“With tights and everything. I’ve done it a few times over the holidays. It’s not great money, but it is an acting job.”
“Are you going to do it this year?” Gideon asked. If so, he would be buying a ticket. They had to have shows after the end of the semester, didn’t they?
Megs shook her head. “I don’t think my new boss would appreciate me asking to get off work early twice a week to play dress-up.”
The idea of Megs in tights and a short skirt still lingered in his mind’s eye. Gideon cleared his throat. “Right. Are you excited about the job, though?”
Megs stepped over a tree root, then looked up with a wry smile. “It pays well.”
Gideon chuckled. “You think you’re selling out.”
“I know I am, but what else am I supposed to do? You know I’ve watched a hundred of those celebrity interviews where they talk about how hard it was to make it in the industry, and how they almost gave up, but then ended up getting their big break because they met some producer in a bar where they were waiting tables or something.”
“Right, someone didn’t show up for open mic night.”
“Exactly. They were singing in the bathroom stall or looked like their high-school crush. Anyway, we celebrate that. We listen to those stories and applaud their resiliency, but you know what nobody ever talks about? The fact that every day before that day, everyone in their life told them how they were huge failures.”
Gideon frowned. “People tell you that?”
Megs scoffed. “Absolutely. Not to my face, but it’s in those looks. You know the pitying ones that say, ‘someday she’ll figure out that she’s never going to make it,’ or in the comments like, ‘that would be so hard not to have a stable income.’”
Gideon nodded. “Yeah, I’ve gotten a few of those.”
“Probably less because you’re a guy.”
“Why would that matter?”
Megs gripped onto the straps of her backpack. “Because guys are seen as more level headed. People trust you to have common sense. Take my sister’s boyfriend for example. His family moved to Colorado and he pursued ski racing. Got really good, then ended up becoming a ski instructor. Nobody ever told him that was an impractical job or that he should do something safer. Nobody doubted he could do it.”
Gideon stepped over a protruding rock. “Your parents didn’t think you could?”
Megs sighed. “It’s just my mom, my dad has never been in the picture. And no, she didn’t ever want me to do it. She went that route in college and didn’t like where it led her. To be fair, she didn’t stop me from moving or enrolling in acting classes.”
“It was just the constant disappointment.”
Megs nodded. “I don’t even know if I like acting anymore. Now it feels like another unfinished thing goading me. I wonder if the only reason I keep doing it is to try to prove myself right.”
“It’s not. You like acting,” Gideon stated, and Megs looked up.
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes I do.”
Megs looked affronted. “You’ve talked to me, what, like four times and seen me sitting in class taking notes, and you think you know me?”
Gideon met her eyes. “I watched you record that audition, and I see how you are with people. Always noticing their speech and mannerisms. You do this thing with your fingers where you mimic them sometimes, like you want to know what it feels like to move like another person.”
Megs slowed and stared at him. Gideon walked a few steps before he noticed she wasn’t next to him. He turned. “What?”
“I do that?”
The expression on her face made him wonder if he’d said something wrong. He hadn’t meant it as a criticism. Quite the opposite. Gideon exhaled and pulled out his water bottle. “Yeah.”
She opened and closed her mouth, then pursed her lips in concentration. With her eyes on him, Gideon’s blood started to rush.
Megs took a step toward him and her eyes narrowed. “You’re not wearing your glasses today.”
He busied himself securing his water bottle. “I put in contacts so I could wear my sunglasses, but we’ve been mostly in the shade.”
