Curtain Call
Disclaimer: I don't own.
Changes: Jesse went to NYU and not UCLA (even though it is in Los Angeles) because it makes more sense to me that he wants to be on Broadway and not in Hollywood. Let's forget about Shelby for a moment.
Summary: Rachel reflects as the curtain closes on the opening night of her second Broadway show.
Spring 2020
Rachel grasped the hands of her co-stars as she took her last bow for the night. The audience was on its feet clapping and cheering and Rachel was reminded again that no matter how many times you rehearsed the performance, even with people watching, nothing, nothing compared to opening night.
Tears were streaming down her face as she compared her feelings tonight with the feelings she had had on Opening Night #1, the opening night of her first Broadway show. That night, she had grasped Jesse St. James' hand in disbelief. Her tears then were because they had finally made it. On Broadway. Together. That night, she had sworn she had it all. Life couldn't get any better.
And that feeling was how she had found herself back in Lima, Ohio almost two years after that first opening night. She had shown up unannounced on her dads' porch late one Sunday night with a New York pizza in her arms yelling surprise. Her dads loved this particular pizza place that was around the corner from her old dorm at NYU and the entire family, after multiple visits and leftovers for breakfast, swore that the pizza was much better cold. Rachel had driven the 6 hours from New York to Lima with the pizza in the front seat of Jesse's SUV, which he paid an astronomical amount every month to park in the city, with the radio on full blast.
She had explained her arrival to her dads as a surprise for Leroy's 55th birthday the next day. As they got older her dads' birthdays were less celebrated, she complained, and she was going to change that. Earlier that week, back in New York, she had sold Jesse the same story and she had let her understudy take her place for Tuesday and Wednesday's shows. She had turned Jesse down when he offered to come with her, claiming that, like old times, she would belong to her dads and only them for those three days.
Except for the business that she had to take care of on Tuesday.
She had called her old gynecologist back in Lima after agonizing for hours. Rachel had always trusted Dr. Morgan with those kinds of secrets, even though she was Hiram's colleague at the hospital. Why should this particular secret be any different?
Never mind that this was the first time she was keeping the content of one of these visits secret from Jesse, too. She had never really kept anything from him before, she realized. He could always read her like an open book.
Ever since she had started having sex, Rachel had retained the knowledge that her gynecologist also performed those procedures. Not that she ever really intended to make use of one, but information couldn't hurt. A girl had to be prepared.
When she had finally made her decision, she had called while Jesse was in the shower, shouting his name twice from the other side of their apartment before dialing, to make sure that he couldn't hear her. Voice trembling, she had asked for the procedure and the receptionist had used a different term than she had used, something sounding like D & C. Later, Rachel had looked up the term on the internet and figured out that it was the short form of a French term, two verbs that meant 'collecting' and 'scraping.' She had cleared the history on her laptop and tried in vain to clear from her mind the images the terms provoked, but they would haunt her for the rest of her life.
Summer 2011
She and Jesse had gotten back together the summer after her junior year at McKinley.
New Directions had won Regionals that year, but failed to even place at Nationals. Vowing again that next year was their year, they had adopted the same strategy as the previous summer. Mr. Schuester had told them to take the summer off and that they would start fresh in the Fall.
Rachel had actually taken his advice. She took the summer off from New Directions to focus more on herself and her own dreams. Her aunt who lived in New York had sent her the application package to a 6-week program in Chicago put on by a famous Broadway director looking for new talent. She recognized the name immediately as one of Jesse's idols, someone she hadn't heard of before their relationship. She always knew the songs of her favorite Broadway musicals and her favorite performers, but directors, producers and the like never seemed important to her. They were to him.
She knew immediately that he would be there. (She conveniently left this out later when she was explaining to Finn on the phone her annoyance at seeing him there her first day, and then later at playing his love interest.)
Even with Nationals looming, she had practiced her heart out for this program and fine-tuned her audition tape in every spare moment. She had worked her ass off to get there… to have the chance to get back at him (or maybe back to him).
