Chapter 38: Her Male Lead

The talk came around to the male lead, and Jane’s eyes turned doting before she’d said a word about him.

She was an actress, so nobody watching could be sure it wasn’t put on. But that was the look of a woman in love, and everybody in the studio recognised it as that.

Which made all of them want to know who the man was. Timmy had asked the question because asking questions was the job. Now he actually wanted it answered.

In the living room in Dallas, five people watched her get to it.

"I’ll warn everyone now." She said it carefully. "The man playing Elijah is not a simple actor. Whatever you’re expecting when you sit down on Sunday, it won’t be that." She let it settle. "Right now his name means nothing to anybody. That won’t last."

Nobody on that couch believed a word of it, and Elise believed it least.

’Is she actually talking about Ronan? He isn’t that good. If he was that good, how did he spend five whole years as an extra?’

Her mother thought it too, and her father, and both her grandparents. Nobody said it out loud.

Then Timmy said it for them, because he knew exactly the same thing about Ronan that they did.

"His name won’t mean nothing for long." Timmy came forward onto the desk. "Okay, come on now. I’ve got the cast list right here. There’s your name, and underneath your name there’s a guy nobody in this building has heard of, nobody at home has heard of, and I mean nobody." He held it a beat. "I had you down to come out here tonight and not say the man’s name once."

The audience went with him, which was the only reason he could put it that hard.

"And instead you keep going back to him. And what have you actually given me? He’s good. He got to you." He opened both hands at her. "That’s a commercial, Jane. Sell him to me properly."

"He did get to me." She wasn’t backing off it. "He’s the one I won’t forget working with. Out of everybody I’ve ever stood opposite, he’s the one who stays."

Timmy’s whole face lit up.

"Oh. Oh, hold on now." He came halfway out of his chair and swung around to the audience. "That’s not admiration, folks. She’s gone. She is in love with the man."

The doting look dropped off her.

"What? No." The color came straight up her face on live television. "I’m complimenting somebody I work with. That’s all that is."

Timmy stopped.

He’d said it for a laugh and he’d expected one back, because that was the arrangement on his couch. What he got instead was a flat denial and a blush, and it told him there was something true underneath it that she didn’t want on air.

He wasn’t going near it. His job tonight was to sell a Sunday premiere, not to give the gossip pages a week of stories about who Jane Kingsley was in love with.

"Okay, okay, that one’s on me." He was already down at his cards. "Ronan, right? That’s the name I’ve got written here. Ronan."

"That’s him."

The name went out over the air, and the Mercer house came apart.

"That’s my son’s name." Jordan was on his feet. "That’s Ronan’s name, on the television."

"He wasn’t making any of it up." Ayumi had both hands at her mouth. "He’s really there. He’s really working with her."

"I’m telling everybody at school." Elise already had her phone in her hand. "Every single person. Tomorrow."

They’d had the photographs for weeks and none of it had ever quite counted. Ronan on a set with the lights behind him, Ronan standing shoulder to shoulder with Jane Kingsley herself. Any extra with the nerve to stop a famous woman on her way past could come home with a picture like that, and privately, not one of them had ruled it out.

They couldn’t tell themselves that anymore. Even Billy and Janice sat there staring at the screen like the set had told them a lie.

Then Timmy leaned back in.

"Ronan." He sat back and drew it out. "Lucky guy. Lucky, lucky guy. Because they tell me there’s a lot going on in this show. Kissing scenes. Intimate scenes, the whole business." He put a hand out at her. "And he’s doing all of it with Jane Kingsley. Somebody at home explain to me how that’s fair."

The studio came apart, and in the Mercer living room nobody said a word.

’No way. No way!’ Elise’s eyes were huge at the screen. ’He never said anything about kissing scenes. He never said one word to me about kissing Jane Kingsley.’

The rest of them were still catching up to it. Someone out of their own house, Ronan, doing scenes like that with a woman the whole country wanted. It wasn’t the kind of thing you kept to yourself. It was the kind of thing you found a way to mention at church.

"Kissing scenes." Jordan sat back down slowly. "My boy. With her."

