And if you are a reasonable being with even a nodding acquaintance with logic, you tell yourself this is mere paranoia; you talk yourself out of it and soldier on. But then something happens to make you think it’s not such a far-fetched idea after all. This was clearly one of those moments. In front of me Debs was smirking. Cody and Astor, moving around me to see into the room, glanced up and smirked, too. And when I turned around to look at Jackie, there on her face was the unkindest smirk of all. “What, um,” I said, and I was quite proud that I did not actually stutter, “what is going on here?” “Dexter, you get to work on a movie,” Astor said, with a certain amount of venom, though not as much as she used with Rita lately. “With stars …” She glanced at Jackie, and then at Robert. “And instead you didn’t even tell us, or bring us here, or anything.” She looked at me now, a cold and cranky glare. “You know I’m going to be an actress, and you’re supposed to care about us, and help us learn things and do cool stuff, and you didn’t even tell us.”
