“No, thanks,” Courtney said. She tried to walk away but the gathered crew had crowded by the exit, smiling and waiting, and she could not easily pass through. She turned back.
“Come now, we are but students of your easy acting style,” Sofia said. “There’s a tap over there. Unless you don’t want to? Unless you’re worried?”
Courtney took the bucket and walked over to a real tap by the back wall of the sound stage. She turned it to the left and water poured into the real-life bucket. Courtney had filled her imaginary bucket for all of two seconds. It took exactly a minute for the real bucket to fill.
“Takes forever, doesn’t it?” Sofia said.
Courtney grabbed the handle and lifted. Her arm wrenched, and the bucket stayed on the floor. She winced. She bent her knees and tried to lift it again, this time with both hands. She grimaced, and the bucket came off the ground. She waddled across the room with gritted teeth. The bucket bounced on her thigh and she almost tripped over. She reached the halfway point and it seemed she could stand the bucket no longer in her right hand, bogged down with the weight of a ten-year-old child inside, and switched it to her left. Despite every impulse to resist, she stretched her right hand out, red and aching from the task. She could not have managed a closer match of Sofia’s own bucket-carrying if she did so on purpose.
She dumped the bucket at Sofia’s feet and stormed off. The crowd stomped and whistled and cheered Sofia’s name. Sofia stifled a grin and nodded, keen not to appear a sore winner.
Derek held up his hand for a high five and Sofia slapped it with her own.
“Wow, Ms. Wentworth,” he said.
“Okay, moving on, everyone,” the assistant director called out to the gathered crowd. “We’ve got the mirror sorted. We’re back in five.” The crew dispersed, revealing Jack standing over by the camera. He looked at Sofia, a hint of amusement on his face. Her heart leapt.
“I’ve never seen that before. You showed her,” Derek said.
Sofia nodded and kept her eyes on Jack across the way, enjoying his smile. Then she squinted. “What did I show her, exactly?” she asked Derek.
He shrugged. “Youth is more important than talent.”
Sofia smiled but said no more. Jack walked back to his trailer and Sofia watched him go.
“Ms. Wentworth. I want to tell you something, and I mean this in the nicest possible way,” Derek said.
Sofia turned to him. “What is it, Derek?”
“Ms. Wentworth. You can act.”
“Thanks, Derek,” Sofia said with a laugh.
She knew this somewhere deep down, but the words had a greater effect on her than he likely intended.
Chapter Thirty-Three
You like good stories, then?” Fred asked Jane that morning. “Are you a movie buff, too?”
“Mov-ie? I don’t know what that is.” They were in the sitting room; Jane was reading her sermons again.
Fred laughed. “You don’t know what a movie is? You’re acting in one.”
Jane inhaled sharply, aware she had again hinted at her unorthodoxy. She scoured her brain as quickly as she could. Mov-ie. Sofia had mentioned it, she remembered now. The theater production, but fancier. “Yes, I know this thing!” she declared eagerly, hoping it was enough to remedy the situation.
He laughed and shook his head. “You are a strange one,” he said. He did not say it derisively or cruelly, but still, it bothered her. In fact, it made her irrationally angry.
“I am not strange, thank you. I am entirely normal,” she insisted, breathing heavily. She of course detested this line of conversation, well aware of how strange she truly was. An author who had travelled through time: on a scale of strangeness, that likely sat toward the high end. More than that, however, she disliked being called strange by him.
He laughed again. “Sure, whatever you say.” He crossed his arms and leaned on the doorframe.
She eyed him suspiciously and felt relieved. He seemed not to have discovered her secret just yet. But she also felt outrageously annoyed at his teasing. What had happened to the rapprochement of yesterday, the deliverance and intimacy of sharing in his writing? It had gone back to him making fun of her, and her reacting with indignant anger.
“Want to go to one?” he said. He cleared his throat and looked at the floor. “A movie, that is.”
Jane scowled. He clearly disliked her, yet once again he seemed to be inviting her to some sort of event. She shrugged; he must be a glutton for punishment. “Oh. I don’t know,” she replied.
“We can go this afternoon, when I get home from school.”
She stared at him. “Are you sure? You’ve made it quite clear I infuriate you each time I open my mouth.”
He smiled at her and scratched his head. “You do infuriate me each time you open your mouth. That’s why we’re going. You have to be quiet at the movies.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Actually, no. I cannot go outside,” she replied in a haughty tone. She spoke the truth. Sofia had been firm on this. She felt glad for the excuse to refuse him: she did not want to go now he was obnoxious once more.
“That’s the beauty of the movies—they’re inside.” He coughed again.
“I see.” She found herself unable to think of another reason to say no. She could not tell him the truth, obviously, so she decided the safer option was just to accept his invitation. “All right, then,” she said. “I will go with you.”
“Looking forward to it already,” he said.
“And I,” she shot back. She shook her head again, confused as to why this man, who clearly found her disagreeable, kept inviting her on outings. She had never understood men before and seemed on no path to reaching further comprehension anytime soon.
Later that day, they walked to some sort of theater house at the corner of one of
