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“As you wish.” Audra shrugged. “It’s your energy.”
“I appreciate it, though,” he added, realizing that all this talk of vibes and pooping was Audra’s own LA way of trying to be sweet.
“Does that work for you?” he asked. “Is that how you’re able to cry whenever you want?”
“Do I shit so hard that I start sobbing?” Audra looked at him like he was insane. “Do you have any idea what an awful thing that is to say to a woman?”
“What? No, I just meant…” Patrick felt the ground of the conversation giving way beneath him. “Because you said…”
“I can’t believe you would ask me something like that,” Audra continued, her face crumpling like tissue paper. “I am a lady, Patrick. Why do you want me to feel bad about myself? Do you have any idea how hard it is to be a woman in this industry? The obsession with our bodies? Like we’re public property. And you just go asking me about my butthole?” She burst into tears, and in an instant her face was soaked, her cheeks flush and smeared with tears. “God, you must think I’m really disgusting,” she bawled, wiping away snot with the back of her hand.
“Jesus,” said Hector from the doorway. “Did you break Audra?”
“I didn’t mean to!” protested Patrick. “I just…there was this vapor stick, and energy juice, and Audra was telling me about her body, and—”
Hector grinned wolfishly, and Patrick realized Audra’s sobs weren’t actually sobs. She was cackling. He turned to her, stunned, to see her face transformed once more, smiling sweetly through the oil spill of her mascara.
“And that,” she said, daintily dabbing at her eyes, “is how you cry on command.”
“You are a sociopath,” said Patrick.
“I am an actress.”
“It’s one hell of a party trick,” said Hector. “The first time she did it to me I was horrified. I thought I was gonna be hearing from her lawyer.”
“She’s done it to you, too?”
“And half the crew.”
“It’s a power thing,” she said. “You would not believe how much easier it is to get things done just because men never want to think they’ve made a pretty girl cry.”
“Sociopath,” Patrick repeated.
“I’m not proud of it,” she added.
“Really? Because it sounds like you kind of are.”
“Oh, she is,” said Hector.
“Since when have you two been spending that much time together?” asked Patrick.
Audra shrugged. “Since you never seem to be around for me to tease anymore, and my self-esteem is like a quantum physics experiment. I need a handsome man around at all times to observe me being beautiful, or I cease to exist.”
“Schrödinger’s hottie,” said Hector, looking as pleased as punch.
“Oh.” Patrick looked from Hector to Audra. “Oh.”
“Hector came looking for you one afternoon, and you were nowhere to be found,” Audra said, “and I was bored, so I bet him he couldn’t lift me.” Hector flexed a bicep as if to illustrate the story. “Turns out he can. Hector, show him.”
Springing into action like a show dog, Hector scooped Audra up and threw her over his shoulder while she squealed in delight.
“See?” she giggled, tapping Hector’s back until he spun her around so she could face Patrick. “See?”
“I do,” Patrick said, forcing a smile. He saw, all right. Boy meets girl, boy physically lifts girl. He didn’t want to resent Audra or Hector. He liked them both. But he couldn’t get it out of his head how neither of them thought twice about their display of affection. He hated that it was the kind of thing he wouldn’t have even noticed, at least not consciously, until very recently.
“How long has this been going on?” he asked.
Hector shrugged. “Just a few weeks.”
