Hank looked around the table. Samantha and Roberta had little grins on their faces, but it was Ella’s face he wanted to see. Her mouth was slightly open. Her eyes were sparkling.
He’d hit a home run!
“I love that idea,” she said.
Hank couldn’t help feeling sort of shy. “Good.” He grinned. “But you do all the research,” he said to Roberta, “so this curse doesn’t have a leg to stand on.”
“I don’t even need to,” she said. “I know exactly where to go. There are a couple of commercial kitchens in Charleston. I have a friend with a food truck who’s used them. Both have giant mixing bowls. That’s what I need. And ovens with a lot of racks.”
“Time to get baking,” Samantha said.
Roberta stood up. “If I can rent one out in the next couple of days, I will. And I’ll check back with y’all to let you know how it goes.”
Everyone else stood too. Ella gave Roberta a hug. “Best of luck. I’ll be on pins and needles waiting to hear what happens.”
“You’re crazy, you do know that,” said Samantha. “But I admire you for thinking outside the box.”
Roberta chuckled. “At least I’m trying something new.”
Miss Thing hugged her too. “I hope this does the trick.”
Hank stood back, not sure what to say. He’d made his contribution. He caught Roberta’s eye as she was stuffing her cell phone back into her purse. He lifted his hand in goodbye. “Hey,” he said, “I’d go out with you even if you never spoke a word.”
Roberta paused. Smiled. “That was a very nice thing to say, Mr. Rogers.”
“Please call me Hank.”
“Hank, then.” Her eyes got shiny. “You’re a sweetie.”
“I wasn’t kidding,” he said. “You’ve got presence. You walk into a room and don’t have to say anything, but people are aware of you. In a good way. That’s highly valued in the acting community.”
“I have presence?” Roberta sucked in a little breath. She was too dignified to gasp outright.
“Yes, you do,” Hank insisted.
“I agree,” said Samantha. “A very warm presence. You’re delightful, in fact.”
Roberta’s mouth dropped open. “Thank you both so much.” She paused. “Can you come? To the fundraiser?”
“I wish,” said Hank. He loved dolphins and other sea creatures—who didn’t?—and it was always a good thing to help local charities when he was on location. “But we’ll be finished shooting here in a week.”
“Yes, I’ll be in England,” Samantha said. “And then we take up filming in Montreal.”
Roberta’s shoulders dropped. “What a shame.”
It struck Hank then, how temporary his life felt in general. He was always going from place to place, following the work, and then heading back to Brooklyn to regroup. But staying home never lasted longer than eight or nine months, tops. Often, he was only there a few months. On rare occasions, he’d get two weeks’ break between jobs.
So why was he here to try to get Ella’s notice? Had he assumed if things worked out between them that she’d drop her life and hang out in New York or L.A. with him? He hadn’t thought about that. And he was embarrassed.
But Ella looked happy. Maybe he had something to do with it. He managed to get close to her a few seconds later, while everyone else was chatting in front of them as they walked toward the front door. “Did that just really happen?” he murmured. “You told your client to bake ten thousand Southern, savory happy-hour treats? We call it nosh in New York.”
“I remember,” she said. “Once a New Yorker, always a New Yorker.”
“Well said,” he answered. “But I like it down here. It’s kind of exciting. You guys—y’all—are a little impulsive, in a good way.”
“You will be too. It only takes about a week. It’s all that sun we get. It keeps us happy. We can afford to joke and take chances. And you’re already starting to. Look at you, thinking out of the box. Giving Roberta such a good idea about the commercial kitchen. I owe you.”
“No, you don’t.”
They stood and looked at each other a second too long.
I did it for you, he wanted to say. But instead he said, “I’m proud to know you. You have a really amazing calling in life.”
She swallowed, then said, “Wow, that means a lot. Thanks, Hank. I’ll do whatever it takes to make love happen.”
“Really?” Hank didn’t want to be obnoxious, but he didn’t quite believe her.
