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She averts her gaze in a bid to hide the rising color in her cheeks.
“Hey, Bethie?” I say and wait for her to look up. “This your first day?”
“Can you tell?”
I give her a smile in answer and her shoulders fall. Crossing the room, I move to stand before her.
Bethie isn't a short woman, but her nervous, somewhat meek disposition makes her seem smaller than she is.
I lift a finger to her chin and tilt it upward. “Keep this here, okay? It doesn't matter if you feel like you're dying on the inside so long as you don't show it. Pretend to be confident and no one will know any different.”
She does as I say, holding her chin right where I told her to.
“And your shoulders,” I continue, “keep them relaxed and rolled back. When you hunch, you make yourself smaller, and we want your presence to fill the whole room.”
She blinks at me and looking into her eyes for the first time, it hits me why her awkward, timorous constitution resonates with me as much as it does. Her self-consciousness, her diffidence, the way she seems almost scared of the world… I feel it all too. I've just learned to hide it better than she has.
“Practice every day, and it will start to feel like second nature.”
“How long did it take for you?” she asks.
But I don't answer.
I don't want to give her the disappointment of knowing that it's never felt that way to me. That nothing about this manufactured exterior I've worked so hard to maintain feels natural at all. I've practiced it so perfectly that, even though it's so far removed from the person I am at my core, no one has ever been able to tell it's not real.
With the exception of one.
Not that it matters much now. He's not around anymore. But I only have myself to blame for that. The things I did, the choices I made…
Bethie leads me through the halls of the broadcast center to the studio, turning to me just before I step onto set.
“Thank you,” she whispers, “for before.”
I grin at her. “You'll be running this place before you know it.”
A shy, disbelieving giggle escapes her, but she regards me with her head held high. “It was really nice to meet you, Miss Althea.”
“Thea,” I correct. “My friends call me Thea.”
Julia Abernathy isa severe-looking woman in her mid-fifties who does her best to compensate for the rigidness of her face with a stiff, lipstick-stained smile. Her blonde hair is coifed like a toy poodle, and she's dressed in a cream blouse with a cascading collar and two strings of opals suspended around her neck. Tucking one ankle behind the other, she rests her hands in her lap and regards Thea with a solemn expression.
“We've spoken a lot today about your upcoming movie, but you've been quick to avoid any question that mentions your co-star, Aiden McAllister.”
I watch on the tiny television screen at work as Thea smiles with gentility, not a hint of unease marring her features at all. I know differently, though. I see the discomfort flicker in the emerald green of her eyes, and I recognize it vividly in the microscopic twitch of her eyebrow. Her tells haven't changed since she was eighteen.
She says nothing, just regards Julia with suspicious eyes and a polite smile as she waits for her to continue.
“I'm sure you've seen the stories about your alleged involvement with Aiden in the press this week.” Julia pauses to cast her eyes over the live audience. “I guess we're all hoping that you'll address them here today. Give us an exclusive, perhaps. “
Thea shifts, eyes shimmering with discomfort once more. Her gaze flicks momentarily to somewhere off camera, as if seeking silent reassurance from someone I can't see.
“Well, you know what they say, Julia. Don't believe everything you hear.”
“That's true.” Julia laughs wryly. “But there's also no smoke without fire.”
I see the moment Thea's suspicion grows into annoyance, the way the skin beside her eyes crinkles ever so slightly, the subtle downward twitch of her lips that would be invisible to anyone who doesn't know her face as well as I do.
“So, tell us, Althea. Are the rumors true? Are you and Aiden finally a real couple? I don't think there's a couple in Hollywood that the world is rooting for more than you two.”
