My head shoots up. “What?”
Sam glances out the window as the shifting streetlights take turns hiding and highlighting his face. “A man with a blue suit escorting a blond woman. He was watching you and you were concentrating on trying to avoid him instead.”
“Do you think he noticed?” I’m a bit nonplussed that he read the situation so well.
“No, you were unexpectedly subtle.”
Good, because that would be bad. I fight back another wave of sickness. Todd fired me because of the misidentified photo of Fangli. He knows we look alike. What if he says something?
He’s got power over me again. I debate telling Sam but decide against it. I’ll wait and see.
He twists in the seat and gives me a straight look. “Who is he?”
“My old manager.”
“You don’t like him.”
“Would you like the person who fired you?”
“It’s more than that. I could tell.” He raises his eyebrows. “I can read you.”
This is too true to debate. “He’s a jerk and I don’t like him.”
“Ah.” Sam regards me. “Did he recognize you?”
“No. I didn’t want to give him the chance to see me up close or speak to me, though.”
“Wise.”
I dab at my eyes with the tissue. “The art was nice.”
Sam exhales. “I think you might be the only person to describe contemporary art as nice.”
“Thought-provoking? Evocative? Bleeding-edge?”
“Is that better than cutting-edge?”
“One step beyond.” I hum a line from the Madness song and his lips twitch again. That’s a definite victory. “Do you ever get used to it?” The pillowy darkness of the car’s interior makes it easier to ask. “That attention?”
“I’ve never not known it.” Sam’s voice wraps around me. “You know who my parents are.”
Sam’s august parentage, a movie-star mother and director father, is mentioned in almost every profile. He takes my silence as a yes and continues. “My parents are many wonderful things but they both also crave attention. I’ve had cameras around my whole life.”
I try to imagine that. All the missteps I took documented and commented on, all the terrible hair days and disastrous fashion choices logged for posterity and resurfaced on listicles every few years. “I don’t know how you cope.”
“I don’t know another way to live.” He doesn’t say it with bitterness but as a fact of life.
“What if you want to be alone?”
“I stay in the house. It’s the only place I can be myself.”
“Oh.” Lonely.
“You’re improving.” He changes the subject. I parse his tone for an insult, and even though I come up short, I’m suspicious of this seeming goodwill.
I clear my throat. “Thank you. For asking if I wanted to leave earlier.”
He loosens his collar. “Seemed like a safer option to get you out of the situation rather than watch you blow it for Fangli.”
My insides shrivel. Of course it was because of Fangli. He wasn’t watching out for me, he was making sure I didn’t screw it up for her. I hold my expression under control, unwilling to give him the slightest hint that I might have thought otherwise, and keep my tone light.
“Since you thought I was terrible, it doesn’t seem like the bar was very high.”
“Fangli’s been better since you’ve been here,” he says. “She’s calmer now that she doesn’t have to worry about going out.”
“About Fangli.” I pause and decide to take the plunge. “She’s not okay.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know her very well.” I think about this and amend it. “I don’t know her at all but I think she’s depressed.”
He stiffens. “What would you know about it?”
I push on because if it’s true, Fangli needs more help than hiring a body double. “I remember feeling the same way when I was diagnosed. Her expression, it’s the same I saw in the mirror.”
Sam leans forward to take one of the bottled waters from the holder and cracks it open with a vicious twist. “I’ve worked with North Americans for a long time, but I continue to marvel at your openness in speaking of such things.”
“Not everyone can or does.” The world would be a better place if we did.
“It’s more than would happen at home.” He drinks half the water. “This is not your concern.”