Carly grinned, and when the sunlight touched her skin, her face glowed. Lauren wasn’t sure she’d ever seen anyone glow quite like that. It stole her next breath. To cover, she reached for the bag of doughnuts.
“Yeah, you know, all the furniture moving, and laptop typing, and cross-referencing, and highlighting. We can do that while we run lines.”
“Where in the world did you get these doughnuts?” Lauren asked, amazed at the flaky goodness she was tasting. They were still warm. These doughnuts weren’t just any doughnuts—they were perfection, and from her own city? How? She’d ordered a million doughnuts for her companies over the years. None had been these.
“Oh. I read about them on Yelp. Danny D’s Donut Diner on Donato Street. Heard of them?”
“No,” Lauren said, around a heavenly mouthful of dough.
“Tiny place. No tables. Couple of guys behind the counter, working hard.” Carly pointed at the stand-in airport chairs. “Shall I place these for act one?”
“Yes. That would be fantastic.” Lauren’s brain hadn’t quite caught up. “Wait. So, you’re telling me that you woke up early, got dressed, drove to Danny D’s Donut Dynasty.”
“Diner. But you’re right. They missed a great naming opportunity.”
“Drove to Danny D’s Diner and made it here an hour before rehearsal is set to begin?”
Carly slid the chairs onto the blue spike tape on the floor that marked their intended home. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
“How?” Lauren asked in amazement. “Why?”
“Because I wanted to run lines. Why aren’t you listening to me?” Suddenly, it became crystal clear. Carly needed proper motivation, and when she had it? She responded in spades.
Lauren nodded her head sagely. “So with a little carrot waving, you’re up and at ’em.”
“I do lots of things for the right carrots.” Carly made the statement as if it was the most basic of understood facts. Well, it was now. “Lines?”
“Let’s do it.”
They went back and forth on the first scene between Ashley and Mandy at the airport when they first met.
“Wait. So we’re stuck here. As in overnight?” Carly balked.
“That’s what I’m telling you,” Lauren said gently.
“No, no, no. I have a presentation in Boston in the morning. I need to be on that plane.”
“We all have somewhere to be, but sometimes you have to accept defeat. Cinnamon pretzel bite?”
“What are you doing? Why are you getting comfortable with the pretzel things? We should argue. Or call someone. Someone important.”
Just like Lauren had noticed the night before when they’d read, Carly’s version of Ashley came alive. Not that it wasn’t good before. It was. But the readings they did together were other-level for Carly. It’s because she has something more to respond to. So Lauren continued to give, and Carly continued to come up with new and exciting line deliveries. By the time they’d worked their way to the end of the scene, Lauren noticed that she’d abandoned her stage management duties and had lost herself in the world of Starry Nights and Ashley and Mandy. The result was her standing face-to-face with Carly when the scene ended.
“You have no concept of how helpful that was,” Carly said quietly. Lauren’s focus fell to Carly’s bottom lip and the subtle pink lip gloss that gave it a small shine.
“Well, that’s what I’m here for. To help.”
“Then you need a raise,” Carly said sincerely. “I really feel like last night and this morning have amounted to a major breakthrough for me. I can see the path to this character now, and it’s because of you.”
“Good. That makes me happy.”
They stared at each other.
Lauren closed her script and remembered herself, heated cheeks or not. She had only a short amount of time to finish her rehearsal prep, yet she found herself completely out of sorts. She wasn’t complaining. The buzz she got from reading lines with Carly reminded her of the days she used to act herself, and with such a capable scene partner, her enjoyment level only doubled.
Reading Mandy’s and Ashley’s lines as they discovered each other in the play reminded Lauren so much of her personal journey with Carly, who she had yet to fully figure out. Just when she thought Carly was a spoiled, entitled starlet, Carly would do something to showcase her humanity and kindness. She was beginning to care about this production, and seeing her cry yesterday had been eye opening for Lauren. No, she hadn’t pinned Carly Daniel down just yet, but Lauren also understood that