Convincing her dads to allow her to go had not been easy. Chicago was 5 hours away at least and she would be staying there, in a dorm, mostly unsupervised. The fact that she was on the younger side for the program, meant for aspiring performers aged 16-21, didn't exactly work in her favor. But she had convinced them that it was good practice for college, it was only 6 weeks, and it was an amazing opportunity to get a head start on her Broadway dreams.
Rachel's initial fear of the program, of finally having to show her chops among equals, went unfounded. Even at just 16 she had landed the lead female role. All of the program participants lived in their own small studio-like apartments on the same floor in a college dorm. She had never had this much independence before and she had never realized how much she craved it. Despite the age difference, all 18 of participants got extremely close in those 6 weeks. They spent all their time in the theatre together rehearsing and performing, and all of their time outside of it drinking, singing, dancing, and hooking up. For the first time, Rachel really felt like she had made true friends. She would meet many of them again on Broadway after years of internet and Facebook friendships.
Jesse had apologized almost immediately, effectively silencing her half-hearted plans for revenge. He invited her for coffee the minute he saw her so that she could hear him out. He had said that he had egged her because he knew she was strong enough to take it and then get over it, whereas he was too weak to stand up to the rest of Vocal Adrenaline.
"You obviously proved me right," he said with a smile.
One year at NYU, where no one had ever heard of Vocal Adrenaline really, had taught him how fleeting some things are. Something that seemed like such a big deal last year hardly mattered anymore, he explained.
Though she didn't tell him just then, she understood him 100%. They agreed, for the sake of working together for those six weeks, to be friends.
She had forgotten how great it was to have someone around that understood her; someone around whom she didn't have to evaluate her thoughts before she said them out loud; someone who challenged her both personally and professionally.
Before being with Jesse, Rachel had convinced herself that all the clichés from romance novels were made up to sell young girls on the idea of true love. But she was again reminded that they were indeed real when her heart stopped, her legs shook, her cheeks blushed and she couldn't look him completely in the eye when he was around. He was the first thought that crossed her mind in the morning and the last thing she thought of before she went to bed at night. Since she already spent most of her day with him, she thought this was quite impressive.
Technically, she is with Finn. They have been together since the beginning of summer of the previous year. In just over a year, Finn and Rachel had gone on cute dates, chosen their song, (I Honestly Love You by Olivia Newton-John), talked about what would happen when they left for college, and Finn has gotten as far as taking Rachel's shirt off during their (always) short make out sessions.
Maybe its just the atmosphere, she really does feel like an adult here in Chicago, but neither she or Jesse can help themselves. It starts innocently enough, but they reach third base in three weeks. At the beginning of the fourth week, when she is lying naked in his arms after dragging him back to her room after a late rehearsal, she swears she is home.
Finn brings her flowers when he comes for the program's opening (and closing) night along with most of New Directions. Mr. Schu drove the new school van from Lima to Chicago early in the morning. Her dads took them all out for Chinese after the show to celebrate Rachel's obvious success. Mr. Schu drives back to Lima that same night. Rachel spends one last night in her studio, wrapped in Jesse's arms as they figure out how to maintain their long distance relationship.
She breaks up with Finn a week later, back in Lima. She thought that the way that she and Jesse acted on stage, during curtain call, and during the awards ceremony afterwards (after they managed to snatch a couple of moments for a very private celebratory session in Jesse's dressing room) would have been a dead give away, but Finn trusts her and never suspects that her relationship with Jesse was anything but professional the whole time.
But everyone else does. Finn finds out about her relationship with Jesse (that summer and since then) in a game of Truth or Dare a couple of weeks after they place second at Nationals. Rachel is a little bit drunk and she confesses, swearing that she will get Tina back one day. Rachel knows she should have seen that one coming and that she probably deserves Finn's anger. She can take it – it's only for another couple of weeks. Glee is already over.
