A/N I got nuthin'

Chapter 21 (3006)

Cal Tech Laser Lab, 9:30 AM Monday, August 13, 2012

He was going over the list of grad students he would be working with this year, all four would be coming in Wednesday. He enjoyed working with the young students. It was a shame, he thought, that I don't get to do that more often. He planned on going over what specifically they would be doing on Wednesday with them, and thought he should make some copies of what he had planned, to pass out to each of them.

He suddenly remembered something he wanted to do. He looked up the number to the florist shop, along with a specific address. He called and placed a specific order, explaining to them how the order had to be delivered at a specific time. After being assured it could be done, he placed his order, chuckling to himself.

Studio 44, 9:30 AM Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Penny and Jeanie were walking to the studio, talking about the previous night when they had again read the script together the previous night, while drinking wine, giggling at some of the jokes. They were each carrying a bag that contained some personal items. They had brought several items each on Monday, and a few more items on Tuesday. These items were used to decorate their dressing rooms. Today's items would add to what they had already brought.

They entered the broadcast center and followed the hallways to the studio. One there, Jeanie had entered her dressing room, while Penny continued walking to the stairs. Her dressing room was on the second floor, so she had to climb up the stairs. I have to climb stairs at home in California and I have to climb stairs at work in NY, damn being only a costar, she thought with a laugh. She got to her door, and saw the nameplate, "Penelope Jensen".

She smiled, opened the door, and entered. She put her bag on the chair, turned on the lights, then closed the door. Turning around she gasped. There on her makeup counter was a vase of flowers, red roses.

Walking over to the vase, she grabbed the small envelope, opened it and read the card:

"Penny,

To my favorite actress, break a leg.

Leonard."

She felt tears form in her eyes, and she wiped them away. She had to get ready. Taking off her coat, she hung it up, then headed back downstairs.

It was now almost ten AM, and Penny was sitting at the table, waiting for the rest of the actors. On the table, in front of her, was a placard with her name. She had made a stop at craft services and now had fruit and a cup of coffee in front of her. She was waiting nervously, for the table read to begin. Jim, Kelli, and Sam were sitting at the head table, with Tina next to Jim. There were three more tables in a line, perpendicular to the head table. Jeanie and Dave sat across from each other, next to the head table. Penny was next to Jeanie and the spot next to Dave, and across from Penny, was for Brent, but he hadn't arrived yet. Along the rest of the tables were the heads of each department, with the rest of the crew and writers in chairs encircling the tables.

Finally, Brent walked in and went right to his seat. Sitting down, he looked at Penny and smiled. He then reached for a pencil, taking one out of the container in front of him, there were three on each table, he opened his script and then started writing something.

After several more minutes, Jim spoke up. "All right everyone, settle down." He waited until everyone was quiet, "All right," he said with a smile, "welcome to the first table read of the season, for the show's second episode. They will broadcast the slightly edited pilot for our first episode. Let's go over some things. This is basically a read through of the script. I expect the actors have looked at the script, and to use the voice intonations they feel are right. If anyone finds a line funny, feel free to laugh. After all, this is supposed to be a comedy, and we need to find where the laughs are, outside of what the writers found funny."

"For any special things, visuals, special effects, actions with props, all of that, Sam will give us a description of what is going on. Does anyone have any questions? Good, now Sam will go over the setup, and the lead in to where we are starting, then we can start the read. Dave, you got the first line, you ready?" Dave nodded, and Jim said, "OK, Sam, get us started."

Cal Tech Laser Lab, 9:00 AM Wednesday August 15, 2012

Leonard had come in early, he was looking to get out of there before lunch. He unlocked the small office lab, where he had his "desk", then started his coffee machine. The four grad students were coming in at nine, along with several other students, who had help run a limited number of lasers over the summer. They were all going to help him get started on getting the all the labs up and running, so everything would be ready for the first day of classes. The students, other than the four grad students, had been at the school during the summer to operate certain equipment, in the small laser lab.

Starting at 8:45, the students started slowly drifting into the lab. Leonard greeted them, spoke with them briefly and asked them how their summers had been. After they all arrived, he then briefly laid out what he wanted to accomplish during the week. To help them understand what exactly was planned, he passed out the copied sheets, which had all the intended activities for the week.

They went to the main control room for the large lasers, entering it after Leonard unlocked it. They started by sweeping the floors, and then started removing the covers off the control panels used to operate the main laser, cleaning the panels as they went. Then they moved to the control room for the slightly smaller laser, repeating their procedures. They then moved to the small laser lab. There were already two lasers unpacked, and in use, they had been used for scheduled work over the summer. The students unpacked four smaller lasers and placed them on their specific workbenches. They planned to set them up and test them, over the next few days. They went to another smaller lab and unpacked the last two of the smaller lasers, and again put them on their specific workbenches.

