Over the course of the morning Brett, Kellye and Meredith learned a lot more about Janine. It turned out that she worked in an office in New York as a market analyst. She was very good at the job and made money enough to maintain a small apartment in Brooklyn, just a short subway ride away from her job. Not surprisingly, she lived alone, and her job was structured so she rarely had to talk with anyone – much of her work was done by e-mail. She did enjoy seeing plays, and she’d seen lots of them, probably more than Brett and Meredith combined. With that for inspiration, she’d written a lot of plays, too – but had only put a few on-line, which is where Meredith had turned up Chocolate, Roses and Sex.

They didn’t get into the lesbian inclinations she’d apparently worked into the play, but she said she watched people a lot, even though she didn’t interact with them very much. Much of what the unnamed girl in the play said reflected things Janine had heard others say, though those other people’s comments hadn’t been aimed at her.

Eventually it was time for lunch. Since they’d had a late breakfast and were getting tight on time to make it to the rehearsal for The Odd Couple – The Female Version, Kellye contented everyone with serving tuna salad sandwiches and chips. Then, it was over to the mill for the play practice.

“Janine, you don’t have to go with us,” Meredith told her. “We’re just going to run through the play and try to nail things down a little.”

“N-no, I’ll go,” she said, stuttering more, apparently since she wasn’t cuddled under Meredith’s arm. “I d-don’t want t-to b-be here by m-myself. I’ll just s-stay out of the way.”

“Suit yourself,” Meredith told her.

It took a couple minutes to come out, but they found out that while Janine had been to innumerable plays ranging from high school to Broadway, and had written several of her own, she had never, not once, sat in on the production of any play! There were things there she didn’t understand, and everyone realized that she was going to be a very serious observer of the proceedings.

They made it over to the winery in enough time for the four of them to get Marty off to the side and explain their idea for doing Chocolate twice, the way it had been done the night before. “Great!” he said. “I was going to suggest something like that to you. That was a really powerful experience. I’ve even had some calls from people this morning wanting to get reservations so they can bring their friends.”

“Then we must have guessed that one pretty close to right,” Brett smiled, throwing out all the arguments he had mentally prepared to use on Marty.

“I’d guess so. You better get to practice. Don’t let me bother you. After last night, I have to bring up some more wine from the cellar to replace the stocks, and I have to bottle some too.”

Even though the set for the plays currently being performed was minimal, they decided to clear away the area over by the kitchen they’d been using for practices in the past. Everyone else in the play was there on time, and soon they were under way, with Janine sitting back among the tables, a note pad in front of her. At one point Brett got the impression that she was taking a lot of notes and couldn’t help but wonder what she was seeing. Something that was so totally familiar to him that it was unremarkable, he surmised.

There were still some rough spots in The Odd Couple, partly due to the fact that the practices had been so spaced out and sporadic, but they were slowly getting it under control. As soon as they were done with the current run of plays, they were going to add an evening practice to the Saturday one, and probably go to two a week the week after. The last few days, once the set could be erected on the main stage, they’d be doing nightly practices.

They were most of the afternoon working their way through the rehearsal, sometimes going back and doing sections of the play over again. While Kellye and Meredith had their parts down about as well as could be expected at this stage – they’d run through it frequently with each other – the same couldn’t be said of some people with the smaller parts.

It was getting late by the time they wrapped up the practice, and by then it was almost time to get ready for the night’s performance of the two short plays. The four of them went back over to the house just to rest up for an hour or so. They had to get their minds off the play they would be performing in a few weeks, and be ready for the two (or three, depending on how they looked at it) that would be performed tonight.

They got back over to the theater in plenty of time, noticing that the parking lot was more full than it had been the night before, when the crowd had been a little on the light side. They’d expected a light turnout for the nearly unknown plays, but apparently word of mouth had been working hard through the day. “I don’t think it’s going to be a sell-out,” Marty told them, “but it’s not going to miss by much, either. At least the church ladies have extra food. I think they’re going to need it.”

Brett and Kellye sat at a table in the back of the room with Janine for the first performance of Chocolate, Roses and Sex. As the night before, Marty introduced Janine as the author of the play, and she stood up to identify herself. She still didn’t say anything, but at least her knees weren’t shaking as she gave a little wave to the crowd. After she sat back down, Marty didn’t say anything about the double performance – though many in the crowd knew it was coming, he wanted to keep it a surprise for those who didn’t know.

