FOLLOW ME - chapter one - chance meeting

        Naomi Dove rolled over and hit the top button on her alarm clock, hoping it wouldn’t put up a fight this morning. When it died down quickly she sighed and thought to herself ‘this is ganna be a good day.’ she jumped up out of bed and made her way out into the hall where she tripped over the dog. She fell to the floor but caught herself with her hands and lifted herself back up to her feet. She looked down at the dog and noticed all the little black pieces of foam that surrounded the big dog. Her eyes grew wide as she fought with the dog for the rest of the chewed up object that was tightly gripped in the dog’s mouth. Once she got it from him she realized it was one of her favorite pair of black flip-flops.

“Damn it Cole!” She screamed and lightly kicked the dog. He got up and ran off to her room where he buried himself under the covers. Naomi sighed and threw the shoe down and walked on to the bathroom where she did her daily routine of taking a shower, then going to fix her a cup of coffee before fixing her hair and make-up.

She padded into the kitchen with her robe tied tightly around her as she towel-dried her hair. She turned the coffee pot on and let it begin it’s filtering. She looked over at the toaster and thought toast would be good that morning so she got out the last two slices of bread and popped them into the toaster, she pushed the little lever down at the side and walked out of the room, back to the bathroom to gel and mouse her hair, deciding to scrunch it that morning.

She hummed to herself as she scrunched her hair up with her fingers; she noticed a smoke smell that seemed to be coming from the front room of her tiny apartment. She stopped humming and started to walk into the living room. She saw the fire and ran the rest of the way to the flaming toaster. She quickly unplugged it and filled a cup with water to put out the small fire. She coughed as she fanned away the smoke and looked up at the smoke detector on the wall that hadn’t made a sound the entire time.

“Well that’s one hell of a good smoke detector.” She mumbled and blew away a stray piece of her long, curly, dark blond hair; Naomi made her way back to the bathroom where she finished her make-up and got dressed to get ready to go to the set.

                                                                        ***

Brian rolled over and put his arm around his wife, sleeping peacefully next to him. He opened his eyes and looked over at her as she slept and smiled to himself thinking of just how lucky he really was. Leighanne’s eyes fluttered open and she turned her head to look over at Brian. She smiled and kissed him quickly before jumping up and starting to get ready for the day’s work.

“Hey Bri, you ganna come with me to the set today?” Leighanne spoke from the bathroom as she brushed her teeth at the sink.

“I don’t know… Should I?” He asked from his spot on the king size bed, his hands tucked under his head as he started up at the ceiling.

“Yes you should…I’m makin’ a lot of friends out there, they’re hilarious; you need to meet ‘em.”

“Are any of ‘em obsessed teeny boppers that’ are ganna jump me as soon I step out of the car?” He asked, laughing to himself.

“No…most of them are all old women, but there is a few young ones. Tiffany, she’s real funny-and Naomi, those two are like dumb and dumber when they’re together!” She laughed. Brian could hear the water running in the sink, and

 Leighanne appeared at the door brushing out her long blonde hair. Her blue eyes sparkled as she smiled at him. “Please come with me.” She pouted out her bottom lip and gave him the ‘puppy eyes’.

He could hardly say no to that face, he gave in and sighed heavily. “Yeah, I’ll go.” He said as he shook his head up and down slightly.

“Thank you!” She squealed like a little child as she ran and jumped on the bed, making the water in it bounce with her.

                                                                        ***

“Taxi!” Naomi yelled at the crowded streets, she had had a terrible time getting a cab, and if that wasn’t bad enough, it was a hot and muggy day in Jupiter, Florida, the kind of day Naomi just hated. She sighed with relief as a cab pulled up to the curb and she hopped in the backseat telling the driver where she needed to go.

                                                                        ***

Naomi walked up to a table surrounded by food, and some of her friends that were working on the movie with her. She grabbed a donut and a chair and made herself comfy as she listened in on how hectic her friend’s day had already been.

“You think that’s bad, my toaster caught on fire this morning.” She cut in; a bad habit she had had since her high school days.

“Your toaster actually caught on fire?” one of the girls asked in disbelief. Naomi shook her head as to say –oh-yes-that-really-happened- before she turned her head to look around the room. Out of the corner of her eye Nay saw someone walking towards her, pulling someone with him or her. Once they got a little closer She realized it was Leighanne, one of the stars in the film, and she smiled to her as Leigh waved.

“Nay, Aggie, Tilly, Bobby, I want you to meet my husband, Brian.” Leighanne introduced as she held onto Brian’s hand, there was a round of hellos heard from everyone seated around them and then the constant chatter returned.

“So you’re the one I’ve been hearing about non-stop, huh?” Naomi said to Brian as she stood up and shook his hand. He smiled gently at her and shrugged his shoulders. “Well, as you already know, I’m Naomi, I play Leighanne’s younger sister.” She informed as they both tried to think of something to say, by this time Leighanne had already ran to get her costume ready for filming, she had the first shot of the day and it was just her in the shot so nobody else really even needed to be there yet, but they all were anyway.

The film, was an independent film called ‘Rushing Time’, it’s a film about a classic family having problems with a death of a certain relative, there’s some arguing over a will and it tried to break the family apart, but in the middle of the commotion is three sisters that haven’t seen each other in over six years and some family they never got along with. In the film Leighanne plays the eldest sister, being 32. Aggie, another actress, plays the middle child that always gets ignored, like usual, she’s 24, and the youngest, at 20 is Naomi who really plays an 18 year old, fresh out of high school.

Brian and Naomi sat down and watched the people shuffle around them, people that were running late, or were just in to much of a hurry, which Nay thought was odd because the film was called Rushing Time, about people who are always too busy to just stop for one minute and look at the things around them, and that’s exactly what these people were doing: rushing time.

“Leighanne Littrell, on the set please, Leighanne Littrell on the set please.” A man said over the intercom, Leighanne went rushing to the set of a hospital room. And all went quiet, most going elsewhere to continue their chatter; which is what Naomi and Brian did, they went to Leigh’s dressing room to wait on her.