"Hey, Laura," the woman greeted her, giving her a small hug. Laura smiled her signature grin, her lips parting and showing her perfectly white teeth.
"Hey!"
"I'm Ella. Even though we've just met, I feel like I already know you!" She chuckled at Laura who laughed.
"I know, I hear that a lot. I'm pretty much an open book, which I guess is why." She tucked her hair behind her ears.
"Well let's get settled. When the camera's on, I'll ask you a series of questions for you to answer and... well I'm sure you know how interviews work," she finishes, laughing again.
Laura laughs again, too. She wasn't sure how she even managed to do all of these interviews with out sounding dull and boring. She always tried to spice it up a bit, make it seem more interesting. She really wanted her fans to get her not what it seemed like she was. "Yeah, I understand. I mean, if it fails we could just go to lunch," she jokes, still laughing.
"Sounds good," Ella agrees. Ella is pretty, dark blonde hair and bright green eyes. She was a little bigger than Laura, height and width. She wore flats and full-length black leggings. She had a loose white tee with a denim vest, deliberately uneven. She looked to be in her early 20s.
"Okay," she says again. "I'll just introduce you."
The camera light flashed and Laura looked towards it, preparing herself for her second interview this week. She loved doing them, truthfully, she was just a little worried about the questions she'd ask.
"Hi there," Ella says. "You're watching Ella Talks and today I'm interviewing Austin & Ally's Laura Marano."
"Hi guys," Laura said to the camera, smiling again. She found herself smiling a lot when it wasn't necessary and her face hurt afterwards.
"Well, Laura, how are you today?"
"I'm wonderful, Ella, how are you?"
"Good! Well Laura, now that Austin & Ally has been renewed for a third season, where do you think the Austin and Ally off-and-on relationship will be headed?"
Ah, a repeated question. "Well," Laura begins, getting appropriately excited. "I can't give anything away, partly because I don't want to spoil the finale and partly because I don't even know yet. But I hope that Austin and Ally's relationship as friends remain even if their romantic relationship doesn't work."
"I hope so, too," Ella gushes.
"I mean, they're like the "power couple of Disney", right? I saw people refer to them as that. And people call them Auslly and I think it's adorable, personally. I think that they're meant to be, even if they're not... together, I guess."
"And I know a lot of fans tweet about it, right? Like you're at almost half a million Twitter followers alone and we see that a lot of them are about the shipping."
Laura internally cringes. Her smile never fades, though. The shipping conversation was one she had hoped to avoid, but was sure Ella wouldn't let that be the case. "Yeah, it's adorable," she answered truthfully. "I think it's funny how dedicated they are. I wouldn't have imagined in a million years having this many fans that were so dedicated!"
"And you know about the 'Raura' pair right?"
"Haha, yep." Of course she knew.
"A lot of people think you and your costar Ross would be the perfect couple." Tell me something I don't know, Laura thought. "And there are others that don't, too. They think that Ross and his Teen Beach Movie costar Maia Mitchell would be perfect." I know. "It's called the Raura vs. Raia wars, I guess." Mhm.
"Haha, I know! It's ridiculous. Even though Ross and I are just friends and Maia is in a relationship with another guy, they ship it anyway. Which is fine, I mean it's not like it's never happened, right. But they also don't seem to get that Maia and I are friends, which is the worst part. They think that we fight over Ross or something and we don't." Laura laughs again.
"I think that's great," Ella exclaims. "Here's a question, though: with all of the Teen Beach Movie promotion, does your relationship with either of them get hard to maintain?"
Oh. That wasn't a question Laura was prepared for. "What do you mean?" she skillfully stalled.
"Well Ross is always with Maia now. They're both in Australia. How do you deal with that, especially when he isn't there to film the show with you, Raini and Calum."
"It's hard, I'll admit. But we're all still close as ever. It's not like he suddenly quit the show, he has other parts of his career to fulfil and when he is here, it's like a family on set. Plus, Maia has The Fosters to film – a great show by the way, I absolutely love it – and she'll be back soon, too." How come no one understood that Laura was okay with the situation?
"So it doesn't bother you that they're really close?"
"No, should it? I know there's nothing going on between them and there's nothing going on between us. The only person who could be worried is Maia's boyfriend and truthfully, he shouldn't be. They're just friends. We're all just friends."
"Well it's a cute friendship, yours and Ross, anyway."
"The best," Laura confirms. She wonders if the interview is live.
"So we have a few questions from Twitter for you," she says.