"He never told us any of this." Ayumi still had her hands at her mouth. "Not once. Weeks of calls and he never said a word about it."

"Good for the boy." Billy was delighted and made no attempt to hide it. "Nineteen years old. Good for him."

"Billy." Janice didn’t look over at him.

"What? I said good for him."

"Please stop." Elise had her hands over her ears. "All of you. Please stop talking."

And they weren’t the only house in America having that conversation. Everybody watching had an opinion about it now — some actor nobody had heard of, in that job, with that woman, and how exactly a man got that lucky.

Which was the point of it. Timmy had put it out there on purpose, the way he put everything out there, because it wasn’t the plot of a period drama that got people to sit down on Sunday. It was this.

Jane had been through the routine enough times to play along with it.

"What do you want me to tell you?" She lifted a shoulder. "For a nobody, he’s a very good kisser. That’s all you’re getting. The rest of it you can watch."

"A very good kisser." Timmy repeated it to the ceiling. "The luckiest man alive, this guy."

The audience gave him a real laugh for that one.

""Alright, serious question." He put his elbows on the desk. "The love scenes. Is he a creep? Because I’ve had you right there in that chair telling me about co-stars you’d never put a name to, and what those men turned out to be. So where does this one land?"

Neither the show nor the network had the first interest in protecting the image of an actor nobody had heard of. And Jane had never made a secret of how she felt about that part of the job, which meant the question was a real risk to a man sitting three hours behind them with no idea it had been asked.

"He’s the opposite." She said it without any hedging at all. "I’m completely comfortable with him. And I’ll be honest with you, that has never happened to me before. He’s the first co-star I’ve done those scenes with who treated me with real respect the whole way through." A small shrug. "He’s careful with me. I actually enjoy the work."

"You enjoy it." Timmy put both hands up at the camera. "Everybody at home, please. Do not take that out of context. Do not."

The audience went, and Jane let them, and gave him a look that said he could have it.

In Dallas, the last of the doubt went out of the room. Their Ronan. On that show, in that woman’s company, with his name in her mouth on national television.

"Ayumi." Jordan turned around on the couch. "Sunday night. We’re having people over for it. The pilot. Neighbors, the Reynoldses, everybody from the shop — I want a house full for my son."

Ayumi had never in her life volunteered to host anything, and she didn’t hesitate for a second.

"Yes. We’re doing that." She was already counting chairs with her eyes. "And we need a proper television for it. A big one. Like a theater."

"That’s what I’m saying." Jordan was warming to it fast. "It’s time. We go up to a sixty-five inch."

Elise made a sound she’d have denied making. She was happy for her brother, obviously, she was extremely happy for her brother, and she was going to be watching movies on a sixty-five inch television by Sunday.

"I’m thanking him for this," she said. "I’m actually going to thank him."

Then Billy stood up out of the good chair.

"Sixty-five inches?" He looked down at his son. "That’s what you’re buying to put your own boy on? Why are you so cheap with him, Jordan?" He was already enjoying himself. "There’s a Sharp out there that’s ninety inches across. Biggest television made. I’ll go and buy it tomorrow and I won’t think twice about it."

Jordan and Ayumi both started talking at once. Neither of them got anywhere. Billy had decided.

Then Janice, who had said almost nothing all night, put her hand up.

"Then I’ll buy the antenna for it." She said it to nobody in particular. "A good one, off the roof. If we’re putting Ronan up on a screen that size I want to see the boy’s face clearly."

Jordan looked at Ayumi. Ayumi had nothing either.

Elise was up off the floor.

"Pawpaw. Mimi." She had her arms around both of them. "You two are the best people in this family." Then, without pausing: "So do I get something? Ronan’s getting a ninety-inch television and he isn’t even here."

"You get to study." Billy patted her arm. "Bring me a report card worth looking at and your grandmother and I will put you in a nice dress."

"A dress." Elise pulled back. "He gets ninety inches and I get a dress? You’re cheap, pawpaw."

"You get on national television like your brother," Billy said, sitting back down, "and I’ll think about it."

The whole room went, and Elise stood in the middle of it with her arms folded.

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