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She folded her arms across her chest. “Is that so?”
His eyebrows lifted again. “Yeah. Nothing at all like the warm, cuddly teddy bear you’re being right now.”
“You said you wanted honest feedback.”
“I did, it’s just—there’s honest and then there’s honest.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
Sally wandered over to Jonathan and started winding between his legs, purring. Traitor.
“You were pretty blunt about it that first time,” he said, “and I didn’t exactly take it well, if you’ll remember.”
Blunt. That was exactly what Diane had said. She was too blunt. That’s why people didn’t like her, apparently.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Jonathan said, “I needed to hear it, and I’m grateful you said what you said. But it wasn’t exactly pleasant.” He reached down to scratch Sally on the head, and she purred even louder. “The second time, you were more diplomatic about it though. Kinder, I guess. You said nice stuff to cushion the blow before you delivered the bad news. In my writing group we call it a feedback sandwich.”
That was what Diane had done to her, Esther realized. She’d started out the review by complimenting her before she dropped the hammer. She’d ended on a positive note too, like a consolation prize. A feedback sandwich.
“Did you want to show me something?” Esther asked irritably. She didn’t want to talk about this anymore, especially not with Jonathan. She didn’t even want to think about it anymore.
He looked up from petting her cat. “What?”
“Your script?” He’d rolled the pages up into a tube, and was clutching them in the hand that wasn’t petting Sally. “I assume that’s why you were lurking around my parking space.”
He straightened, tapping the roll of papers against his palm. “I wasn’t lurking, I was having a smoke in the courtyard and heard your car pull in.”
“While carrying around script pages?”
He shrugged.
She held out her hand. “Lemme see.”
He shoved the rolled-up pages behind his back. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Come on.” She wiggled her fingers impatiently.
He shook his head, backing toward the door. “Nope. It can wait until you’re in a better mood. I don’t want you taking your bad performance review out on my writing.”
“Chickenshit.”
His mouth curved into a lopsided smile. “You know it.”
“Fine,” Esther said. “Come back tomorrow, then.”
He pulled the door open, pausing on the threshold. “I’ll bring pizza to properly butter you up. What kind do you like?”
“Hawaiian,” she said, just to be contrary, because most people hated Hawaiian pizza.
He grinned, unfazed. “You got it.”
When he was gone, Sally came over and bonked her head against Esther’s leg. Esther scooped her up and buried her face in the cat’s fuzzy mane. “You don’t think I’m mean, do you?”
She took Sally’s purr as confirmation of the affirmative.
Chapter Thirteen
The first Friday of the month was goulash day at the Sauer Hewson cafeteria.
