"Can I ask you a personal question?" Rountree asked Fatima. They were sitting in the roach coach watching Kensi dressed as a Real Housewife of Santa Monica, complete with a bright pink Stanley travel mug that was bigger than her head, in a bespoke coffee shop. Deeks was HBIC – Head Barista In Charge.
"Depends how personal," Fatima replied with a smile. "And I have to be able to turn that question back on you."
"OK, I'm not sure how you can turn my question but OK." Roundtree took a deep breath. "Jordyn found Sunset Canyon on Netflix."
"What did she think?"
"That you were terrible. Wait, your character was terrible. She likes you. Thought you were good on the show."
"That's good to know."
"She was just wondering, and I guess I am too, how you go from being doing publicity tours for the number two show on the CW to working at NCIS?"
Fatima was quiet for a second. "I became disillusioned with a lot of the celebrity stuff. It was nice meeting the fans at events and taking selfies at Starbucks. I never minded that. I liked when some teenage girl would smile and hand her mom her phone so we could get a nice picture."
"But…"
"But…I had the flu and went to Walgreens to get some Nyquil. Some young guy in the store told me that I looked like shit without my makeup and how the camera makes me look whiter on TV. Then there was the older woman at the checkout needing my driver's license to buy Nyquil because of meth or something. She told me drugs could ruin my career. I wasn't allowed to be sick for a few days."
"That sucks."
"It was just a bad day but there were getting to be more bad days. I tried out for a small indie film. Interesting story but everyone during the audition was joking about my catch phrase. That was going to take some effort to outrun."
"It's what made you famous."
"And you're a small filmmaker with a project about a small family restaurant in Bakersfield and everyone thinks "that's the CW chick" when I show up."
"Have other people gotten other acting jobs after the show?"
"Anna Velez was the best actor on the show, by a lot. She wound up on an HBO show as the lead's daughter when our show was canceled. She'd do some Broadway during the summer. Got a lead role on that Netflix comedy everyone hated but that led to movie offers. It was almost as if she was interning on Sunset Canyon so she could get her foot in the door."
"Makes sense in a weird way."
"There was also Dalton Charles – real name Emmett Charles Dalton. He was the hunky male lead. He was also 11-years older than we were. Baby-face. He did the show to learn how to direct. Anytime he had to do a shirtless scene for more than two-minutes of screentime an episode, he had it in his contract that got to shadow the director of the episode for every day he wasn't working in front of the camera. Sort of a real internship."
"Is he a director now?"
"Yep. Moved to New York. Works on the Law and Order shows. He's occasionally in front of the camera as a Deputy DA from Brooklyn who shows up from time to time to keep his SAG insurance but mostly he directs about four or five episodes a season for both Law and Order and SVU. He said it was so great to go to a set with…what's Deeks's line, 'styled by pillow' hair. He doesn't have to worry about cutting out all his carbs for a week to do a love scene. He even tried to grow a beard for a while. Baby-faced guys don't look that great with beards."
"Good to know," Rountree told her. "But how do you go from your show to Ops?"
"My parents saved all my acting money for college. I promised them I'd go. Set tutors helped me get ready for the ACTs. Aced that. Got into Stanford to study International Relations. Was recruited by a number of agencies, liked the idea of NCIS – a great agency nobody knows."
"So basically when I told Jordyn 'I guess Fatima wanted to do something different,' I sort of nailed it."
"Yes you did. Now I get my question."
"I was never an actor."
"No, but you were a football player. Why aren't you in the NFL?"
"Do you know how many college football players are out there every season?"
Fatima had no idea but made a guess, "25,000 give or take."
"Give, three-times that. About 75,000 in any year."
"That's a lot."
"Yes it is. Do you know how many NFL players there are in any year?"
"A lot less than college."
"Exactly. There are about 1,700 guys on teams and 500 on the practice squads. I was good enough to be part of the 75,000. High up on the list playing at Georgia in the SEC. Not good enough to join the 1,700. A couple of guys on my teams went to the NFL. I'm a really good athlete. They were freaks in all the best ways."
"Did it bother you that you didn't play in the NFL?"
"My uncle got Jordyn and me into sports because that was the only way we were going to college. She plays volleyball on a partial scholarship, I was on full scholarship to play football. There was grant money for me for expenses after room and board. Jordyn has a bunch of academic scholarship that cover all her needs. I truly was a student-athlete. I wasn't there for the NFL. I was there for my criminal justice degree with a minor in education so I could be a high school football coach if the FBI or some other law enforcement career didn't work out."
"Cool."
"Our target just walked into the store," Deeks said in a low voice. "Hi my friend, how can I help you today," Deeks greeted their target.
"Back to work," Rountree said.
"After this is over, I have more football questions for you."
