“So, Miss Bridges, you brought our first audition in?”
The client’s voice startles me, and I jump a little as I turn around to face him. Grayson Jones cuts an imposing figure in his dark Versace suit, a powerhouse of a man who could easily fit into some gangster movie.
“Oh! I apologize, Mr. Jones. I’m sitting for a few days, so it took a little longer to get here than I expected.”
“Sitting?”
Hailey breaks free from my hand and bounds over to the small stage set up in the room. “Babysitting. She’s not an actress; she’s my friend’s daughter.”
It feels weird saying “friend,” but it would feel even stranger to call Micah my boyfriend. We haven’t exactly had the opportunity to quantify what we have, and now isn’t the time to test the feel of “boyfriend” on my lips.
Grayson raises a groomed brow. “She seems perfectly at home on the stage there. Why not let her read for us?”
Because Micah would kill me if I got Hailey hired on this campaign. “Her father isn’t even in the state right now. He can’t sign the consents and the contracts.”
“What about the mother?”
“She passed away. It’s just the father.”
Grayson scowls and crosses his arms over his chest. “And he doesn’t have email? We can send him the paperwork to sign electronically if that’s what it takes. I want to see this little girl read for us.”
Looks like I’m not getting out of this. “Um … Let me call him first. Give him a heads up.”
My hands shake as I dial Micah. The poor guy hardly got any sleep and is probably jet lagged on top of that, and now I’m interrupting his conference to call him with what might end up being terrible news.
He picks up on the first ring, and the panic in his voice is unmistakable. “Iris! Is Hailey okay?”
This is going to be even harder than I thought. “She’s fine, Micah. She’s actually doing really well.” I launch into an explanation of how I ended up bringing Hailey to work with me, and Grayson’s subsequent demands. Micah remains silent the whole time, and I can’t tell if it’s a good silent or a pissed-off silent. “So, what do you think? Can I let her read for them?”
The silence drags on until Micah lets out a sigh. “I guess so. Just don’t get her hopes up. She’ll be heartbroken if she auditions and doesn’t get the part.”
Somehow, I don’t think that will be the problem. While I’ve been on the phone with Micah, Hailey has been charming Grayson, telling him stories and who knows what else. I get the suspicious feeling that he was feeding her lines while I talked, having her repeat them to him to sneak in an audition before the parental consent was obtained. I don’t like that, but there’s nothing I can do about it now.
Micah and I spend a few more awkward minutes on the phone, hammering out details and exchanging email addresses in case something pans out, and I get the feeling he wants to say something else before he hangs up. He keeps starting and stopping, and finally he just says, “I’ll see you guys when I get back. Take care, Iris.”
“Well, Mr. Jones, we have parental consent. Hailey, honey, would you like to read a story for Mr. Jones?”
Hailey nods enthusiastically. “Uh huh! Mr. Jones says I can be on TV. Isn’t that cool, Miss Iris?”
So much for not getting her hopes up.
With a heavy heart, I hand Hailey a copy of the script. I help her turn it to the page Grayson chose for the auditions, and I point to where she needs to start.
God help me if she gets this part.
Chapter 18
Micah
After Iris’s phone call, it’s all I can do to be physically present at the conference. My mind keeps slipping back across country to Iris’s office, where Hailey’s performing her first audition without me.
It’s not like it isn’t something Lisa and I talked about before. Hailey’s adorable, and she’s super smart. She’d probably make a great child actress. Is that the life we want for her, though? Lisa and I hadn’t made up our minds before the accident, and now I don’t have Lisa to talk to about it. Iris seemed confident that Hailey would be okay, but with all due respect to Iris, Hailey isn’t her daughter. She’smine, and I should be there.
Unfortunately, from what Iris said, the client wasn’t taking “no” for an answer, and that makes me even more unsure. Would he push Hailey to do something she didn’t want to?
The wait for a call back from Iris is excruciating. I just want to know that my little girl is okay. That she’s not devastated at not getting the part.
I duck out of a boring panel on cyber security threats when my phone buzzes again. It’s Iris.