Brett didn’t pay as much attention to the play as he normally would have and kept his eye on Janine – and tonight she was laughing along with the crowd at places he would have expected laughter. If anything, Meredith had increased the sharpness of her presentation.

And there was another thing Brett finally noticed partway through the show, that he and Kellye held hands off and on throughout the performance. He didn’t have time to think about it then, and didn’t want to right then anyway, but it seemed like something interesting was going on there, too.

As soon as the intermission came, he was back in the dressing room, changing into the Lomov costume. There wasn’t time for visitors or by-play, since they wanted to cut the intermission as short as they could, and he had to rush to get his head into the role.

A Marriage Proposal went off at least as well as it had the night before. If anything, it was just as rollicking as the night before, and the crowd had at least as much fun with it, too, which was about all he could have asked for. At the end of the play, as he had the night before, Brett made the announcement about the second performance of Chocolate, Roses and Sex, his statement only slightly different. But clearly, the crowd had an idea of what was going to happen, since there was applause at his announcement!

The dessert intermission went quickly, and soon Meredith was back in the narrower lights they used for this performance. If anything, she expanded on her presentation of “the girl” being poignant, and perhaps a little pathetic – and once again, it didn’t seem anything like the same play.

And, as the night before, they stood at the door after the performance to thank the audience for coming, and Janine was right there with them. She did manage to say “thank you” a lot with very little stuttering, and even managed short conversations, though they were somewhat halting. This time, they didn’t rush back to the house, but sat in a small group afterward with final glasses of wine. “That really worked well,” Marty told them. “It was even better than I expected. Janine, you did a great job with that play. Do you have any more of them?”

“Yes,” she said. “I h-have a f-few.”

“Brett,” Marty said, “I know you’re still unsure about the tail end of the season. Maybe you need to see if Janine has something else stuck in a drawer that would be worth performing.”

“That thought had crossed my mind,” Brett admitted. “This is so new that I haven’t had time to do anything about it yet.”

“Well, think about it,” he said. “I have a feeling there may be more gold there if you dig for it.”

They finished their wine and went back to the house. It didn’t take long for Meredith and Janine to head upstairs. “Brett,” Kellye said as they watched their friends go, “I’d like to know if your offer for tonight is still good.”

“It is as far as I’m concerned.”

“Good,” she smiled. “Even thinking about what they’re going to be doing has gotten me all horny again.”

“That makes two of us.”

It didn’t take long for the two of them to be in his bed, doing just exactly what they wanted to be doing at that moment. The previous night had been a little new for them, two new lovers finding out a few basics about how each other liked it. Now, they had their acts a little more practiced, and it was even better, and they could both feel it.

After their first round – and sure there would be more to come – they just lay in bed cuddled up close to each other, talking some and still noticing the ecstatic sounds that occasionally drifted down the stairs. “You know,” Kellye whispered at one point after a particularly delightful moan, “this is showing all the signs of getting serious.”

“Yeah, there’s something really interesting happening, and I’m not sure how it’s going to turn out.”

“I wasn’t just talking about them,” she whispered.

“Neither was I.”

“Are you sorry?”

“No way in hell.”

“Me either.”

Brett had some concerns he needed to talk with Kellye about – in fact, a lot of them – but now was most definitely not the time. Perhaps she had some too, but right at the moment it seemed like those concerns were far away. They could be dealt with later; right now, he had an armful of woman he was coming to like an awful lot, and that was the more important thing.

When she came down the stairs the next morning with Meredith, Janine didn’t seem anywhere near as embarrassed as she had the morning before. In fact, she seemed remarkably relaxed. “I take it you had a good night,” Kellye remarked.

“V-very good,” Janine smiled.

“Very good indeed,” Meredith grinned. “I take it the two of you don’t have anything to complain about either.”

“Nothing I can think of, other than the fact that the night was too short.”

“S-same here,” Janine laughed. “We did g-get some s-sleep, though.”

There was little more said on that subject, since there wasn’t anything more that required it; the smiles and relaxed atmosphere all around were all that was needed.

Kellye soon had breakfast on the table. There wasn’t much talk, and most of that was about how well things had gone the night before. Brett said he was very pleased with the extra emphasis Meredith had put on the differences between the two interpretations of the play, and all agreed they’d come off well.

