today, with the ends in a lazy curl. Nope. She would not crush on Lauren any longer. She shook herself out of it and watched the road instead.
What a complete cluster the morning had been. Though she was not thrilled with herself for staying out with Kirby and her boyfriend so late and missing her call time, she was equally annoyed with Lauren and the way she’d approached the situation. Not only that, but now her head wasn’t in the game. She’d had trouble connecting to anything meaningful in the scene work with Evelyn as of late and felt like a fish flopping in the sand when it came to her work on Starry Nights.
“You want to take our ten a little early?” Ethan asked her wearily, three hours later. He’d had a chip on his shoulder ever since she’d arrived to work, part of which she attributed to her absence, and part to the lack of cohesion between her and Evelyn. They simply weren’t in sync. He rubbed his forehead in a way that said his frustration with the scene was at a peak. They’d worked on the motivations leading up to the couple’s first kiss in act 1, but everything they tried seemed to fall flat.
Carly turned to Evelyn for her opinion on whether to take the break but was met with only a half-hearted shrug.
“Yeah, let’s do that,” Carly said to Ethan. She watched as Evelyn immediately fled the space they shared like she couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Evelyn had mentioned several times that she was straight, and maybe the female romance was harder for her. But based on the speech she’d made about the importance of such a play, it couldn’t have been the whole reason. Evelyn didn’t like her and had made it abundantly clear, which would be fine, if she would set it aside for the work. She hadn’t. Her contempt for Carly read in every moment they shared onstage together. The no-good morning had Carly in a mindset to look into it.
“You have a second?” she said quietly to Evelyn, who was engrossed in something on her phone.
Evelyn raised her gaze to Carly’s. “Sure. What do you need?”
“To talk.” She leaned against the wall next to Evelyn and geared up. Suddenly, she had a shot of nervous energy move through her, but this was too important a conversation to sidestep. If they could get past whatever conflict was between them as actresses, then maybe they could still turn this thing around. “I feel like we’re not connecting in the scenes.”
“You don’t, huh?” She glanced back down at her phone, making Carly feel about two inches tall. “Trust me. We’re doing fine. We still have two weeks left, and you’re just out of your element.”
Interesting response. “What’s my element, exactly?”
Evelyn gestured wildly with her phone in the open space before settling on a phrase. “Hollywood. La-la land. None of this is your speed, but it’s what I do for a living. I happen to have great respect for the process.”
“And you think I don’t?”
“No, I know for a fact you don’t. I think you’ve shown all of us that you’re a spoiled, pampered celebrity who cares more about herself than the larger good of the production.” She let her phone arm fall to her side as she straightened. “Go back to Hollywood, little girl. Let us handle the hard stuff.”
With that, Evelyn strolled back to the rehearsal set, leaving Carly clutching the wall and reeling. No, she wasn’t just clutching and reeling. She was also crying. Tears had pooled in Carly’s eyes, which mortified her no end. Only six-year-olds cried, and she would not let Evelyn see the effect of her words.
“And we’re back, everyone,” Lauren announced to the company. Carly stayed right where she was, still in the room, but removed from the action. “Carly, you all set?” Lauren asked in a quieter tone.
Carly didn’t move. She couldn’t, out of sheer humiliation. She wiped the tears that now stained her cheeks, but she wasn’t making much progress in shutting down the waterworks. This was awful.
She heard footsteps behind her and Lauren appeared. “I think we’re ready to get—What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just need a minute. Is that possible?” she whispered, doing windshield wiper hands. “Maybe I could go wash my face?”
Lauren nodded, squeezed her arm, and moved back to the larger group. “Can we maybe skip to the Mandy at work scene, act one, scene four?”