A Cross-Country Christmas(13)

“Right now, we’ve got to decorate a dorm room,” she said. “It’s only for a couple of episodes, so we don’t have a lot of time.”

“So, like beer cans and dirty underwear?” he joked.

“A girl’s dorm room.”

“So, like make-up and dirty underwear?”

She let herself smile. That was actually funny.

She loved her job. She loved learning about characters and bringing their spaces to life. She’d always been artistic, and she’d always loved film. Somehow, she fell into this career that married those two passions, and she couldn’t imagine doing anything else. She’d been working for years, and kept waiting for the day someone trusted her enough to let her run with her ideas.

“So, you’re like an interior designer,” he said. “But for fake people.”

“Well, the people are actually real people,” she said. “I mean, as real as actors can get, anyway.”

“Ha. Nice.”

She continued. “This job is about. . . bringing characters to life.” She turned toward him. “For instance, a couple of weeks ago, Lisa and I were working on a single mom’s kitchen. The attention to detail is crazy. You can’t just make an empty kitchen, you have to clutter the fridge with little kid artwork and quirky magnets the character picked up on vacation and post-it notes with actual reminders written on them.

“The windowsill is lined with vitamins and pill bottles and a cup of random straws next to a sippy cup. You have to figure out where that mom hangs her keys and throws her mail, and—” she stopped. She was talking too much—way more than she planned to talk.

“And what?”

“I’m sure you’re not interested in sitcom set decoration.” She let out a nervous laugh.

“I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t interested,” he said. “I’ve never known anyone who does what you do. Besides, you talking is kind of keeping me awake. I didn’t sleep the best last night.”

She wanted to ask him why, but she didn’t. She couldn’t let herself get invested.

“So, what’s your boss need from you now?” he asked.

“Artwork for the dorm,” she said.

“And you have ideas?”

She nodded and her mind wandered back to the mood boards she’d created for this character. Lisa always challenged her to come up with her own designs, even though they both knew they were probably always going to go with Lisa’s. Twice, though, her boss had taken one of Lauren’s suggestions. She felt like she’d won Olympic gold both times that happened.

Not that she’d won Olympic gold or had any idea what that actually felt like, but in her world, the two things had to be close.

Lisa was a great boss, not the kind who was threatened by her assistant having a good idea. She wanted Lauren to succeed, and if she did—when she did—it would largely be because of her.

This time, though, she had more on the line. The artwork Lauren wanted to pitch was her own.

“Maybe you could show me.” He slowed the car, then came to a stop near an old sign with the name Pop’s Diner lit up in bright red neon.

“Not if they don’t have WiFi,” she said.

“They do.” He parked, nodding toward a row of tiny white bungalows. “That’s the motel.” Then he pointed to a small building that she would’ve assumed was an old gas station if it weren’t for the sign overhead that read Diner. “And that’s the diner. We need to get a picture here.”

“We do?”

“I mean, I do. Can you take one?” He handed her his phone.

She followed him out of the SUV, where he positioned himself just so in front of the diner.

“Make sure to get the sign in the background,” he called to her.

She snapped a couple of photos, and he jogged back, took a look at them, and puckered his lips. “Not quite. Can you get down a little lower, sort of angle it upward?”

She frowned at the critique. “Okay.”

He seemed unfazed by her confusion.

Finally, she snapped a photo he deemed “perfect”. She knew very little about the route they were taking home, but Will seemed suspiciously well-versed in every stop they’d made so far. She had to admit, there was a part of her that was super curious about the history of these places—they were layered with years of stories.

“Why don’t you go get us a table, and I’ll get our rooms,” he said.

She agreed and five minutes later, she was settled into one of the tables at Pop’s Diner. All along one wall were shelves of snacks for hungry travelers, and on the opposite side of the space was a soda counter with a long row of stools. After she sent Lisa her mood boards, she waited for Will, studying the retro artwork on the walls of the nearly empty café. A thin, sparsely decorated Christmas tree, seemingly inspired by Charlie Brown, stood in the corner, blinking colorful lights like knowing winks of joy.

The space was a little piece of American history, and for the first time since they’d left Santa Monica, Lauren took a minute to appreciate that. These weren’t things you found online to manufacture character and atmosphere—this was the real thing.

She absolutely loved it.

Will walked in, and for a brief moment, it was as if all the oxygen in the diner had been sucked out. His eyes landed on her and she forced herself to exhale her held breath.