“I’ll do my best to get my car to seventy for you,” Dana said, offering a wink. “But it’s old, and I don’t have anything that tells me what the temperature is.”
“You’d have me,” Samara said, standing up.
“Oh, right. And not to make light or anything, but you could probably make good money taking bets that you know the exact temperature in the room.”
Samara laughed and said, “Probably. But I’ve got a lot of money already.”
Dana squinted at her.
“Go ahead. Ask,” Samara said.
“What temperature is it in here?”
“Sixty-eight,” she replied.
Dana turned then and looked around for the thermostat, which was right behind her head.
“You saw it, didn’t you?”
Samara laughed and said, “Yes.”
Dana shook her head, and they left the dry storage room. Dana grabbed their plates in the kitchen, and they headed out to the bar, where it looked like two more people had joined in their absence.
“That’s Enid and Caroline. They’re cool. I’ll introduce you, okay?” Dana said.
“Thank you,” Samara replied.
CHAPTER 14
“Hey, can you be careful with that?” she asked.
“Yeah, I am,” Terry, the guy replacing Dana as Samara’s gofer, replied, shoving the container into the warmer bag.
He then walked over to the counter where he had his coffee cup and took a drink.
“Can you maybe do thatafteryou take Miss Barber her food?” Dana asked. “I think she’d probably want it to be hot when she gets it.”
“Damn, Dana. What crawled up your ass this morning?”
“She’s picky,” Josh replied instead. “So, get the food to her now, please.”
“Can you not tell people that Samara is picky?” she requested of her boss as Terry, carrying Samara’s food, left the room.
“Sheispicky,” Josh replied. “Now, you wanted to talk about a leave of absence.”
“Well, yeah. With me taking the part, I won’t be able to work on the movie for you, but I don’t want to lose my job either, so I’m not sure what to do.”
“I get it,” Josh said. “But you know we don’t have leaves in the traditional sense.”
“I know,” she replied.
“And I can’t promise I’ll have a spot for you when you wrap because I’ll need to staff appropriately to be able to do the work we have now, but you’re my best employee, Dana. When you’re done filming, come back, and we’ll talk. I’m sure I’ll find you something. You know I’m going to lose at least one or two people, with how this industry works.”
“Okay. Thanks. That’s the best I can ask for.”
“You’ve always wanted to do this, though,” Josh added. “Why would you want to come back after finally getting a taste of your dream?”
“One movie doesn’t mean a steady paycheck forever,” she said. “And I have to run. Are you okay for today? I know I’m leaving you short-handed.”
