“You can compliment me in other areas.”
“I’m not complimenting you for sex all the time, Dana.”
Dana laughed and replied, “That, too, but I meant, like, literally anything else.”
“Why don’t you believe in yourself?”
“I do. It’s not that. I know I was talented enough to get into a tough drama school.”
“A few of them, apparently,” Samara pointed out.
“Yeah, but I did theater for years. And trust me, plenty of tourists attend the theaters in New Orleans. I’m sure, over all those years, an agent, producer, a casting director or something attended one of my shows, but no one stopped me to hand me a business card.”
“Babe, that’s how it works forsomepeople. I was just a cute kid. They had no idea when they handed my mom a business card that I could even act. I know an actor who was out walking his dog one night, and he happened to live down the street from an agent who thought he had the look for a part. He had no idea if the guy even wanted to be an actor, but this is LA: throw a rock anywhere, and you’ll hit one. So, he was right, and that guy makes millions a picture now, but it’s not like that for everyone. I know more stories where thatwasn’tthe case than where it was. In fact,mostof my friends had to audition hundreds or thousands of times to get their big break, and I know people who thought theyhadthat break only to never get cast in anything big again. Some of them gave up. Some of them play other roles whenever they can get them, but they’ll probably never be a lead. Everyone’s story is different. This is just yours, and I, personally, think it’s a really good one.”
Dana smiled at her and wished she could have that kind of confidence in her abilities but also lose the fear it felt like she always had around making a real go of being an actor.
Samara must have recognized that she needed a topicchange, so she started talking about making plans for dinner that night at a restaurant she liked. They went back upstairs, where they got ready for their day, and Samara walked Dana through some of the ways she used organization around the house to reduce her stress. Then, they were off on their journey.
Dana’s first time in LA had started off way better than the time she’d planned to sleep on a friend’s couch. Samara had taken her to the tourist traps while wearing a different wig, a baseball hat, and sunglasses, hoping not to be noticed, and they had escaped the Hollywood Walk of Fame without her being recognized. After that, they’d gone to the Griffith Park Observatory through the back door, avoiding the crowd on the busy day, and Dana could see the Hollywood sign from just outside it. Samara had made her take a selfie of the two of them with it behind them, just like the other tourists were doing.
They’d had lunch at a Thai place for Dana mainly, but Samara trusted the owner, and they’d made her tofu just how she liked it. Then, Samara had taken her to Santa Monica Pier, where the crowd had been too massive for them to ride any rides or play games, so they’d walked along the beach and the Third Street Promenade, not going into any stores, but Dana hadn’t needed to shop today. She’d been walking around the city with a woman she couldn’t get enough of. When she was with Samara like this, she wasn’t with actress Samara Barber. She was with Samara, the woman she was dating and definitely falling in love with.
“Sam?” she said once they were back in the car.
“Yeah?” Samara asked, looking over at her.
“Can we skip the other sights today? I’m here for a couple of weeks.”
“Too much in one day?” Samara asked.
“A little. But I also want to go home and just… hang out with you,” she replied, nodding toward the driver.
“Ah.” Samara winked at her. “Dinner?”
“Can we move up the reservation?”
Samara laughed and said, “Dana, we were doing dinnernext. This is Los Angeles; it’s going to take us at least an hour to get there. We might even belatefor our reservation.”
Dana wanted to reach over and take Samara’s hand, but the driver would be able to see, so she kept her hand to herself and stared out the window instead, taking in mostly the sights around the freeway as they drove to the restaurant Samara had picked out for them. She liked LA so far. She knew she’d only seen a few places and that those places were made for tourists more than locals, but there was something about this place that made Dana feel at home. She wasn’t sure how that was possible, but she’d always suspected it would happen. Ever since she’d acted in her first play as a kid in school and learned about Los Angeles being the birthplace of cinema and where a lot of the studios still were, she had wanted to be there just to be around where it all happened.
New Orleans was her home, and it always would be, of course, but just stepping foot off the plane and into LAX, she had felt comfort and fear wash over her at the same time. Fear because maybe she had been wrong this whole time, and she would hate it, and comfort because for the first time in her entire life, it felt like she was exactly where she was supposed to be. On top of that, she was with the person she was supposed to be with. Dana turned to Samara then and tilted her head.
“No more wig?”
“For today, I was playing the part of Mara, the tourist from Santa Fe, but for dinner, I’m going to be playing the part of myself.”
Dana smiled at her and asked, “You’re not worried?”
She pointed to herself and hoped the driver wouldn’t notice.
“Baby steps, right?” Samara offered in response. “But you’ll be withme. Do you want me to put the wig back on? The restaurant is about as private as it can get, but odds are, someone will notice me and call someone else. It could become a whole thing. You know, let me put it back on. We’lljust have a nice dinner tonight, and I can do the whole dinner-as-myself thing with you another time.”
Samara moved to put the wig back on her head.
“No,” Dana said. “I want you to be yourself tonight.”
“Are you sure? It might get a little crazy… People will wonder who you are.”
