Clara leaned her head against the hot window of the Greyhound bus as it rambled down the dusty and dry freeway. She was on her way to Hollywood, hoping to meet with her agent in a hopeful attempt to break into the acting scene. Central California was no place for a girl like her, caught in the dry dusty valley, dreaming of bigger things than land disputes and the endless strikes and labor disputes. Her family, like so many in the middle part of the state, worked as farmers and laborers in the relentless heat of the valley, doing their best to put her through school. As an only child she'd always had a flair for the dramatic and during her senior year, one of her teachers who had family in Los Angeles, had mentioned that she might try to make it to the big city. 

It was more than she ever could have imagined as she stepped off the bus at the station in North Hollywood. After retrieving her luggage from the pile of suitcases she pulled out a crinkled letter from her handbag and squinted at the address scrawled on it. Her teacher's sister and husband had agreed to put Clara up temporarily on the caveat that she would work for them in between searching for a break into the acting business. They owned several small businesses in Hollywood and hoped that the aspiring actress would be able to succeed in her endeavors. 

She spent several months attending classes in the evenings, heading out to casting calls, and working as an errand girl to and from studios. she hadn't been successful yet aside from a couple background opportunities but at least people knew her name and she had managed to save enough to rent a small flat to call her own. Just a few doors down another young hopeful had her own place and together they were often seen bustling about, trying to catch the bus on their way to a casting call, cheering each other up when they didn't get the part.

Tonight was yet another one of those nights and, with a bottle of wine in one hand and a bag full of Italian food in the other, she knocked quietly on the door. 

"Rita, hey! Open up. I know you're in there, don't make me use a hairpin!"

She waited, shifting from one foot to another, nodding as she heard a moan and a shuffle just before the lock clicked and knob turned. 

"Come on, don't be such a sad sack. I brought food and wine, we can talk about it after you eat something you look half starved. Don't tell me you been skipping meals again?"

Rita opened the door to see Clara standing there with this crazy smile on her face, the girl was almost always in a good mood. How and why Rita had the slightest idea but it was one of those things that was kind of contagious. No matter how pissed off or upset she had been that day, if she was around Clara things would kind of just vanish. Doesn't mean she still didn't try to be grumpy, she was quite good at this whole acting thing and whenever she had the chance to get some practice in she took it. 

When Clara asked her about skipping meals again, Rita just snarled at her.

"Blah, how could I eat when I'm not even hungry?"

Rita's stomach growled loud enough for Clara to hear.

"Not hungry? You sure about that?"

Rita glared over at Clara for a minute giving her a dead stare before finally cracking a smile.

"Fine get in here, I will take that bottle of wine so you don't have to carry as much."

She snatched the bottle out of Clara's hands and ushered her inside.

"I see how it is, just save some for me will ya?"

Clara sat down cross legged on a chair and placed the heavy bag full of food on the small coffee table. Without much grace she pulled the pag open, ripping the paper as she reached in to pull out the cardboard containers filled to the brim with pastas and the paper wrapped loaf of crusty bread. Pulling a thick slice from the paper she took a bite of the soft bread as Rita put down a pair of plates on the table and dropped two forks next to those. 

"Dig in while it's still hot, I got it from the little place just down the street, this bread is amazing!"

Clara tried to slow down, enjoying the food rather than eating it as fast as she could, taking smaller bites of her bread. She could tell Rita wasn't feeling so hot but she didn't want to press for information. Or she was a better actress than Clara thought and was just faking it to get free food and wine. She laughed at herself and reached forward for a glass, tipping the bottle towards the side of the glass so it wouldn't splash all over her dress. 

Rita sat back on her couch with her legs tucked underneath her and took a sip of the wine Clara had brought her. It was a red wine, she wasn't completely sure of the makers but it was good. She put the glass up to her nose and inhaled, she could smell a hint of raspberry or at least that is what she thought it was. She took another sip and let out a sigh of relaxations. Glancing over to her left she noticed Clara was digging into the pasta. It wasn't until she actually saw the food when she caught a whiff of it. Perhaps it was the smell of the wine that opened up her nose or maybe it was just the fact that she really was starving. 

Rita gently placed down her glass of wine on the coffee table, picked up the fork and took a small bite. As soon as the bite hit her tongue a sense of euphoria went through her body. She went in for another bite and then another and another before putting her fork down and grabbing a piece of the bread Clara had left for her.

"Wow, you said you got this from that little place just down the street? Never would have figured food this good would come out of a place that looked like... well... my apartment."

