New Character #13; Serena
She always brought her camera with her for this specific reason. There it was; a perfectly lit scene if a pair sitting on a bench in Central Park. It would have been beyond perfect to have something like that in your portfolio.
Now, however, all Serena could do was berate herself for leaving her camera, her beloved video recorder, back in her apartment in Manchester. By order of her mother, though, who had organized this trip for her and claimed that her bag would have been too heavy with the camera. Which was probably true, but Serena would not have minded leaving some of the shoes her mother had insisted she had to bring along. She had been here for a week now yet not used any other pair but her trusted green Converse.
She kicked a loose pebble to the other side of the path, took one last glance at the scene she badly wanted to film and then aimed for the entrance to the subway. Some of her friends would have argued that she could have used her phone to record it, but Serena would have hated that more; the quality of such a recording could never capture the depth and colours of a proper camera recording. At least according to her.
She took a train heading south, away from Central Park and back to her hotel. Her mother would have wanted her to head back to New York University, as that was why she had organized this trip in the first place; to get her daughter to apply to a university and study for a couple of years instead of making short films that she uploaded to YouTube. She did not see how many views her daughter's short films on got, how many nice comments people sent her. She did not see why Serena was doing this or the fact that she met with hundreds of people in the industry every year, showing them her films in order to try to get some small behind-the-camera-work. Acting was not what she wanted to do; her sight was set on the director's and producer's chair. And her short films were a way of getting there.
She managed to catch a half-empty train and leaned back on her seat, plugging in her headphones to listen to some music. She had gone through almost three songs when the train rattled and slowed down, causing her and several other passengers to look up and remove their headphones. After a while the speakers scraped.
"We seem to be experiencing some technical difficulties", a male voice said, "so we're going to pull in to Prince Street Station. We've alerted the personnel on site and..."
Serena stopped listening to the message and put her headphones back on. Prince Street was not too far from where she would have gotten off anyway, so she might just as well walk the last bit. The weather was good, so she really did not have any excuse.
She got off with the rest of the people onboard and walked up the stairs. The majority of the others followed the instructions of the station personnel that guided them to replacement busses that would take them on past the damaged section of the track. Serena headed in the opposite direction, walking down Broadway, past an H&M store that she was tempted to check out. Even though she evaded that temptation she could not stop herself from turning right at the next crossroad to walk down Spring Street. It was a slight detour, but walking past all of the luxury stores – Burberry and Channel were some of her favourites – always made up for it. She could walk down one of the adjoining streets and then walk back to Broadway using Broome Street.
She had passed almost all of the stores, ogling the expensive designs, when she decided to head back towards Broadway. She turned down Wooster Street and stopped when she saw the unfamiliar sign standing out on the road. It had not been there two days ago when she had walked this way.
The Enchanted Forest Café
Two floors up
She looked up the ordinary looking apartment complex, wondering when there would have been time for a café to open here. However, she did feel a bit hungry. Perhaps she should head up and get something to eat before heading back to the hotel. After all, this had to be cheaper than the hotel's own restaurant.