Okay. That onedidhurt. Samara had been trying. She was just exhausted. She hadn’t slept well in the queen bed with the lumpy mattress and way-too-soft pillows. She knew if she continued to stay at that hotel, she’d need to change rooms or have them change the mattress, at least, and give her some firmer pillows. The other option was to change hotels or find that vacation rental for the same price. Of course, she could also get what she wanted herself, charge the production for the room rate, and pay the difference. She’d hate doing thatbecause that hadn’t been part of the arrangement, but it was worth considering.
“I’m Dana.”
“Grace,” the woman replied.
Thatwas her name. Samara hadn’t remembered it from the first set of auditions, and she didn’t want to admit that, so when Grace had walked into the room for her audition, she had pretended that she knew it. Everyone else must have, so they had gone right into the reading.
Samara reallyhadbeen trying, but Grace hadn’t exactly been giving her anything. The scenes they were reading were intense. Bray and Stella had met one night, instantly hit it off, had one amazing kiss, and gotten pulled away. They wouldn’t reconnect for a full year. So, these opening scenes were really crucial, and the chemistryhadto be there. Vanessa had been the clear frontrunner for the role, with Grace and the other one from earlier far behind.
“I’m an actress. Local stuff, mostly, and I’m no Samara Barber, but if you want help, I’m free now that I’ve deliveredPrincessBarber her food.”
Dana had just said she was no Samara Barber. That made Samara smile before she took another bite and continued to eavesdrop and not feel bad about it because they both knew that she was only on the other side of this wall.
“Really? You don’t mind?” Grace asked.
“No. I was going to grab food here anyway. It’s free.”
“That would be really cool. Thanks. I know they already auditioned someone before me, so I don’t know if I have a real chance here, but it would be cool to get it, even if I didn’t get it the first time.”
“Yeah, come on,” Dana replied. “I’ll walk you over, and we’ll run through it together.”
Samara heard the voices taper off and decided to walk to the window and separate the horizontal blinds to check that the two women indeed were walking away. Dana was an actress? And she knew the writer and probably Sophie as well if they were friends. Why hadn’t she auditioned? The moviewas set and filmed here, in New Orleans, where she lived if she worked for the local catering crew. Dana fit the age and type for the roles. Maybe shehadauditioned and hadn’t gotten whatever part she’d tried out for. Maybe she wasn’t talented enough. Hell, maybe she had auditioned for Stella and hadn’t gotten it, so she now hated Samara becauseshehad. Either way, Samara was curious and decided to check it out.
She took a few more quick bites of her food, giving her enough to sustain her until she could order another smoothie, which would hold her over until breakfast, and then left her trailer and walked down toward where catering had been set up for everyone else. She didn’t want Dana or Grace to know that she was there, which was difficult because when people noticed her, they tended to make a big deal about it, so she kept to the space between the trailers and a fence that butted up against a row of houses like a total creeper.
“You know all the secret spots, huh?” Grace, playing Bray, said.
Samara stood at the back of the tent and listened to Grace and Dana, who were sitting at a table with their backs toward her.
“In case you’re wondering, it should be relatively clean. This is at least the tenth different sofa I’ve seen here since I moved back. Not that I come out a lot. I don’t, really. I only came out tonight to meet my friend who’d invited me. But when you go out to one bar in the Quarter, you always end up in at least one more that night, and, well, I come upstairs in these places when I can because they’re quieter and not as crowded, so I’ve noticed the sofa. I think they replace it a lot. The bars open early here, and not everyone comes to get totally wasted, so they have nicer seating for the early crowd. I’m talking way too much about this couch, aren’t I?” Dana, playing Stella, Samara’s actual role, chuckled a little, making Samara smile.
“I like it. And we can keep talking about the couch, if you want, but I’d honestly rather talk more about you.”
“I’m pretty boring,” Dana said, reading Stella’s line.
“Oh, I doubt that.”
“No, really.” Dana laughed lightly, and damn, if it didn’t appear more genuine than Samara’s fake laugh when she had run lines with herself for the audition. “I push papers for a living.”
“Is there good money in that?”
Dana continued laughing and said, “Not really, no.”
“Bummer. I was looking for a sugar mama tonight.”
Grace’s delivery of that was fine, but she hadn’t really sought out the punch of the joke, so it left Samara wanting more. All of Grace’s auditions had done that for her.
“Well, that’s definitely not me. I more move around digital files than push actual paperwork, but I’m middle management, and it’s boring, and I hate it.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Grace said.
“Me too. I actually only came out with my friend tonight because she works for the company I used to work for. She’s about to take it over – or, at least, Ithoughtshe was – and I was going to see if she could get me a job. I used to work there, so I thought it would be a win-win for both of us. I’d start over, if that was all that was available, but I found out that she might be leaving the company tonight, so I don’t know if that’s even possible now.”
“You should still ask her. Maybe she can help, even if she’s leaving.”
“I’m sure she can; it’s her family’s company. I’d just feel bad about asking her when it sounds like she’s going through a lot of transitions.”
“Can we stop here?” Grace said as herself.
