakfast and thinks better of it.
He says his thank-yous—“You’ll definitely be hearing from us,” the casting director says with a smile, and Sam manages not to fist pump until he gets out of the room—and heads out to the parking lot, where he finds Fiona perched on the hood of the Tesla, shooting the shit with Jamie Hartley.
“Hey!” he calls, pleased. It’s a good day. “What is this, a reunion?”
“Uh-oh.” Jamie grins, lopsided and familiar. “Can’t be using that word yet.” He looks exactly the same as he did when he played their dad on Birds of California, that extremely well-preserved look that all the network guys out here have. “Hey, Fee, he said it, not me.”
Fiona smiles. “I will be sure to keep that in mind.”
“You do that,” Jamie says, slinging an arm around Sam’s shoulders and squeezing. He smells like a redwood forest. “Man, this is a surprise. How you doing, kid?”
“I’m good,” Sam says, ducking his head a little shyly. Back when he was still on Birds Jamie used to take him out for burgers at the end of every season and ask him what kinds of projects he wanted to work on, what his favorite movies were. Even back then Sam knew it was corny how much he looked forward to it, but he always looked forward to it anyway. When he heard about Jamie’s development deal at HBO he wondered if maybe there was a chance he’d get a call.
“I love this,” Jamie says now, letting him go and clapping him on the back. “The whole gang back together.”
“Except for Max,” Sam says, for Fiona’s benefit. “Can’t forget about Max.”
Jamie frowns. “Which one was Max?” he asks.
“Oh, come on!” Sam chides. “Little redheaded kid who played the cousin, you remember.”
“Of course I remember,” Jamie says. “I called and talked him into coming aboard the other day.” He turns to Fiona. “Did Thandie tell you she signed on?”
“I—” Fiona breaks off, the disbelief written all over her face. “Thandie?” she asks. “Really?”
“I know,” Jamie says with a self-deprecating laugh. “I was surprised, too. I thought she’d be too busy with Soderbergh and Fincher to be hanging around with schmucks like us. But she said it was such an important part of her life that she’d come in and do a couple of episodes for old times’ sake.”
“That’s big of her,” Fiona mutters under her breath—or Sam thinks that’s what she says, at least. Jamie doesn’t seem to hear.
“Anyway, I’ve gotta get going,” he says. “Got a meeting inside. But it was good to see you guys.” He winks. “Nice that you still hang out.”
He hugs both of them goodbye and lopes off across the parking lot in his leather jacket like Ben Affleck about to drill a nuclear missile into an asteroid. “I love that guy,” Sam says once he’s gone. Fiona is already back in the car, buckled neatly into the passenger seat with her hands folded in her lap. “Don’t you love that guy?”
Fiona doesn’t answer. “Did you plan that?” she asks. She isn’t looking at him, instead staring straight out the windshield at Jamie’s receding back.
Sam stares at her blankly. “Plan what?”
“Running into him.”
“What? No.” He shakes his head. Her tone is completely different than it was a minute ago, and when he looks at her a little more carefully he notices her body language is, too. She was acting, he realizes suddenly, and he’s immediately and bizarrely impressed with her chops all over again. She’s better than he is, that’s for sure. He wants to march her back inside the studio and tell them, This is the girl you should hire. “I had no idea he was here.”
“Okay,” Fiona says, and it’s obvious she thinks he’s full of shit. “Because I’m just saying, he sure didn’t seem that surprised to see us together.”
That irritates him, even as he feels a little bit guilty; he thinks of the way Jamie winked at him, like they were in on something together. Still: “Really?” Sam can’t resist saying. “He literally said, ‘This is a surprise.’”