Carly turned back to her salad, her afternoon, and her new understanding of the things that made her happy. Green eyes were never far from her mind.

Chapter Twenty

The elevator ride to the twelfth floor wasn’t a glamorous one. The narrow office building on Fourteenth Street between a deli and a dry cleaner’s was home to the team of producers mounting Heather Kim’s two-hour production of Home Fires, in which a daughter discovers that she and her siblings were kidnapped as young children by the parents they grew up loving. The script came with a surprising amount of lighthearted humor, given the heavy premise. Carly enjoyed everything about the dialogue and narrative when she read it and hoped the meeting would prove to be a valuable one.

She exited the stale smelling elevator and made her way down a nondescript hallway, which all served as a reminder that she was not in Hollywood anymore. The frills were gone, which, honestly, she didn’t mind. The play was not a big budget outing and would instead play a ten-week limited run in a three hundred seat theater about a mile south of Broadway, which to Carly sounded perfect in every way.

An hour and a half later, and she, the producers, the director, and Heather Kim herself were seated around a table, discussing the piece in great collaboration.

“I think the scene that resonates with me most would have to be the moment Reagan brings her findings to the siblings,” Carly said.

“It’s definitely the scene that took me the longest to write. There are so many layers there that I wanted to be sure came through.”

Carly nodded. “The brother’s reaction, especially, is chilling.” She’d read the script in its entirety four times now, but she’d read that scene more than ten. She loved everything about the play and thought Heather Kim deserved the Pulitzer.

The lively discussion went on like that for another forty-five minutes, until Kevin Jacobs, the lead producer, turned to her. “Listen, are you interested? Because I can safely say we are.” Everyone around the table nodded.

Carly didn’t hesitate. She raised her shoulders. “When do we start?”

Jeanine, the director, clapped her hands. “Quickly. We have two more roles to cast, and fast.”

“Can I ask which two?”

Jeanine listed them on her fingers. “The detective at the police department, which as you know is fairly significant in this journey, and will take the right actress, and a young actor to play Reagan’s son.”

Carly smiled at her. “You said you saw me in Starry Nights?”

“I did. It’s why I wanted to work with you.”

“Can I make a suggestion on who you might look into for that detective role? There’s just someone I couldn’t get out of my head when I read that character.”