Jesse laughs for a good five minutes when she tells him over the phone the next day.
Fall 2018
Her dads both take Monday off and while she is taking them to a nice lunch, the waiter starts singing Happy Birthday to a smiling, clapping one-year-old at the next table and the tears start rolling down her face. She hates herself for ruining this day for her Daddy, so she sucks it up, blames it on the happy occasion, bites her cheek, and let's the tears roll in the dark when they go to see The Way We Were at the dollar theatre.
By the time they make it back home after ice cream, she excuses herself to her room to call her boyfriend. It's Monday, their day off, and she imagines that he is on their couch reading the compendium of Sherlock Holmes stories that she got for him the first Christmas after they started dating (the second time), which he loves and reads over and over. She is usually curled next to him flipping through In Style or Glamour, showing him things that she thought looked good or asking for his opinion on whether a particular model was pretty.
He answers his phone on the first ring. Without even greeting her, he asks how her day was and asks to say Happy Birthday to Leroy. He is met with silence, and then her sobs.
"I need you to come," she chokes out.
"Rachel – are you okay? You're scaring me."
"I can't explain over the phone. Please come." Then she hangs up.
Seven hours later, he is standing on their porch. It's almost 2 am. Her appointment is in 8 hours. She hasn't told her dads that he was coming. They play a family game of Monopoly, the length of the game keeping her mind off the length of Jesse's drive. Her dads go to bed at midnight, celebrating every minute of Leroy's birthday and the fact that their daughter is home with them.
She's up waiting for him, standing by the front door when he pulls into the driveway.
He drove the whole way without stopping once. Seeing the anguish on his face. she realizes that he could have gotten into some horrific accident. He's worried sick, and for the first time, he has no idea what is going on with her.
He also had to borrow their friend John's car because she drove the SUV down here. He was always resourceful.
She opens the door and runs into his arms, her face wet with tears. He hugs her for a minute, before deciding how to approach the situation.
"Rach, what the hell?" is what comes out. Smooth, St. James.
"I…"
"I knew something was up. I know you love your dads, but this whole trip seems a bit convoluted."
He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and asks the question that's been his constant thought for the last seven hours, but if he's honest with himself, it has really been gnawing at the back of his mind for the last week, ever since she came up with this trip.
"Rach, is there someone else?"
"What? No. Jesse, God no. It's only ever been you."
Now he's sort of mad. Then what has brought on these hysterics?
"Then why come back here? Why the tears? What's going on?"
His mind is running rampant with terminal diseases, serious addictions, every plot line from every Lifetime movie she has ever made him watch.
"I'm pregnant."
Okay, so that's very Lifetime. But he would never have associated this kind of reaction from her with this kind of news, though he's never really thought about it before.
"Really?" He's smiling widely, but she's still in tears. He gets that there is more, and his mind returns to terminal diseases and addictions.
"Rach… spell it out for me, baby. This is good news. I'm not sure why this has you bawling."
She looks down at the ground before she answers.
"I'm not keeping it. I have an appointment with Dr. Morgan tomorrow…" She trails off and she doesn't need to finish.
He lets her go. In all these years, they've had fights, arguments, blowups but he has never just walked away. He's never felt the need to… before now.
He knows he had a crappy father but he never thought she would hold that against him. His mom died when he was 4, his dad remarried and forgot about him. His father had met Rachel once, when they ran into him at a jazz concert the summer after he graduated NYU. A couple of months later, he had mailed Jesse some papers that granted him access to a sizeable amount of money his mother had left him on the condition that he graduated college. He had put the money away for a rainy day and hadn't heard from his father since.
His crappy experience had made him want to be a damn good father, eventually. At 18, he had met the woman he wanted to be the mother of his children, even if he hadn't said it to her or himself in so many words. Yet, here she was, seven years later, telling him that she was about to kill his child. He's never met this woman before.
She senses she needs to explain.