After breakfast they gathered in the living room again, as they had done the morning before, with Kellye and Brett in the lawn chairs and Meredith and Janine cuddling on the couch. “Last night,” Brett said, “Marty was talking about the tail end of the season, and I agree, we don’t have it pinned down as well as I would like. Though we haven’t practiced it, I think we’re still good to go with The Man With The Plastic Sandwich, but the rest of the season is open to question. The more I think about it, the less I like Fair Exchange. Last night you heard Marty suggest that we see if Janine has anything else that’s as good as Chocolate, Roses and Sex. I think he had a good idea, but they can’t be solo character plays. We’ve done that once this season, and I think that’s enough. Janine, you know what you’ve written better than any of us. Any ideas?”

“No,” she replied, again comfortable under Meredith’s arm. “Most of what I’ve w-written have been s-short plays, long one-acts at the m-most.”

“No good two or three-act plays, right?”

She nodded, a little sadly. “I never f-figured I’d ever even g-get one of them produced.”

“So you never tried to write a longer one, huh?” Meredith asked.

Again, Janine just shook her head silently.

“We could do two or three,” Kellye suggested.

“Well, maybe,” Brett replied. “We’d have to think about it real hard, though. But it’s just shooting in the dark at this point, since I don’t know anything that you’ve written. Is there any way to get to look at some of what you think are your better ones?”

“I have th-them all on my c-computer in the c-car,” she replied, then smiled. “Everything happened so quickly after I g-got here I never took m-my l-luggage out.”

“Meredith, you sure work quick,” Brett grinned. “Why don’t you go get her car, get her stuff upstairs, and give me a copy of those plays on my thumb drive?”

“You can spread her stuff out in my room upstairs if you don’t have space in yours,” Kellye offered.

“You won’t need your room?” Meredith asked.

“Not as long as she’s here.” Kellye grinned. “And probably not after that, except to store my clothes and stuff. There’s not enough extra space in Brett’s room.”

“Wow, that happened quick, too,” Meredith said with a huge smile. “Good for you. The both of you.”

Within fifteen or twenty minutes Brett was skimming through the collection of Janine’s plays, while Kellye was doing the same thing on her tablet. There were a lot of plays, and he was quite impressed with some of them. There was too much to read through halfway seriously in the time remaining before he had to get ready for the Sunday matinee, but he made a good start at it, going on until Kellye called them for a quick lunch of leftover tuna salad.

Brett didn’t want to quit reading Janine’s plays, but the audience called; they had to get over to the theater. Then, as he watched Meredith do the sharp version of Chocolate, he kept thinking about Janine’s work.

The plays were short, almost all of them. There were usually only two characters, sometimes three; and almost all of them were about interesting or challenging situations and character development. There was an idea flickering around in his mind, but it wouldn’t quite come together for him.

The plays came off in good order; attendance was down from the very good crowd of the night before, but not very much, and from what he could tell the wine sales had again been good. It was along in the evening by the time they made it back to the house. Both Meredith and Janine went upstairs to take a nap, and from what Brett could tell, they actually did so, rather than some of the other things that might have happened in bed. While they slept, Brett continued reading the plays; the idea was still kicking around in his mind, whatever it was.

However, as he lay in bed with Kellye that evening, bits of the idea started to take shape; they were not exactly all the way formed yet. His subconscious worked on it overnight, and by morning it made a lot of sense.

After breakfast the four of them gathered in the living room, much as they had the last couple of mornings. “I’ve been reading and thinking about Janine’s little plays,” he said. “Some of them are quite good. What caught my eye is that a number of them are little vignettes, just short plays that tell there’s a lot of story beyond them, but that the play is something of the crux of the matter.”

“W-well, yes,” Janine agreed. “That was w-hat I was t-trying to do.”

“And you did it very well,” he smiled. “Kellye, did you get the same feeling?”

“Oh, yes. Some of them are powerful little packages of dynamite.”

“My feeling exactly. However, I can’t see trying to do them all in the context of short plays, and that was what was hanging me up. But then it hit me: why not do them all in the context of one play?”

“All right, you’ve lost me,” Meredith said.

“Hang with me,” Brett said. “I don’t have this all the way thought out for myself, either. Look, Janine, you’ve got several plays in there, maybe three or four, I don’t remember, that are set around two people meeting at a coffee shop, right? There are others that have people meeting on street corners like we did in Sunrise. One is two people in an elevator, right?

“Yes,” she replied. “It’s a g-good context for a short p-play.”