Clara was in the process of taking a sip of her wine so all she did was give her a tiny nod. Rita took another sip of her wine, there was a brief moment of silence which was something quite uncommon when they got together. Finally Rita broke the silence.

"Hey can I tell you how discouraging it is to be out here and not really have any work. Yeah I know, I had a couple of those little parts but they don't really count. I miss dancing, that's what I did when I was living in Brooklyn. I was actually thinking about trying to go that route again. What do you think?"

Rita grabbed the bottle of wine and poured herself some more, she also noticed that Clara's glass was almost empty so took it upon herself to fill that up as well.

"Don't I know it. I can't seem to catch a break in this town, land of opportunity my foot!"

Clara said with a nod as she reached for her glass of wine, taking a long sip and setting the glass back down on the table. Maybe it was the wine talking but she felt irritated by their lack of success and was ready to speak her mind.

"I've had to keep up with three jobs just to afford the rent here and the bit work I've gotten isn't anything worth while. How do these gals and guys do it honest? I'm tired of hunting down casting calls, showing off my portfolio, only to be shown up by some busty vapid blonde who smokes and drinks and gads about town. It's downright disrespectful to all the other gals who are doing twice the work but aren't laying about in bed with Clark Gable!"

She gave a huff if disgust, stabbing her fork into a ravioli a bit harder than she meant to. She was glad to see Rita eating, knowing just how both of them barely made enough to make ends meet. Even with her connections to the family, she still had to go out and do work running for them to keep up her protection. It would be a miracle if she ever broke into the spotlight on her own, up there on the silver screen like Jean Harlow or Carol Lombard. At the mention of dancing she looked up at Rita and nodded enthusiastically. 

"Who doesn't love a dancer, look at Ginger and Fred! I think you'd be great at it honey!"

Rita could tell that Clara was starting to get a little bummed about everything, working so hard just to stay poor. It was never a good thing to bust your ass all day, almost everyday just to get no where. It was quite depressing, it brought your moral down and fast. Rita knew if she didn't do something quick thing were about to get depressing.

Plus at this point after having a couple glasses of wine, she was feeling pretty good. She was relaxed and all the days worries were now behind her; she placed down her wine glass and stood up in front of Clara and put her hand out. Clara looked at her all confused not really knowing what was going on. Rita stood there, waiting and waiting for Clara to grab her hand she finally got impatient and reach forward pulling Clara off the couch.

"What are you doing?"

"You said who doesn't love a dancer, figured there's no better time then now to start again."

Clara chuckled a bit as she finally understood what Clara was talking about.

"Wait, you want me to dance with you. Now? Here?"

"Uhm, yeah."

Rita giggled as she went over to her record player, she shuffled through a couple of the records she had before finally pulling out a Bing Crosby record, took it out of it's case and put it on the turn table. She turned on the player and gently put the needle to the record. The music started to emanate through her tiny apartment. Rita push her coffee table and her couch to the farthest wall, making a little bit more room. There still wasn't that much room, but there was just enough to move around a tiny bit. Rita pulled Clara to the middle of the living room, where Rita started dancing. Clara just stood there starring at Rita like she was crazy.

"You are something else."

"Oh come on, join me... I know you want too."

Clara tried to play it off like she wanted no part of it but after watching Rita for a minute realized she indeed had the itch to start dancing. The two danced and danced, song after song. They were laughing in hysterics as they were dancing around the room, it hit a certain point where the downstairs neighbor could be heard hitting his ceiling with a broomstick yelling up to quit all the noise. Rita stomped on the floor a couple times, matching the guys taps on his ceiling. After the last song ended the girls plopped back on the couch, Rita handed Clara her glass of wine and picked up her own glass.

"Cheer, to us."

Rita took a sip of her wine.

"This is some good stuff, we need to get another bottle of this. Oh by the way I didn't tell you and don't judge ok?"

Clara had a look of bewilderment on her face

"Judge you?"

"Yeah, I got to tell you something."

"Uhm... Ok..."

"So today I was out walking through the streets coming back from that audition I was telling you about. Was just minding my own business when I came around a corner and bumped directly into this guy."

Clara looked at Rita

"Oh a guy?"

"No, no it's not like that if that is what you are thinking?"

"Oh...ok, well then continue."

"Ok so we bumped into each other and the duffel bag he was carrying went flying into the air and landed on my lap. Needless to say it was packed with marijuana. Long story short we got to a talking and he wants me to help him off load it could be an easy way to make some quick nice cash. What do you think?"