A Cloud of Closure
You screwed up.
You know you really screwed up.
When the person standing next to you is someone you know well, yet you keep your distance. You stay far away emotionally, and pretend everything is okay. And when she calls you out on your bluff, you shrug and say, "Nothing's the matter."
You know you are hopeless.
When as she stands there watching the screen, your mind wanders to her ass, knowing that that borderlines on creepy, and very unprofessional. And as she cast a look at you – complete with the raised eyebrow and all – all you do is clear your throat and look away.
You know you are doomed.
When the loose strands of her shimmery auburn fall across her face as she leans in closer to the screen, and all you want to do is gently tug it back behind her ear. And as you reach out, you stop yourself short, balling your fingers into your fist, and then mentally cursed yourself when she reaches up herself and does what you wanted to do.
You know you screwed up.
And on top of all that, you know you are a complete failure, because the marker you are holding in your hand is responsible for that imaginary line between the two of you.
"Would you like some coffee?" Tish comes up from behind and demands her clapper marker back.
Kate shakes her head no.
Tish smiles back at the star and turns to the other star. "Miss Shahi, would you like some coffee?"
Sarah, standing so close to Kate, leans her slight frame on Ilene's chair and smiles widely at Tish, that megawatt smile that somehow brightens up the room.
"I really would like one. Black. Thank you. And your name is…?"
She trails her sentence off. And Tish blushes pink, "I'm Tish."
"Hi, Tish. Please call me Sarah." Sarah smiles again. And Tish hurries off, with almost a skip to her step.
When Sarah turns back to Kate, she raises an eyebrow at the smirking woman. "What!?"
"Way to go, Shahi, flirting with the intern like that." Kate matches with her own eyebrow.
Sarah throws her head back and laughs, - oh how Kate loves her laugh – and then pushes Kate playfully. "I'm not flirting. I don't flirt."
"Yeah… Right…" Drawls Kate, with the sole intention of making fun of her co-star.
Sarah pushes Kate again. And at the moment of contact, a… spark coursed through their veins, from one woman to the other, and Kate stares into the eyes, her expression mirrored back at her.
"Hey! You two. Are you watching the scene?" Ilene calls out, breaking Kate out of her trance. She sees Sarah do the same. And Sarah, the amazing actress she is, turns to Ilene and nods enthusiastically.
Kate takes a moment longer, and she too turns to her director and nods, the tension ignored at the moment, but not forgotten.
"Great!" Ilene exclaims, and comes up right beside her two stars, "This is your final scene together, and so, I need Shane and Carmen to have the closure."
Sarah bites on her fingernail, deep in contemplation, she steals a glance at Kate (and Kate sees it) and back to Ilene, "When I read the script, I feel that Carmen wants something more. Something Shane is not willing to give."
Ilene claps her hands together, "Exactly! Carmen is back in Shane's life, so it is a whole can of worms revisited."
Sarah nods, "So I can do it that way? When I say the line, 'I am not asking anything.' I can make it seem like I am pressuring Kate?"
"I think Shane wants Carmen." Kate says quietly. Both Sarah and Ilene turn to Kate, "I think Shane wants closure."
Ilene grabs Kate by her arm, "Yes! But does Shane know how to get closure?"
Sarah glances at Kate, still chewing on her nail, "Does she want closure? Or does she want more than that? I think that's definitive."
Somewhere else on the set, someone screams for Ilene, and Ilene pats both of them on the shoulder. "Alright girls, why don't you talk it out, and we will see how we can maximize this final scene."
Kate glances around the set. PAs running around, crew members moving lights, and dolly tracks, and furniture, extras chatting away on the set of the Planet, as if it is a real café. She steals a glance at Sarah, and is taken aback when she realizes that Sarah is staring intently at her.
"I need a smoke. Can we…" Before Kate finishes saying, 'take this up later', Sarah interrupts the sentence, as if, as if she knows exactly what Kate wants to say.
"Sure. Let's go somewhere secluded." Sarah, without another word, grabs Kate's jacket and throws it to her, before putting her own on.
Safely tugged away in a corner of the studio, away from prying eyes, is the sanctuary that Kate calls her 'thinking town'. She is always there alone, and no one – save for a stray extra on the set – has ever visited this little hole in the wall. But today, Kate has Sarah with her. With her in her space. Her space where she does all her script reads, and her smoking.
She lights up and offers her pack up to Sarah.
And Sarah glances around nervously, as if a burglar about to make a break-in. Kate laughs, she cannot help it. A simple act of smoking seems to be such a task for Sarah.
Sarah, who has such an immaculate image to uphold. Sarah, who cannot come across as anything other than squeaky clean; Who in her contract, has a 'no-nipples' clause written in when she signed up for the part of Carmen. Sarah who…
Kate sees Sarah kick a pebble, a little kid in a candy store. She holds her pack higher to Sarah, and whispers, "No one knows of this place."
Sarah bites her lips, pondering Kate's words, before she pulls a stick out.
Kate lights it, she always loved to light Sarah's cigarette, watching as Sarah takes the first drag on the stick, and exhales.
"What would Shane say, if they are in the situation we are in right now?" Sarah said suddenly.
"Shane would say, 'I didn't know Carmen smokes.'" Kate kids, diversion the key.
Sarah tilts her head at Kate, "I'm serious, Kate."
"Shane wants closure. I want closure." Kate replies.
"What sort of closure?"
"The possibility of being together again."
The two trails of smoke swirls in the sky, and intertwines into a magical mist, a beautiful cloud of closure.