Serendipity // Camren

Chapter 66

Things were slowly but surely falling into place. Once Camila decided to do the play Gravity, it took Thom less than eight hours to ink out a contract that was in the brunette's best interest. Joan Wells had, as Camila anticipated, wanted a two-year commitment from the brunette to guarantee the play's success, and Thom had expertly used Camila's increased visibility and widespread appeal to get the producers to pay the brunette more than the standard top-tier salary for the duration of the contract with some rather lucrative bonuses worked in depending on ticket sales and award nominations. It wasn't Hollywood-type money by any stretch of the imagination, but she was set to be the highest paid actress on Broadway and that was really all she could have ever hoped for him to manage. As soon as Camila's deal was finalized, Lauren was on the phone to her realtor whom, she learned was on vacation until the following weekend. So, while she desperately wanted to get her house on the market as soon as possible, she was forced to take the appointment that was a week from Sunday that the realtor's assistant scheduled for her.

At the moment, though, Camila and Lauren were relaxing on the rooftop deck with Jack and Meredith as they waited for Gavin McNamara to arrive for his interview with the couple. Jack was there to supervise the interview itself, and Meredith had come over to the house to go over the script for the pilot episode of the medical drama that was trying to land Lauren as their main star and to discuss whether or not the raven-haired woman should take the role.

"Your character would be Megan Walsh," Meredith told Lauren as she handed her the script. She'd already briefed her on the basic background information of the character, so she just needed to know if Lauren found the script itself intriguing. "This is more of an ensemble format, but she is one of the major players."

"An ensemble actually sounds great," Lauren said, flipping through the script and giving it a quick read. At first glance, the dialogue was sharp, witty, and she could easily picture herself stepping into the role of Doctor Megan Walsh, head of Orthopedics at the fictional Manhattan Mercy Hospital. "From what I've seen and heard of television, those are the shows that are more fun to work on."

"It can be good and bad," Meredith said, nodding. "Good because there does tend to be more camaraderie between the cast members, but bad because I can't drive your price up quite as high as you deserve. At least, not right out of the gate. If it gets picked up for a second and then a third season, I'll be able to negotiate something above the half-million mark, but you won't be making anything close to what you make per film now over the course of a season."

Lauren shrugged, she wasn't too concerned with the per-episode paycheck numbers. She just wanted a project that stimulated her creatively and allowed her to live and work in New York. But, at the same time, she and Camila were talking about buying a damn-expensive apartment in the city so she had to look at it all from a business standpoint. "That's fine. I don't have a problem working up to a bigger salary. What do you think you could get me?"

"Average salary for a lead in a new television series is $125K per episode. But, you will bring a lot of interest to the show so I think I should be able to talk them up to something around two hundred. Especially if Serendipity keeps getting the buzz it's getting in the press."

Lauren nodded thoughtfully and looked at Camila. "So... you okay with being the main breadwinner out of the two of us?"

"I think I'll manage," Camila drawled, smiling. "It's not like you'll be making minimum wage, babe."

"Speaking of press," Jack said, arching a brow at Lauren as he grabbed hold of the segue Meredith offered to bring up something he'd been needing to talk to Lauren about. "Have you given this interview any thought?"

"What do you mean?" Lauren asked.

"Are you still hell-bent on keeping it to the attack and not going into any back-story between you two?"