Finally, they moved back to the office lab and unpacked the one laser Leonard had planned to keep in his office, putting it on its specific workbench. Leonard then thanked them all, and asked how many pizza's they would need for dinner. They told him $50 to $60 for the Pizza and twenty or so for the beer, so Leonard gave them $100, and told them to grab either a couple of extra six packs, or extra pizza, with the leftover money. They accepted the money, thanked him and they all headed out.

After they left, Leonard sat at his desk, looking over the planned experiments the grad students listed for the fall semester. These doctoral student were really sharp, some of the experiments were quite technical. Leonard was charged with assigning the time each student would use, on each of the lasers. He got a tentative list done, then put it away. He would have to see how the lasers were working before doing the final list. That would be some time next week, as they had to first assemble the lasers, then test them.

Leonard turned his computer off, and put it in his messenger bag. Then he cleared his desk putting, the papers in the top drawer. He walked over to the coffee pot, turned it off, then washed out the carafe. He put the carafe back on the coffee machine, grabbed his bag and walked to the door. He checked the time and was happy to see it was just after one PM, he would get lunch on the way home. He turned the lights off, closed and locked the door, and left for home.

Apt 314, New York 9:30 PM Friday August 17, 2012

Penny poured the last of the wine out of the bottle. This had been her second bottle. She had finished the first in only about an hour, and emptying this one took less than 90 minutes. She was really feeling it now.

After the relaxed read through, and costume fitting on Wednesday, it had been a rough two days of rehearsal for her. The same problems she had during the week of taping the pilot, resurfaced during the first two days of rehearsal.

She was thinking about it and shook her head her thinking already fuzzy. I was missing my mark when I moved to my camera…wait…I missed my mark for what camera I was supposed to move to.… Huh…wait…I couldn't find my light either, wait, I did find it, it was up on the ceiling… oh, wait, I know, I was missing my mark to be in the light, not in the ceiling. Hell, I'm surprised I found my way walking to my dressing room. She thought sarcastically.

Then there were those other things that came up during the run through… was that today? Lucky they didn't yell at me, of course that was this afternoon, so they may be yelling at me tomorrow. Wait, tomorrow is Saturday, they can't yell at me on Saturday, can they? What am I going to do. Leonard, I miss you. You may not know what I'm supposed to be doing, but just you being here would make me feel better.

She looked at her phone and started talking to it, her drunken state much more obvious. "Hmmmmmm, it's 9:30 here, sho it's three hours ahead, hehehehe, head. Wait, three hours that means it's, uh, uh, 12:30 in California. No, wait, it can't be just after noon."

Her alcohol addled brain was trying to figure out, suddenly she remembered, "My phone, I can look up what time it is in Pashadena…Pasashena…wait, Pasadena, that'shit hehehehe, shit." Looking at her phone, she was confused, her phone showing 6:30. "That's not three hours from 12:30," She tilted her head, still looking at her watch. "I'll just call, if he anshers, I can talk to him." Penny brought up Leonard's number and tapped it, waiting for it to ring.

Leonard was driving home from work, he had been late getting out, finishing the laser lab prep. Now he was caught in traffic on California Blvd. He could see the emergency vehicle lights ahead of him, and thought he could turn down Lake Ave to avoid the traffic, but it seems a lot of other drivers had the same idea. He heard his phone ring, but it was in his bag. He hoped whoever it was would leave a message and he'd get to it when he got home.

Penny heard the voicemail prompt, and after the beep said, "Leonard, I'm drunk…two bottles of wine. Remember I told you lasht night how bad yeshterday was? Today was, worshe…I'm going to bed, I call you tomorrow, lest seeeee, tomorrow is Shunday. I'll call you shunday, I love you bye." Penny broke the connection and headed, unsteadily, toward her bedroom.

Apt 314/Apt 4A 9:30/6:30 PM Monday August 20, 2012

"Leonard," said Penny, "it was terrible. I couldn't do anything right."

They had been Skyping for almost 30 minutes, Penny kept talking about how bad things had gone on pre-taping. Leonard was having trouble getting any word in, and he could see she was almost in tears. Finally she stopped long enough for him to say, "Were they yelling at you?"

"No," she said, "They were so nice about it. But, I could tell they were getting frustrated. Missing lines, missing places to stand, missing light spots, I couldn't get anything right, it was terrible."

Leonard felt helpless. He had been able to calm her down on Saturday and Sunday, but she had another bad day today. If he was there, he could just pull her in for a hug, to try and comfort her. As it was, he was reluctant to say anything, as he regularly messed up that part. Hesitating for a few seconds, he finally said, "Have you talked to Jeanie? She seemed willing to help you when we were in New York."