"I'm 23 Jesse, and we just made it to Broadway. I can't sing and dance on stage when I'm carrying forty extra pounds in front. And we can't do eight shows a week when we have a baby at home to take care of. Or maybe you can, but I can't. We live in a tiny apartment, we have almost no savings, how are we supposed to be parents? Didn't we say that we wanted to accomplish all of our dreams? How are we supposed to do that with a baby? I didn't achieve my dreams just to throw them all away."
She's ranting, trying to convince herself as much as him.
"It doesn't have to be that way, Rachel." He's still in shock and that's all he can formulate at the moment.
"It's my decision, Jesse. It's my body. I just wanted you to know… and see that this is the best decision for the both of us," she finishes quietly. She meets his eyes and immediately looks away. He's crying too.
"Fine. Good luck with your decision." He emphasizes the word 'your' in a way that she has only heard from him when he auditions for the parts of villains.
Without saying anything else, he moves towards the car, ready to make the drive back to New York.
Somehow, in all of her planning, she never imagined that her decision would cost her him too.
Spring 2020
Back on opening night #2, she bows to her new cast and to the band and heads for her dressing room. She has to get dressed for the party afterwards, to meet and greet the press, her dads, everything that she really doesn't want to do right now.
He's there waiting for her, laying on her futon reading that huge Sherlock Holmes book. The tears are still streaming down her face, and she climbs on top of him, straddling him, seeking comfort.
The tears streaming down her face are not happy like the other two opening nights they met in their dressing rooms afterward. These are tears of shame.
Because she really feels that she doesn't deserve everything she has… because of her lack of faith… in herself, in them. She doesn't deserve him: the boyfriend, now husband, who had quit their show with her to take a job teaching performance classes at NYU and producing a musical on the side – so that someone would be home with their kid when she finally got back on stage to perform eight nights a week.
She definitely does not deserve the 11-month-old little girl who is currently sleeping in her carrier on the dressing table, clutching a blanket. The blanket is blue with gold stars, meant to symbolize midnight. Jesse had given it to her for her 18th birthday. Their daughter loves that blanket, and she spent most of the first winter of her life wrapped in it. Finally, last month, they had cut it into pieces and hemmed them so that she could carry a piece around with her as she was prone to do, and there were several spares for the day one was dirty or missing (usually in Jesse's office at NYU or backstage at the theater).
Her daughter thinks that she hung the moon and her laugh can bring Rachel to tears.
Absolute shame and fear seizes her when she thinks of those 2 days that she spent in Ohio, and what she had planned to do. Logically, she understands why she thought she had to do that but on another level it makes no sense.
There's no contest. She would give up her entire career for her daughter, in a heartbeat. Sometimes she gets home after rehearsals and Jesse has their daughter on their bed, and Rachel wonders how it is possible that her entire world fits into one small room.
She doesn't deserve to have it all.
The day they first met her, which happened to be in a large tub of water on the floor of their new apartment that was paid for partly with Jesse's mom's money, he had asked to name her Bronwyn, after the heroine in a book of Welsh fairytales his mother had read to him when he was little. He had long forgotten the stories themselves, though the book was on his shelf, too painful to read. He had remembered the name of the little girl, who was adventurous, curious, and full of life and love for all things. Later on, to keep his mother's memory alive, he will read the stories to his daughter.
Bronwyn Elizabeth St. James is absolutely perfect.
It had taken her about 30 seconds to run after Jesse that night, begging him not to leave her. Begging him to assure her that they… that she could do this. It was the reason she had called him all along.
After that, they had barely spoken about that night. The next morning, they had pretended that Jesse had driven down to surprise Rachel. Her dads didn't equate anything when they told them 6 weeks later that she was pregnant.
Sometimes she doesn't understand how he has forgiven her for that night. On nights like tonight, the guilt sneaks up and overwhelms her. He understands how she beats herself up and tries to make her forget.
They repeat their opening night tradition, started long ago in Chicago, sneaking into her bathroom so as not to wake their daughter.