Page 78 of Not Exactly a Small-Town Romance

“You okay?”

“I’m fine. Just unexpected. It’s fine. I should have known. Ugggh.” She hurries toward the diner in long, power-walking strides.

I rush to keep up. “I’ll see you in the diner in a minute? I’ll get us a table.”

She stops short, seems to think about it, and turns. “Of course. Yes. Get a table. Thank you.”

“Your usual coffee?”

She shakes her head. “Drip coffee with room for cream.”

“Oh?” This is new.

“I’m trying to be less high maintenance.” Then she’s off again.

The waitress inside the diner points me to an empty booth. I order two plain coffees in solidarity.

When Kelsey returns, she slides into the seat with a long sigh. “It’s already been a day.”

I push her mug toward her. “I’m not sure this is going to help. I’m happy to drive as far as I need to go to get an iced espresso with almond milk and a drizzle of caramel, shaken rather than stirred.”

She dumps a tiny prepackaged slash of cream and a packet of sugar into her coffee and stirs. When she takes a sip, she grimaces. “Maybe I can be Hollywood on the road and small town when I have an audience.”

While she checks email, I find a Starbucks a few miles away and order a DoorDash to bring it to the diner. She can at least have good coffee on the drive.

We order pancakes and talk about where Desdemona’s headed after Cannes, the filming of a snappy mystery set in London. We’re not going to be there, but she will.

“I’m worried poor Devonta is going to crack if the Demon gets too harsh with her,” Kelsey says. “It’s only her second project.”

I’m incredibly relieved that we’re able to talk business like always. “I’ll see who’s on the crew. Maybe we can find someone to watch out for her.”

Kelsey rims the edge of her pancake with syrup. She doesn’t like to pour it on top. “Everybody is scared of the Demon.”

“You’re not.”

Kelsey shrugs. “Neither are you.”

“That’s how we’ve managed to stay employed.”

“I’ve seen the books,” Kelsey says between bites of pancake. “She doesn’t pay you enough to be worth your time.”

“It’s the intangibles I’m after.”

Kelsey aims her fork at me. “You mean the women.”

It’s like last night never happened. I’m not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed.

“It’s the connections,” I say. “I get to stay in the fray.”

She stabs the last bite of her pancake and swirls it through the remaining syrup. “Do you think you’ll get an agent again? Go for parts?”

She’s asked this before. “No. If I was going to work on-screen again, I’d call in the favor with Desdemona.”

Kelsey sets down her fork. “You think she’d do it?”

“I could make her. But I don’t.”

“Because people would say you didn’t earn it.”

---