Cheating at Solitaire Read Online Free Page A

companion. "Hey, how ya doing?" he asked before turning his attention back to his agent. "So, I've been thinking about the types of auditions I've been going out on—"
    Richard put a hand out, stopping Lance. "Do I know you?"
    Lance looked at Richard, and then at the other man, then choked out a nervous laugh. "This guy," he said to Richard's companion while he pointed to his agent. "Seriously, Richard, I've been—"
    "Seriously. I don't believe I have ever laid eyes on you before in my life."
    Lance sat, shocked and confused, as he tried to process this one-sentence slam on him and everything he'd ever wanted.
    That was his career, or lack thereof, summed up in a single sentence by a man with marinara sauce on his tie. "I’m Lance Collins. You're my agent," he said feebly.
    Richard laughed and said to his companion, "I'm his agent. I'm supposed to get him Hamlet, and I don't even know who the hell he is." He turned to Lance. "Call my office. Make an appointment. I'm eating my lunch."

    But Lance didn't leave. At that moment, he wasn't even sure his legs still worked.
    "Look, kid," Richard said. "It's not me. It's you. Everybody's got talent. And you're a good-looking kid, but you can buy looks. Name recognition—now that's the honey. You can't put a price on that. You go get yourself famous, and then we'll talk about the kind of roles you want."
    Lance knew there was a cliché about carts and horses, but he couldn't remember how it went.
    Luckily, Richard's companion chose that moment to wipe his mouth and ask, "Were you just sitting with Julia James?"
    Lance looked back at the woman who sat alone, scribbling in a notebook, and said, "Yeah. I guess."
    Richard emitted a little squeal. "Hey, kid, why didn't you say so? That's great I mean, that's off-the-charts fantastic. How long you been seeing her?"
    "Oh." Lance looked from Richard to the woman and back again. "You've got the wrong—"
    "I say what's right and wrong," Richard corrected. "And believe me, this is right! Hey, who needs Hamlet? We've got Taming of the Shrew." Richard laughed at his own cleverness.
    "Whatcha waiting for?" Richard asked. "Tell your girlfriend to come over!"
    "You've got the wrong idea. She isn't my girlfriend." "Not your girlfriend?" Richard asked as if this were a kink in his master plan to take over the universe. "Who knows?" "Who knows what?" Lance asked.
    "That you're here with her," Richard said, growing impatient.
    "I'm not here with her," Lance insisted.
    "If nobody knows you're not, then you are," Richard said, flipping his hands like a magician who had just made a quarter disappear. "You're here. She's here. A few tasteful photos and—"
    "This was a mistake." Lance stood and left the table.
    As he headed to the door, he passed Julia and heard her on her cell phone saying, "You can't make it? That's fine. I just hope you get to feeling better. Take care of yourself. Bye-bye." As she hung up, she looked at him and asked, "How did it go?" But the expression on his face must have been answer enough because she said, "That's a shame."
    She'd placed his pilfered rose in the vase on her table. Water spots still darkened the linen tablecloth, but it seemed to Lance as if it had been a year since he'd joined her there.
    "I'm sorry," she said, no doubt sensing that Lance hadn't enjoyed his time on the other side of the room.

    "Thanks anyway," he told her and walked away.
    Was it the entire basket of bread that Julia had eaten or the morose look on the man's face as he turned and walked out of Stella's that caused her to lose her appetite? She honestly didn't know. But since Harvey, her agent, wasn't feeling well and wouldn't be joining her for lunch, Julia laid some bills on the table and went to say good-bye to Giovanni.
    Two free hours felt like an unexpected blessing. She could window-shop or people-watch in the park—theater of the living, she'd always called it, and Manhattan was its greatest stage. But when Julia stepped beneath the