Emma felt her mouth drop open. Jo couldnotagree with this man. She couldn’t possibly think that was good direction. Emma blinked at her.
Jo flicked her fingers toward the door.
It was then that Emma finally processed everyone staring at her, then she processed that she had told off an Oscar-nominated director in front of—in front ofeveryone. Tate and Holly. Yuri working on lights. Phil’s eyebrows were close to his hairline. Chantal pretended to look at the script, at least, but everyone else was—Emma couldn’t believe she’d done that.
She made herself walk, not run. Iced latte, coming right up.
She tried to be unimposing when she walked back onto the set. She tried to blend into the walls. It didn’t work. No one looked directly at her, but they were all aware of her, it felt like. She had considered not coming back, but Jo had asked for an iced latte, and ignoring her boss immediately after talking back to a famous director was probably not a great idea.
Emma stopped at Jo’s side, didn’t look at Barry. Jo watched Tate and Holly run through the blocking. She reached out for her iced latte without so much as a glance at Emma. After Emma handed it over, Jo fluttered her hand again.
“You’re not needed here,” she said quietly.
Emma’s face burned with shame. She went back to her desk.
Maybe she should’ve cried in the bathroom again, but she didn’t actually feel like crying. She felt like fighting. She felt likequitting. It was an overreaction, she knew. She couldn’t quit over one bad day.
But it was a badweek.
She couldn’t make a decision like this while anger bubbled under her skin, but she wanted to anyway. She had some money saved. Maybe she could find something new over the next hiatus.
—
When Jo came back,Emma’s only solace was that Barry wasn’t with her. Jo’s face was blank, her cheeks pinched, just slightly, but enough that Emma noticed.
“Ms. Kaplan,” she said as she passed Emma’s desk, “my office.”
Emma pressed her lips together, held her head high.
“Door,” Jo said.
Emma took her time in closing the door, tried to compose herself, tried to feel bad for what she said to Barry. She couldn’t do it.
“I wasn’t wrong,” she said before Jo had the chance to yell at her. “You can’t possibly believe she should soundunhappy about this situation. ‘This situation’? Like figuring out she’s bisexual is some horrible predicament for her to be in.”
“Look, I know this is personal for you, but—”
“No,” Emma said, and wow, she wouldn’t have to quit, because she was going to get fired for all the bad decisions she’d made today, interrupting her boss being the most recent. “You don’t get to act like this is just some personal thing for me. This isn’t about me. This is about the show and the characters and the story you’re telling. That direction waswrong, for all of it. And if it wasn’t? If that’s what you actually want to do? You don’t get to win GLAADawards and give that speech and then go around making characters unhappy about their ‘bisexual situation.’”
The GLAADs had been months and months ago, but it was a good speech. It was a great speech. It was the type of speech Emma expected from Jo, because Jo had always been fantastic when it came to queer issues, and Emma couldn’tbelieveshe agreed with Barry.
Jo dropped herself into her chair, scrubbed a hand through her hair.
“I know,” she sighed.
Emma blinked. “What?”
“You thought Idisagreed? You thought—what? That I’m the type of lesbian who thinks bisexuals are greedy and always going to leave you for a man?” Jo scoffed. “Please give me more credit than that.”
“I—um.” Emma wanted to hold onto her anger but her brain short-circuited around the wordlesbian.
“Christ, Emma, of course you were right,” Jo said. “I told Barry as soon as you left.”
Emma blinked at her.
“I’m sorry I treated you that way,” Jo said. “But God, people already think we’re fucking—you think me letting you talk to Barry Davis out of turn was going to help?”
That made sense, sure. Maybe if Emma weren’t having such a terrible day, she would have figured that out herself. Except, for months now, Jo had been all about ignoring the rumors like that would make them go away. The rumors that could be true, given that Jo was a lesbian. Apparently.