Jasmine sucked in a breath to argue, but Ava leaped in before she could utter a word.
“Hear us out. There are plenty of shows filming in New York City now, and you’ll be closer to us.”
“Along with everyone else in our family.” Jasmine shook her head. “No thanks.”
Michelle shrugged. “A minor technicality.”
“We’ve been over this. The remaining soaps film in Los Angeles, and there are tons of other opportunities there. I can’t leave.” As much as she might want to. “Anyway, I have a plan.”
Michelle’s eyebrows shot up. “Do tell.”
“I love a good plan.” Ava set down her mug. “Let’s hear it.”
“It’s my Leading Lady Plan.”
Michelle’s eyebrows drew together. “What’s that?”
“My roadmap for staying on track with my career goals.” Jasmine pointed a finger at the ceiling, referencing her picture on the fridge upstairs. “One: Leading Ladies do not end up on tabloid covers.”
“That’s just not true,” Michelle cut in. “Look at Jennifer Aniston. They put that poor lady on magazine covers for all sorts of made-up shit.”
That was a good point. Jasmine didn’t want to turn into the next tabloid favorite, although she’d happily follow in Ms. Aniston’s career footsteps.
“Can you give it a more positive spin?” Ava asked kindly. “Like saying what leading ladies do instead of what they don’t?”
It was such an Ava thing to say, but she was right. They both were.
“Fine.” Jasmine tore a sheet from the memo pad on the coffee table. The paper had beach details printed around the borders—sandals, an umbrella, a kid’s plastic shovel and pail—and said “Esperanza” on top in elaborate cursive. “What should I say instead?”
“How about, ‘Leading Ladies only end up on magazine covers with good reason’?” Ava suggested.
“That’s not exactly catchy,” Jasmine muttered, but she wrote it down with the tiny pen attached to the notepad.
“What was your second point?” Michelle asked.
Jasmine’s cheek’s warmed as she mumbled, “Two: Leading Ladies don’t need a man to be happy.”
Her cousins exchanged another look. It was the one they always shared when the subject of Jasmine’s love life came up.
“What about, ‘Leading Ladies are whole and happy on their own’?” Ava said, her tone gentle.
Jasmine doubted that, but since this plan was also supposed to keep her from getting derailed by romance, she wrote it down.
“What’s the third one?” Ava asked.
Shit. Why had she mentioned this stupid plan in the first place? Jasmine thought fast. “Um, Leading Ladies take their careers seriously.”
Michelle rolled her eyes. “You just pulled that out of your ass.”
“Fine.” Jasmine tossed the pen onto the table. “Three: Leading Ladies don’t sit home crying over their exes.”
Ava rubbed Jasmine’s shoulder while Michelle took the pen and wrote something down. When she was done, she slid the paper over to Jasmine.
Leading Ladies are badass queens making jefa moves.
“I almost wrote boss queens but with jefa in there, it would have been redundant,” Michelle explained.
Jasmine gave a small smile and spoke around the lump in her throat. “Thanks.”
They were all silent for a moment, sipping their coffees, and then Ava set her mug down and folded her hands on her lap. In a quiet voice, she asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”
It was the closest she would come to asking outright about McIntyre. Subtlety and patience were Ava’s tools of choice, which made her a great teacher. Michelle, a high-level corporate marketing consultant turned freelance graphic designer, was less likely to beat around the bush, but she’d follow Ava’s lead when it made sense to her.
“You’ve seen the tabloids, so you know the gist of it.” Jasmine heaved a deep sigh. “Obviously, I’m not dating McIntyre anymore.”
“We know that’s not the full story,” Ava said at the same time that Michelle said, “He was a tool anyway,” but then Jasmine’s phone rang. Saved by the bell. The last thing she wanted to do right now was rehash the painful and embarrassing experience of being publicly cheated on by a rock star.
“It’s my agent,” Jasmine murmured, answering the call. “Hi, Riley.”
“Hey, Jasmine.” Riley’s chipper tones filled her ear. Riley Chen was young and friendly, but when it came to making deals, she was a pit bull, latching on to negotiations with a ferocity that had made her a rising star in the agency. “Did you get into New York okay?”
“I did. Dropped my luggage off at the hotel and now I’m visiting my family.”
“I won’t keep you, then. But I wanted to call because I figured you hadn’t seen your email yet, and I know you don’t like surprises.”
A shimmer of dread threaded through Jasmine’s gut. Now what? Aware that her cousins were watching with undisguised interest, Jasmine kept her expression bland. “No, I haven’t checked my email.”
“It’s not a big deal,” Riley said quickly, as if reading the apprehension in Jasmine’s voice. “Just a casting change for the love interest.”
“Oh?” That kind of was a big deal. She’d already done chemistry reads in LA with the guy she thought she’d be kissing on-screen.
Riley continued. “The actor who was supposed to play him broke his leg in Aspen.”
“Oh, damn. Was it a skiing accident? It’s June.” And since they’d already signed their contracts, he shouldn’t have been doing something dangerous, like skiing. Not when they were due to start production in a few days.
“Well . . . not exactly.” Riley lowered her voice. “Apparently, he was meeting someone there, and he tripped getting out of his car. It looked like he was trying to be stealthy.”
Jasmine’s brows creased. “How do you know all this?”
“Someone caught the whole thing on their phone and sold the video to Buzz Weekly.”
Jasmine groaned. Buzz Weekly was the tabloid news source that had taken the McIntyre story and run with it, thus making Jasmine a household name. But not for a good reason, she thought, recalling the first point on her new Leading Lady Plan.
“I know,” Riley said. “We hate Buzz Weekly. But I watched the video, and the guy did a pirouette thing before toppling down a few steps. Only, like, three of them, but they were brick. He broke his leg and scraped up his face too.”
“Yikes. That sounds pretty bad.”
“Don’t feel too sorry for him. A girl in a bikini came running out to get him, and it turns out she’s only nineteen, whereas he’s almost forty.”
Jasmine pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. There was always some scandal in Hollywood. And while it would be nice to think this one would take the place of her own, she doubted it. McIntyre was just too famous.
And now, by extension, so was she.
Riley wasn’t done, though. “All that to say, he’s off the show. You’ll have a new costar for Carmen in Charge.”