“Well, for other people,” she amended, sounding sheepish.
“Why not for you?” He knew he was pushing his luck.
“Because I’m too busy. And—”
“And what?”
“I’ve been lucky.” Her brow furrowed as she considered something. “At least,” she said carefully, “I’ve experienced it before.”
Her confession felt fragile, like a beautiful china cup, offered to him. Now it was his turn not knowing what to say.
“I could ask you the same thing,” she said, sounding her usual lively self again. “What’s kept you from falling in love? You’ve had ten years to make it happen.”
He stared at her a second. “I plead the fifth.”
“You can dish it out, but you can’t take it.” She tossed him a mock-triumphant look, which was very sexy.
“You can get information out of me,” he said, “but it’ll require the right touch. I don’t cooperate easily.”
“Huh,” is all she said. But she didn’t sound angry. She sounded almost intrigued.
He’d poked the bear. She hadn’t ignored him or roared at him to get lost. It had been a gamble, and he hoped it would pay off. Soon.
* * *
Hank and Samantha left Ella at her office with Roberta and Miss Thing, the three of them making up a shopping list for the cheddar pennies. When he shut the front door of Two Love Lane behind him, he could swear he heard Roberta say she’d need twenty pounds of butter.
Twenty pounds of butter! He couldn’t even imagine that.
He’d had a good afternoon, he thought, as he walked back to the set with Samantha.
“Dinner tonight,” she reminded him. “With some studio people.”
“Right,” he said.
“Hank—”
“Yes?”
“We’re peers,” she said.
“Not really. You’ve got a lot more clout in this industry than I do.”
“Well, we make about the same amount of money.”
“Which really isn’t fair to you,” said Hank, “considering how much more experience you have.”
“Agreed,” she said. “But that’s how it is right now.”
“Things are changing,” he said. “Which is good.”
“I know. And I appreciate your professionalism. But I wanted to talk to you about something personal—about Ella.”
“Okay,” he said, feeling a little leery.
“She’s your ex-lover. We all have them. But I sense some unresolved feelings between you two.”
“You’re right.” He didn’t mind admitting it. He was ready to stop running from all his regrets. “We were together ten years ago. And I blew it.”
“You were very young.”
“Yes, I was. But I can’t really use that as an excuse.”
“Sure you can. You were confused. You didn’t have what you needed yet. You had growing up to do.”
“You make it sound … okay.”
“It’s life,” she said.
They walked together in silence.
Samantha stopped a moment to peek into a garden through another magnificent wrought-iron gate. “So do you think she’ll give you another opportunity?”
“No,” he said, admiring the blooms and the carefully trimmed hedges over her shoulder. “I have to create my opportunities.”
“I see.” Samantha turned back to him. “Do you need some help?”
“You’d help?”
She shrugged. “Why not? But if it doesn’t work out between you two, after we stop filming, I’ll be calling. And you’ll say yes to at least one whirlwind weekend on a tropical island with me—as friends—because I worked my ass off trying to help you win Ella’s attention. Agreed?”
He stuck out his hand. “Agreed.”
She shook it, and he pulled her close. “You’re a good egg, Samantha.”
“I know,” she mumbled into his chest. “I’m far more than a pretty face that’s been Botoxed more often than I’d like to admit.”
He pulled back. “I’d never guess. Seriously, I wouldn’t.” He explored her face, not looking for wrinkles but for a sign that she really meant what she’d said. “But tell me this. How can you help me with Ella? I don’t have a lot of time. Less than a week.”
“I’m not going to do anything shady, like pretending I’m after you so she’ll get jealous.”
“Hmmm. Maybe that would work, though.”
“No. It would give me a great deal of pleasure, flirting with you off camera, but we don’t want it to backfire and scare her off. It will be difficult enough for her to see us staging sex scenes together. And kissing on film. I already rubbed that in.”
“You did?”
