“—I’m going to have a real ring, gold—” Chloe shook her head, miming the letterP. “A platinum ring with a one-carat dia—” She held up two fingers. “Two-carat diamond... Two carats? Who do you think I am—Raymond Daschle?”
Chloe slipped her arm through his. “No, you are the great screenwriter, Jesse Gates.”
At the vegetable stand turned restaurant, Chloe ordered scrambled eggs and bacon.
“I’ll have the same,” Jesse said.
At the plastic table, she leaned toward him. “My agent called. Said he’s getting a lot of inquiries about me.”
“See, your fortune has turned.”
“This movie...” She exhaled. “It’s a gift from God.” After all the pushing and prodding this morning about their relationship, about his past, she should determine if he was a man of faith.
Jesse fiddled with the napkin roll. “I’ll take the bait, Chloe. How’d you come to faith again?”
“Smitty. I met him outside a church. After the blowup with Haden, seeing the stuff people wrote about me on social media, I was so broken. My friends only called to tell me the latest tabloid headline.”
“Ex-friends now, I hope.”
“Some, not all. Haden refused my calls. I lost twenty pounds that month. Slept twelve hours a day and cried the other twelve. My agent tried to leverage the publicity and star me in a reality show.Crazy Kids of Hollywoodor something. But I’d flip burgers before going the shame-fame route. I couldn’t do that to my parents. Then another dying role came along and I thought,Ha, how fitting.”
“The typecasting continued.”
“Kate took my phone and laptop so I’d stay off social media. Eventually I started driving around LA in my Mustang, hating and loving the city at the same time. One day, I stopped for coffee in the valley, I cannot even tell you where, and saw a flyer for a church, Expression58, and it was like a moment in time.” She parted the air in front of her with a slicing motion. “For one second, one brief second, the clouds, the heaviness, the depression was gone and there was light. Next Sunday, I went. Terrified. What if God didn’t want me either? Where does one go if the Almighty rejects you? But I was so hungry for something real, something beyond myself, I faced my doubts. As I approached the front door, Smitty stood on the sidewalk, almost as if he expected me.”
“He was at the door of an acting class I attended,” Jesse said, thoughtful, reflective. “When I walked in, he said, ‘Jesse, hi’ as if we were old friends. I had no recollection of ever meeting him before.”
“But he never invited you to church?”
“No.”
“Would you have gone if he did?”
“No.”
“What if I asked you?”
“Are you?”
“Maybe.”
Jesse sat back as the waitress brought their breakfast. “I don’t think church is for me. But I’ll support you. I can’t see God and me having any sort of conversation. Loxley’s parents don’t want to talk to me. Why would an almighty being?”
“Because He’s an almighty being?”
She stared at her Styrofoam plate of flat, folded scrambled eggs, crinkly bacon, and cold toast.
“Yum.” Jesse shuddered, stabbing his eggs with a plastic fork, then reaching for the ketchup.
“Hey, be kind. This is local color and flavor.”
“Let’s hope the food has some flavor.” Jesse winced at the packet of grape jelly, making Chloe laugh. He ripped away the foil cover and dumped a grape square onto his toast. “Never pictured Smitty, or you, as a God person.”
“Just how does a God person look?”
He thought as he poured cream into his coffee. “Big hair. Think they’re perfect. Holier than thou. Judgmental.”
“Like you’re being now?”
