I paused. “I haven’t read my grandmother’s books, but Elementia is a force for good.” No matter what Dad says. “Sevyn saves her brother. She saves the world. A girl saves the world. How often do we get to see that on the big screen?”
“You don’t know what happens at the end of the third book, do you?”
I glared. “Why? What happens?”
Shoshanna shook her head. “I’m not destroying your little speech there. It was too good.”
“What about Cate Collins?” I asked. “She’s one of the only female directors to have been given a Hollywood blockbuster. If this movie fails, they’ll blame her. They’re already blaming her, even though her efforts have been heroic. But if it doesn’t fail, thousands of girls are going to grow up wanting to be directors like her.”
“Yeah, but…” Shoshanna grimaced. “Too little, too late. I’ve got to think about my career.” She stood, pulling her bag strap over her shoulder—her shoulder!
“Dr. Jillian Holtzmann!” I yelled, making the people around us jump.
Shoshanna froze. “What about her?”
“She’s a queer girl action hero. That’s why you have that tattoo. She inspires you, and you’re going to inspire girls. You’re going to be a freakin’ queer Daisy Ridley, and girls are going to get tattoos of you.”
Shoshanna blushed for the first time since I’d met her. “Oh Jesus, Iris.”
“I’m right!” I shouted. “All of this is important. I get that now! Okay?”
Shoshanna glanced at the audience of people enjoying my public revelation. She stepped close, almost like she was checking for sincerity in my pores. “Don’t you backslide.”
I nodded. And meant it.
• • •
When Shoshanna and I came back through security, Eamon actually cried, and he was much better at it than Julian. No snot. Just big, beautiful tears dropping from those crystal-blue eyes. Shoshanna told him he was embarrassing her, but gave his elbow an affectionate squeeze. I called Cate and told her the good news—that we’d be back soon and the movie could continue. She surprised all of us by demanding we take the rest of the day off and come back in the morning.
And that’s how we got to see Eamon’s Dublin.
He took us to Trinity College, where the historic buildings were nothing compared to the odd trees that grew strong and curved on the pristine grounds. He took us across the slow-moving Liffey River to see the old post office with its pillars riddled with bullet holes from the Easter Rising. For dinner, we ate at an eccentric upstairs restaurant called 101 Talbot, and Shoshanna drank wine and told us her story.
She’d been a child actress, movies and television—this I knew. What I didn’t know was that her parents’ marriage had detonated over her young career. Roles died down when she was ten, and her manager mother wanted her to do some questionable commercials abroad. Shoshanna’d left acting to live in Providence with her dad, who was battling multiple sclerosis. After he died, she broke back into Hollywood. Her first talent agent said he wouldn’t represent her if she came out, claiming it would diminish the roles she’d be considered for.
“Of course that asshole was right, but I came out anyway and got a better agent. And that’s why I have Kate,” she said, reaching back to touch the tattoo on her shoulder blade. “There’s a spotlight for queer girls, and I’m going to be in it when we finally find the switch.”
I leaned forward and nearly got soup all over my shirt. “So you’ve reinvented yourself a half a dozen times already?” I somehow managed to refrain from yelling, Teach me!
“That’s a glamorous way to put it,” she said. I could see why I kept thinking of her as royalty. She was weathered, tough—and yet still graceful about all she had been through.
Eamon had been quiet the whole dinner, and I turned to him when Shoshanna left for the bathroom. His forehead was doubly creased.
“You do want to be an actor,” I said quietly. “Is that what you figured out today?”
He looked at the ceiling and blew out a breath. “Yes. I really do.”
I knew that look. I felt that look every time the garage door opened and I had to hurry to put Annie back in her case. I wanted to tell him that we’d find a way—for both of us to pursue our dreams—but instead my brain began to list all the ways in which this movie was still falling apart. That article. The doubting producers. A damn Thornian boycott.
I wanted to promise Eamon we’d make his career a reality, but how could I when I wasn’t even nudging my own dreams toward the realms of possibility?
DUBLIN’S FAIR CITY WHERE EAMON’S SO PRETTY
For the grand finale of the evening, we went to Eamon’s favorite pub, O’Sullivans. It was small and narrow, and yet packed with at least forty people, all singing along to a bald, charming guitarist at the front of the room.
Eamon had to spin some of his verbal magic to get me in since I wasn’t eighteen, but he knew the doorman, and I promised—boy-scout style—that I would not drink. Shoshanna took the alternative route, heading straight for the bar, so confident that people cleared out of her way.
I hid by Eamon’s elbow as he ordered a pint of something called Carlsberg. We slipped toward the back, against the side wall. Eamon leaned in close to talk over the music, pointing to the guitarist who was giving himself to U2’s “All I Want Is You” with such passion that most of the bar was singing with him. “That’s Brian. I wanted you to see him in action. When I think about Iris in the future, that’s what I see. You singing your heart out in front of adoring fans.”
“I have
