“Well, Stella is the first woman I’ve been excited about in forever.”
“Bray, come on,” Kristie said. “Let’s get donuts, and we can talk more, but you have a life to get back to. I get that it was an amazing night, so you wish it had ended differently, but maybe that was all you were meant to have with her: one amazing night to help you get ready for the woman you’re meant to be with or something.”
“I’ll go for lunch, but I don’t know – this feels like more than one night with someone I was only meant to know for that long.”
“And cut!” Reed said loudly. “That was great, everyone. I think we’ve got it.”
“You don’t want to run it again?” the assistant director asked.
“No, I think we’ve got it. Let’s break for lunch now and reset.”
“That’s lunch!” one of the PAs yelled.
“That was great, Dana,” the actress playing Maggie said.
“Thanks,” Dana replied. “You too.”
“My part is easy.Youhave to act like you just lost the love of your life in a bar.”
“True,” Dana said with a laugh.
“Are you grabbing lunch?”
“Yeah,” she replied. “I want to run through the script for my next scene, so I was going to eat in my trailer.”
“Want some company? I’ve noticed you usually eat with Samara, but she’s off today, right?”
“She’s off, yes,” Dana said.
Every day of the shoot so far, Samara had been her scene partner, but today was Samara’s first day off. It also happened to be after they had kissed in Dana’s car before Samara had gone inside the hotel. Samara had asked her to text her when she got home, so Dana had, but while they hadn’t talked after that, they’d texted a few times before finally saying goodnight. Dana still didn’t know what was going on between them. She had a good idea what Samara’s comment to her about going to bed alone had meant, but she didn’t want to assume. They still needed to talk, and they needed to decide what this was between them.
Were they friends and co-workers? Were they trying to be something more? It was clear that there were feelings on both sides. Hell, even Jill and Willa had noticed. Dana knew that they had because Jill had texted her that morning asking Dana if Samara Barber was into women, and the next text hadasked if they were dating. Dana hadn’t replied yet, needing to talk to Samara first. She could just deny both of those things, but Samara had made things difficult by putting her hand on Dana’s thigh.
“So, lunch?” the woman playing Maggie asked her.
Dana was usually really good with names, but she was struggling to put a name to the face at the moment. Having two names for every actor and meeting them right before shooting with them for the first time was proving to be too much for her brain to handle, but that was probably because her brain was mostly preoccupied with Samara and not as focused on the rest of the cast.
“Sure,” she replied.
They took the golf cart to the catering tent because her companion didn’t want to walk, and within minutes, they had their food and were taking the cart to Dana’s trailer.
“So, how are you liking it so far?”
“The movie?” Dana asked.
“Yeah. I mean, the work on it. You’ve never done this before, right?”
“No. Plays and musicals, but no movies. You?”
“I’ve got about ten under my belt, but this is my biggest part to date. Mostly, just background characters for me so far. I’ve had a few sidekick roles in rom-coms. So, are you thinking about your next role?”
“Me? No, I’m thinking about not screwing this one up.” Dana laughed as the cart arrived at her trailer. “Doyouhave something lined up?”
“Not yet. I’ll go back to LA after this and audition until I find something, though.”
“Do you like that?” Dana asked, opening the door.
“Auditioning? No, I don’t think anyone likes auditioning, but it’s part of the process. I make enough money doing a movie or two a year, along with some small TV spots here and there, to do this full-time and stay in the union, which provides benefits, so it’s good enough for me. You’re good, Dana. You should make a real go of it.”