So it is live. "Great," she says excitedly, though she's finding it harder to pretend like she isn't growing increasingly angry.
"So the question is 'Laura, what's great about working with Ross?'"
Ha. "Well," she chuckles. "He's really funny and talented and always gives us a reason to smile. Sometimes he's the comedic relief of the group and sometimes he's the down-to-earth guy you want to get advice from because it's usually really helpful. And even though he doesn't tweet it much, he's really thankful to have the show." She smiles, proud of her answer.
"'What's Ross' best feature?'"
Shoot. "He's so sweet. He's really nice and fun and he always makes sure everyone knows that he loves them." She thinks for a moment. "Oh, if you meant physical feature, his eyes."
Next question, please. "How's your relationship with Raini or Calum?"
Her face lights up. "Raini is probably like my best friend right now," she answers truthfully. "We're always hanging out and if we're not, then we're texting. Sometimes when the four of us are out, we text each other even though we're beside each other. It makes the guys mad," she laughs. "And Calum, he's absolutely hilarious. When we went to Vancouver a few years back, he was chatty the whole flight. It's probably because of him that I love bad jokes so much. Plus, on his new show, CopperTop Flop, his genuine hilarity is so transparent, it's like hanging out with him without actually being there. He's great."
"'Would you be up for another season of A&A after season 3?'"
"Of course!" She really would. "Give us another 5 seasons, I'm ready. I think the show could really go that far, but I don't know how far Disney wants to take it. Hopefully further, though, for sure."
Ella smiles. "'What's your favourite show right now?'"
"Oh my goodness, I'm loving my sister, Vanessa's show Switched At Birth and Maia's show The Fosters. I really don't watch TV that much, though."
"'What's the number one quality you look for in a guy. One.'"
She sighed, laughing. "I don't know. I have like 3 or 4 musts, but 1? Maybe if he accepts that he isn't perfect and doesn't strive for perfection. Even though I'm a perfectionist, I don't try to make myself perfect, you know?"
"'Would you ever consider dating Ross?'"
Silence. Laura, screaming in her head and still in real life, shifts her head to make it look like she's thinking about answering the question and not how to leave the interview right at the moment.
She then decides that wouldn't work. "I've considered dating George Clooney," she deflects.
"But would you date Ross?" Ella asks. Laura notes that that wasn't a question from the tablet, but one of her own.
She takes a deep breath. "I don't know."
"Why not?"
Shh. "Because I've never really thought about it," she lies slyly.
"Really?"
"Well I mean, it isn't a good idea right now, and our feelings are as they were before and we're friends right now."
Ella cocks her head to the side and Laura realizes that she's being told to wrap up. She looks to the camera. "Well, folks, you heard it here! Laura answered some of your questions and you can catch her on Disney's Austin & Ally on Sundays. This is Ella."
The buzzer sounds, and Laura quickly checks her phone, pretending to receive a text. "Thanks for the interview, Ella," she smiles. "But I have to go, family emergency."
"No problem, Laura, come back anytime!" Ella hugs her.
"Of course," she laughs. "Bye guys."
She sees herself out of the building, rushing herself to her car. She pulls out of the lot and drives a good block away before parking the car in the parking lot of a nearby mall. She sits back. She can't believe that she just lied through her teeth to all of her fans and to Ella. Of course she was kind of jealous of Ross being in Australia with Maia, but as she told Ella, Maia does have a boyfriend and they are friends, so she didn't lie that much at all. She didn't worry about them together.
She has considered dating Ross and he has almost all of the qualities she looks for in a guy. Definitely the top 3 or 4 musts. His eyes were the best part about him. He is a sweetheart. But when she asked if she would consider it the second time, Laura wanted so badly just to say 'yes'.
But she couldn't say it because he meant too much to her to let go again and when he gets home she's going to demand they see each other, even if it is on the show. And she is going to make sure there's at least one picture of them together at the Teen Choice Awards and she will post it on Twitter for the fans that are waiting for something like that.
Because no one else knows what it's like waiting for someone who's waiting for them. A parallel world they're both stuck in, Ross and Laura. A world that only the Raura shippers live in, where the King and Queen aren't together, but still rule the kingdom, because no one wants them together more than they want to be together.
Laura couldn't help the tear that rolled down her cheek because she wanted nothing more than her king to text her from Australia and tell her he missed her. And Ross stared at his phone every free moment that he wasn't spending with Maia, his family or at special premiers, because he wanted nothing more than his queen to text him and tell him she missed him.
But that will never happen because this is real life and life's an everlasting parallel.