“Yes, earlier today. I’ll take on the role of burr under her saddle. If she likes you, she won’t cut me off completely when I try to throw you together. I’ll take some pressure off you to get her attention. I’ll talk you up on the set. I’ll invite you both to a dinner party. Let her do some comparisons of you with other men by getting a few of my out-of-town friends to stay, the ones who seem like they have potential at first but the more they talk, the more she’ll realize they’re self-absorbed.” She paused. “You’re not self-absorbed, are you?”
“For a while I was. I thought I was only being smart, putting my career first. But I sacrificed too much, and it got lonely.”
“Self-absorbed people don’t get lonely. You couldn’t have been self-absorbed. You were just young and ambitious. And you were probably too scared to let someone down to pay attention to your heart. Most likely your parents.”
“How did you know?”
“It’s a common story. Anyone else you were afraid of disappointing?”
“Not really. It was mainly my father. He wanted me to go to law school.”
“Ah. My mother wanted me to marry the boy next door, now an excellent butcher in Devon.”
“If I could do it all over again…”
“This is your chance.”
“Ella’s a matchmaker. Won’t she recognize everything you’re doing as a matchmaking strategy?”
“Of course she will. I won’t be hiding anything. She might not like that I’m taking on that role, but how can she stop me from trying? I didn’t get to where I am by obeying other people.”
“I like you, Samantha.”
“Thank you. Have you told her you’ve come to Charleston for her?”
“Yes. I told her.”
“So you’re really not here for the film.”
“I hate to admit it, but no.”
She was quiet. “That’s all right. As long as you do a good job in your role, who cares?”
“Would you have told Isabel and Chad not to hire me if you’d known why I really came?”
“No.”
They were back at the set. It was going to be a long night. An hour and a half went by, and in that time, Hank rehearsed one scene eight times with Samantha, their third one. Then filmed it once, to test the lighting.
So much of movie making was repetition, and rehearsing scenes out of order. It was chaotic. Of course, then the editor and director smoothed out the story.
Maybe Hank’s crazy life could fall into place and become meaningful too. Eventually.
Samantha pulled out her phone during a break. “I have an idea. Let me text Ella and tell her to come visit after her costume fitting. You disappear somewhere. I’ll ask her to go to dinner with us and the studio heads.”
But a business dinner sounded boring. Hank couldn’t make Ella sit through one of those. “I won’t be able to talk to her much with the studio heads around. So why bother?”
“It’s the best I can come up with at the moment,” Samantha said, “considering your parameters. You have to be at that dinner.”
There seemed to be no perfect solution.
The truth was, other people meant well. But no one comprehended the delicacy of Hank’s situation the way he did. No one understood Ella the way he did. And no one cared as much about them as he did.
What should he do?
What should he do?
He raked a hand through his hair. “Pammy is out on a date. An early one. God knows, she might be back by eight.”
“And?” Samantha waited expectantly.
“I’m skipping the dinner tonight,” Hank said. It was a risk, but he was willing to go through with it.
Samantha raised a brow. “How do you propose to explain your absence to the studio heads?”
He shrugged. “I’ll tell them I’m sick. It’s not as if tonight is crucial. I’ve met them before.” Then he got an idea. “Maybe you can tell them you saw me puke. In a trash can. Something gross so they’ll want to change the subject fast.”
“No, I won’t lie for you.”
“Fine. I’ll tell them I puked in a trash can. I’ll even text that little green face emoji to them to prove my point.”
A little dimple appeared in Samantha’s cheek. “Have fun with Ella. I hope Pammy’s date goes well, too, and that she’s out long enough for you to make some romantic strides.”
He grinned. “Thanks.”
“I shouldn’t say this, but I like that you’re slacking off on the job. At least it’s just on the schmoozing end. Not the acting end.”
“I won’t let you down there.”
Three hours later, at seven o’clock, Hank walked out the set door and onto the street. He called Isabel, told her he couldn’t make dinner. He was free—
And he’d put Ella first.