Page 39 of Bad Reputation

Maggie’s fingers danced over the Formica tabletop for a second. Maybe she played piano?

Then, finally, she said, “I directed a production ofOklahoma!once, and the kid playing Jud said a similar thing to me.”

“I haven’t seen that one in a while.” He wasn’t really into musicals.

“Ah. Well, Jud assaults Laurey twice, and he strongly implies that he killed another woman and her family when she turned him down. This kid was one of the nicest kids I’ve ever directed. He was playing way against type. We had endless conversations about those moments. How far did we need to go so the audience would get it? What would be comfortable for the actress playing Laurey? How to stage it? How to block it? How to use the music? The girl playing Laurey, she got right with it very quickly. From her perspective, it was so important because sexual violence could make this old play feel relevant to teens now. But for him, it was the relevance that made him want to crawl out of his skin.”

Lots of actors liked playing villains. Relished it, really. But Cole never had, and he suspected he never would. Geordie’s moral graynesswas as far as he was comfortable going—and he obviously wasn’t comfortable with that.

“So how did he deal with it?” Because Cole was feeling so insecure, he’d take acting advice from an actual teenager.

“It helps that Jud is the villain inOklahoma!And since it was a school production, it was supposed to teach the students something. So we talked about what he was learning, the technical challenges of the role. But ultimately, I asked himwhyhe thought we did plays. Like, what human impulse demands drama?” Maggie turned her gaze from the window to Cole. “What do you think?”

Cole almost took another sip of his tea, but nope, it would only be disappointing. He set it down again. “I assume you’re not going to let me say I make movies because I enjoy it.”

“Nope—though I get that. But I think there’s something deeper, more existential here.”

Cole closed his eyes and pictured the set. “I love the collective effort it takes to make television. I mean, tonight was fairly sparse, but wait until we get to those big crowd scenes. I know when people watch it, they’ll just think about Rhiannon and me. But dozens of people were involved in filming that. So many folks, so much expertise.” When he watched a movie, he always stayed through the entire credit sequence, trying to see every name. From the assistants to the caterer to the sparks and the grips, they all had made that movie. They were all important.

“So it’s a group endeavor,” Maggie said. “Like building a cathedral or something. What else?”

“Movies, television”—probably theatre, too, but he’d never done plays—“they say something about who we are. Like, as humans. Why we do the things we do.”

“Humanity and psychology.” Maggie ticked those off on her fingers.

“Sure. And to be selfish for a minute, I wasn’t a very good actor at first.”

Maggie started to disagree, but Cole cut her off. “No, really, I wasn’t. But I’ve gotten better, and sometimes when I’m really in a scene, everything else goes away, and I can be in the moment.”

Her eyes were gleaming, as if they’d caught every bit of the electric lights outside and compressed them.

Cole had caught the thread she’d been trying to get him to find, and he was speaking quickly now. His body was still humming with lust, but maybe also with some professional know-how. “Have you ever been in an accident, and you remember every single millisecond of it? As if time has slowed down or something? Performing can be like that. And other times, it’s an out-of-body experience, and I don’t come back to myself until it’s over. Either way, I feel ten times more alive. It’s standing on a mountaintop but without the climb.” Even tonight, with its moments of discomfort, his body was still rushing. Cole wouldn’t be able to sleep for hours.

“And now?”

“It’s a smaller buzz.” Cole laughed. “Sex scenes, fight scenes, stunts—they’re too technical to be truly ...”

“Transcendent?” she offered.

“Yeah.” That was a good word for it.

“I hope you get some of those moments during this shoot, Cole,” Maggie said softly. “They sound amazing.”

There was a note of jealousy in her tone that had him curious. “Was it like that when you were teaching?”

“Yes. Maybe even amplified because I felt extra pride in my students. I didn’t know my heart could be that full before that job.”

“I bet you were incredible at it.”

“Not to brag, but I was.” Maggie’s expression was smug, and for an instant, he was the jealous one.

Cole never found it easy to be kind to himself, probably because he’d made such big mistakes at the start. He wouldn’t give himself higher than a B-minus at pretty much any task or role he’d ever had.

But while she kept a smile pasted on her face, Maggie’s eyes dimmed. “Now I have to settle for being incredible at this.”

“You are. Oh my God, I should be saying thank you. I’m sitting here whining about how I don’t like playing a selfish lover, and I’m not acknowledgingyou. Maggie, I am so sorry.”

“For what?”

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