“OK, here’s my idea,” he said, several other minor pieces of it falling into place all at once. “Let’s imagine a back table at a coffee shop. One couple comes in and has a fight or something. They drink their coffee and leave. Another couple comes in and sits down at the same table and talk about the date they had the previous night. They finish their coffee and leave. A third couple comes in and talks about the one person’s kid who is in trouble, and so on. You recognize the plays I’m talking about, right?”

“Yes,” she replied, starting to see his idea. “The t-table stays the s-same.”

“Right,” he grinned. “Stuff like that goes on over tables in coffee shops all the time, but the people at the table don’t have any effect on the next group that sits there.”

“I like it,” she said brightly, without stuttering. “It could be done.”

“Sure could,” he grinned. “And I don’t think it would take much rewriting. Now, that’s the core of my idea, but let’s see if we can flesh out some of the details.”

“You really need to do it in at least two acts,” Kellye pointed out. “I mean, the play could be done without it, but we need the intermission for the dinner.”

“So big deal. Make the second act the next day, the day after the one in the first act,” Brett said. “It would take a little more work, but you could have at least a couple of the vignettes link from the first act to the second. Like I mentioned the couple talking about their date of the night before – put that in the second act, and have them making the date in the first one. I seem to recall a play like that, anyway.”

“There is,” Janine nodded. “You m-might not have r-read it.”

“I wouldn’t know; I read a lot but I think I didn’t get to everything. But you see what I’m getting at, right? Not all the vignettes have to link up, but a couple of them should.”

“That could take a pretty big cast,” Meredith pointed out. “It would all be small roles, though, and some of them could probably be doubled.”

“True, but I’ll tell you one of the things that concerns me about this summer, especially if we drop Fair Exchange, and that’s that we’re under-utilizing our pickup cast. Something like this would give everyone a short stint at a lead role.”

“Hmmmm,” Meredith said. “Now there’s an idea. But it strikes me that it could be awkward getting from one vignette to the next.”

“Could be,” Brett replied thoughtfully. “But maybe it wouldn’t be too bad. Janine, you’d have to write in a few short bridge sections, something like one person says, ‘Hey, I’ve got to catch a bus,’ and the other saying they’ll see them later. They get up and leave, then the next people come in. One of them says something like, ‘Boy, was that bus driver surly. I certainly hope our waitress is more pleasant to us.’ And so on.”

“I could do that.” Janine replied confidently.

“You know what you need to make those bridge sections work better?” Kellye said. “You need a barista. I mean, a gal who buses the table and so forth. Then the next couple comes in, she comes over and gets their order, then a minute or two later brings their coffee without saying much. She’d be the only person who spans all the vignettes.”

“I like that,” Janine smiled, considering the possibilities.

“I do, too,” Brett agreed. “The barista doesn’t have any substantive lines, other than ‘May I take your order?’ and that sort of thing, but she would provide a unity.”

“Dibs on the barista,” Meredith laughed. “I could have some fun with that.”

“Meredith, I sometimes wonder about you.”

“No, seriously,” she replied. “The barista is about halfway to being a mime. You’re right, she doesn’t have any substantive lines. But consider this. She’s wearing a cute little uniform, maybe with a real short skirt or something. She doesn’t like the uniform but has to wear it since she needs the job.”

“You mean sort of like a girl working at Hooters?”

“Exactly,” she grinned. “And then, let’s suppose she has to wear real, real high heels on the job. She hates that too, they make her feet hurt. She’s not real confidant wearing them, she wobbles a bit. If I could do it right, there could be several really good laughs just from her actions and her expressions.”

Janine broke out in laughter. It was easy to see that she could visualize the scene. “That’s good,” she finally managed. “I can make it all work.”

“Good antics would add some interest and punctuation to the bridge sections,” Brett smiled. “I don’t think we’ve exhausted all the possibilities, either, but I think we’ve given Janine enough to get a good start.”

“It’s n-not going to be hard,” Janine smiled. “I c-can get started on it w-while you r-rehearse.”

“Why don’t you kick out a rough cut as soon as you can,” Brett told her. “I’m not quite ready to give up on Fair Exchange just yet, but if you can come up with a reasonable script quickly, I’ll do it. And maybe we can pull some of the gang together late this week and give it a quick read-through before we have to make up our minds. I’d like to do it before you head back.”

“I c-can’t wait to g-get started,” she smiled. “God, am I ever lucky I d-decided to c-come out here.”

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