Penny considered that, "I suppose I could. Maybe she can give me some ideas on how to do this. None of my acting classes gave the mechanics, just the acting part, so all of this is new to me. I can do that tomorrow." Penny drained her glass, and poured another glass.

Leonard notice how much she was drinking tonight and remembered the drunken voice mail she had left on Friday. Bernadette's comment about her drinking came to him, and said, "Hey, you seem to be drinking a lot."

"Yeah, so?"

"Just wondering, It seems you're hitting it pretty hard."

"Nah, I drank more when I was in California," said Penny. "Besides, as bad as things are going for me, I need to drink a bit, so just leave it Leonard."

Leonard saw he wasn't going to get anywhere with her, so he tried various ways to try to get her mind off of her acting problems, and hopefully, get her away from the wine. After she didn't respond to his first three attempts, he was running out of ideas, so he said, "Hey, how about we head to our bedrooms? Maybe help you relax, maybe get your mind off of what's…"

"You mean, maybe get each of us off, right?" said Penny with a wolfish grin.

Leonard blushed, which Penny noticed, and she said, "You head to the bedroom, in case Sheldon comes home, I'm going to stay right here on my couch." As Leonard started toward his bedroom, carrying his computer, he watched Penny take off her shirt and bra. He started to hurry.

Penny's dressing room 3:50 PM Tuesday August 14, 2012

Penny's phone alarm went off, she had set her alarm because she needed to be down on the stage at four, to wait for her make up call. She had been studying her script and was afraid she would miss getting to the set on time. She turned off her alarm, grabbed her script, and headed out of her dressing room, and down to the stage.

She walked into the apartment set, and sat on the couch. Jeanie was already there, her script was on the couch and she was writing something in her script. Penny sat down, and said, "Jeanie, can I talk to you after our dinner break? I've got some questions for you."

"Sure," said Jeanie, "there's nothing special we have to do, this run through should be done by five, why don't you come by my dressing room right after the run through? We can get something to eat, and talk."

"Ok, cool," said Penny. She was looking at Jeanie's script, there were all sorts of symbols and marks in the margins of her script. Penny had to know, so she asked, "What do all those marks mean?"

Jeanie looked up at Penny in surprise, "What do you mean?"

"Those marks," said Penny, pointing at the marks on Jeanies script, "what do those mean?"

Jeanie looked shocked, "You're kidding, right?"

"No, I really want to know."

Jeanie shook her head, "You mean, you haven't written in your blocking? Your specific spots? Camera angles, all of that?"

"No," said Penny, "I marked my lines, and my cue lines, but I didn't mark blocking. Should I have been writing it in the book all along?"

"Oh my god, yes," said Jeanie. "Oh sweetie, no wonder you've been struggling with lines, movement, where to stand, all of that. But, I'm pretty impressed you got along as well as you did without having your blocking written in. We'll fix that today, I am going to teach you what all those symbols mean, and how you write them in your script to show your blocking and movement."

"Well, that is actually what I wanted to talk to you about."

Jeanie paused, "Hmmmmm, When one of us is on stage, the other is off, and otherwise, were on together. We may have to go back to what we did at the pilot, me guiding you to your spots, for the run through and taping tonight. So, we won't be able to fix that today."

"How about this, we get the scripts tonight, then we have the table read. Tomorrow afternoon, I'll come down to your place, and I'll teach you what those symbols mean. Then, on Thursday, when you get your blocking, you can write it in. Thursday night you and I will go over the blocking you write down." Jeanie looked at Penny and shook her head, "I still can't believe you don't know these symbols and haven't been writing them in your script."

Penny smiled at Jeanie, "Thank you, but I was never taught this in my acting classes."

"I think you got cheated then," said Jeanie. "This is something everyone in the business should know." Jeanie noticed Penny looking downcast, "Don't worry sweetie, we'll make sure you know the symbols and how to write them in. I'll charge you just only half of the regular price of a lesson."

Penny looked at Jeanie and nodded, "That sounds fair."

"Oh, sweetie," said Jeanie with a chuckle, "I was kidding, I'm not charging you anything."

They could hear a call over the loudspeaker, telling Jeanie they were ready for her in make-up, and the call to tell Penny that she would be needed in about ten minutes. Penny said bye to Jeanie, and went back to studying her script.

A bit more than five minutes later, she felt a presence near her. Looking up she saw a smiling Brent. Before she could say anything, the loudspeaker came on, calling for Penny to come to make-up. She rose, "Sorry Brent, I have to go get my make-up ready." With that Penny headed toward the make-up room.