A Beautiful Thing

4. A Cute Bug-Puppet Production

It was a Thursday in mid-January when Nick finally called the group together in a rehearsal space off of Chicago's main strip after a hard day of work, breaking in the puppets which had arrived earlier in the week.

"Okay everybody," he said, as the group began to gather around. "You've all put in a lot of hard work today and I'm very proud of all of you for being so accommodating with our newest props. I think we're all going to benefit from a couple of days off so we're going to take tomorrow off like we planned and get back to work on Monday."

A flurry of cheers ran through the small group of actors as Nick continued. "On the call list for Monday, I have Denise, Joey, Dylan, and Meredith. We're gonna run 'The Way I Do' again. Lauren and Joe Walker, I also need both of you here 'cause I wanna run some of the solo bits from 'Get Back Up' as well. Tuesday through end-of-week is full-cast because we're going to do the final group number, then go back and run through Act 1 a couple times with the puppets. We'll also finally have Pincer ready by the middle of next week so we can actually have claws to play with rather than imaginary ones. Thanks once more for a great week and I hope you all enjoy your long weekend. I'll send out an email but again," he said, looking down at his call-list "that's Denise, Joey, Dylan, Meredith, Joe Walker and Lauren who are on deck on Monday."

With the cast splitting off that day, some of the actors, including Joey, Meredith, Brian, Walker, and Lauren had decided that they would make the most of their extended weekend. The small group had decided to accompany Joey with what he had been doing since the start of rehearsal and take the bus from Chicago to Ann Arbor to pay a visit to their old alma mater. For Joey, it would be an ordinary 5-hour bus ride but for many of his castmates, it would be the first time they'd be back to the city in over a year and everybody was itching to see the campus again.

Early the next morning, all except Joey stood bleary-eyed on the Chicago bus station platform as their bus pulled up. As Joey was no stranger to this journey, having done it countless times before, he had no shortage of energy and boarded the bus before his fellow actors. He picked out an ideal seat further back in the bus but not all the way, placing his bag in the overhead area and taking the window seat. He watched as Brian and Meredith took a pair of seats together three rows ahead of him and Joe Walker took a seat in the row just behind them on the opposite side of the aisle. Strangely, Lauren was nowhere to be seen. Her absence was short-lived, however, because Joey caught something in his periphery and looked over to see her, standing in the aisle, staring at him.

"Oh, hi!" Joey said, slightly startled.

"Hi," she replied softly, still standing. "Is it ok if I sit here?" she asked, gesturing to the vacant seat next to him.

"Of course!" Joey exclaimed, resettling in his chair. "Go right ahead!"

"Thanks," she replied, exhaustion evident in her voice.

"Not used to this kind of early morning wake-up call, are you?" He asked, grinning.

"I'm not a morning person," she grumbled, raking a hand through her messy natural hair which hadn't behaved all morning.

"Yeah, took me a couple weeks to get used to this schedule but once out on the road, I usually just sleep through to Ann Arbor. Should be getting there at around 11 AM," he said reassuringly while checking his watch.

Lauren nodded, rubbing sleep from her eyes. "Sounds like a plan to me," she muttered under her breath.

Soon, the driver came through the bus to collect everyone's tickets and before long, they were pulling out of the station. Soon, they pulled onto the interstate and from there, it was a straight shot to the city.