"For the Benefit"
Chapter 1
by TehFuzzyPenguin
Disclaimer: I don't pretend to own any part of HSM
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According to everything psychological, biological, and literary, people change as they grow up. They mature, they get more levelheaded, they learn sympathy, or maybe the other way around. But they do change. In her own opinion, Kelsi had changed, at the very least.
Not that she could list any way she had now, with one Sharpay Evans leaning against the frame of her apartment door. She looked at the clock on the wall above the kitchen counter. "It's eleven," she blurted out.
Sharpay squinted at Kelsi, her eyes searching every corner of the smaller woman's face. "Huh. You don't look like you're 65," she said.
"I mean," Kelsi amended. "That I didn't expect you. Not at eleven at night."
Sharpay inspected her nails in the light from the hallway. "There's nothing to do in your city that doesn't involve some form of alcohol, and I can't get drunk tonight. And did you know? They frame the programs of all the shows they've ever performed in that nice theater of yours." It was her version of an explanation as to how she knew where Kelsi lived.
Kelsi gave up and accepted her karma. This was probably for throwing the Frisbee at Bryan's head last month. She stepped aside and let Sharpay in. "Coffee?" she offered.
"You have any tea?"
"Green?"
"Something decaffeinated."
"Apple?"
Sharpay clapped her hands. "Bless you," she gushed. Kelsi sighed and turned to walk the several feet to the kitchen. Sharpay followed confidently, pausing to look in the refrigerator and check the cabinets under the stove. "Who cooks?" she asked, as Kelsi reached in a cupboard for teabags.
"Hmm?"
Sharpay pulled her head from the cabinet. "There are raw vegetables and organic eggs in your fridge. You have ten different kinds of frying pans and an omelet maker. You can't cook. Who does?"
"Those are pots," Kelsi said. "And, my husband."
"Your—" Sharpay paused mid-sentence to gauge the possibility of that statement. Kelsi, too disconcerted to bother reveling in Sharpay's shock, simply reviewed her words and found nothing wrong with them.
Someone coughed, and Sharpay resigned herself to the fact that Kelsi Nielsen had gotten married. Bryan shuffled out of the bedroom. He blinked in the light, and Sharpay caught Kelsi's eye, pointing to her own ring finger. Kelsi shrugged, and wiggled the fingers on her left hand surreptitiously.
"Um," Bryan articulated. He turned to Kelsi. "Is Sharpay Evans standing in my kitchen?" Sharpay began moving around, running her fingers over the countertop and looking at the coffeemaker with detached interest.
"Actually, she's opening the microwave." Sharpay slammed it shut. "She has a compulsion to open everything."
"Oh. Do you know her?"
Sharpay cut in, "We went to school together."
"Oh." Bryan licked his lips. "Um. Kels, if you could give me a few minutes, I don't think I can fully comprehend: Sharpay Evans is standing in my kitchen at night, and you know her."
Kelsi sighed. "Yes."
Bryan turned around and began walking back to their room. "I will worship her tomorrow, I promise. Love you."
"Love you—too," Kelsi called out. Sharpay raised an eyebrow, and Kelsi felt like she was in high school, silly and incompetent under Sharpay's gaze. She found a kettle and started boiling water. Finding something to say, Kelsi retorted, a minute too late, "Chad?"
"I fall in love with people." Sharpay shrugged and moved on to another subject. "Oh, you have to have heard. I'm doing a gay pride benefit thing tomorrow. A couple people who've been in Wind Chill Factor are getting together. Current cast, original cast, girls singing love songs to each other, guys making out on stage. It's all very gay and Broadway."
"In Seattle?" Kelsi asked, not wanting to pursue their earlier topic, either.
"Gay people are supposed to be happy. This city is not happy. I come to make it happy. I, with my Tony, and five others, two of who are practically adolescents." Despite herself, Kelsi giggled.
"Whom."
Sharpay looked at her. "Whom cares?"
Kelsi said, "I thought you friend Michelle got a Tony. Wasn't she in it with you?"
"Not for her role. Mine's for Naomi," said Sharpay, and pulled out a chair from Kelsi's table. "Anyway. I saw your name on one of the programs. And I thought I'd look you up." Kelsi experienced the wave of confusion that had taken over Bryan moments earlier.
"So you're—here."
"Very astute of you. I'm here." Sharpay threw back her head and laughed. "God, it's been a while," she said, when she straightened up. "You're married."
"So are you."
"Mm. But I don't know your deliciously disheveled husband." Sharpay leaned forward, and even though Kelsi had settled against the sink, she felt the urge to back away.
Kelsi said, "Bryan. He—he's just tired. He's..." She looked down shyly. "He's star struck."
"So were you," Sharpay stated. The kettle whistled, and Kelsi hurried to turn off the stove. Opening the cupboards, she retrieved two teacups, all the time aware of Sharpay's eyes on her every movement, memorizing the location of everything in her apartment. It had been a compulsion, and it comforted Kelsi that Sharpay, at least, hadn't fixed that.
She plunked a tea bag in each cup and set one in front of Sharpay, taking the other to her own side of the table. Sharpay looked at her cup and frowned amusedly. "Teacups, Nielsen?" Kelsi decided not to correct her about her last name.
"Yeah," she said nervously. "Is there something wrong?"
"Nothing." Sharpay rotated the cup by pushing on the handle with one finger. "I just didn't expect you to have cups made for the specific purpose of drinking tea, that's all."
"They're just like coffee cups."
"Yes. Except coffee cups can also be called mugs and used for milk, water, tea, and ill-advised paperweights." Sharpay gave hers one last jab, the murky water lapping dangerously close to the edge. "What can you do with a teacup besides put tea in it?"
Kelsi ventured, "Teach children a song?"
Sharpay snorted. "Clever."
Kelsi wondered why Sharpay did this. A very long time had passed since they'd last met, and she had moved here specifically to get away from Sharpay. Something like closure had happened. And now, now Sharpay Evans, as always, ruined all her plans, and acted like none of that mattered. Because she had a survival instinct, Kelsi didn't try to defend her need to stay away from the intoxicating actress. She just asked, "How's Chad?"
"Chad is...good. He's—well, his team whatever isn't doing that great, but he's having fun. We only see each other about...eight months out of the year. So, only when we're happy. It's a very nice way to live." Kelsi recognized her offhand tone of voice and suddenly realized that Sharpay still exuded that smell, that familiar Chanel No. 5 perfume.
"So how did you—I mean, I know in high school—"
"He was in Boston for a game." Sharpay closed her eyes. "We went to a party," she said. Her lips curled absentmindedly into a half-smile.
"How romantic," Kelsi said, sipping at her tea.
"It's not," Sharpay snapped. Her eyelids slid up a few millimeters, and she watched Kelsi for a few seconds until the smaller woman pursed her lips in a line of silence. "It's not," Sharpay said again, her voice sliding down into gentler tones. She closed her eyes again. "We went to a party, and it got late, and we had no place to go because I'm not about to ask my roommate to let me in at one in the morning, and he was going to stay with me." Her fingers slid around the edge of Kelsi's chipped teacup, dipping in occasionally. Kelsi wondered if the scalding heat hurt Sharpay, but not really.
"So?" Kelsi asked, when it was evident that Sharpay needed prompting.
Sharpay opened her eyes. "We slept in his car." Kelsi laughed, and after a moment, Sharpay joined in. "God," she screeched, "is that not the sketchiest thing you've ever heard?" As soon as the laugh appeared, it left.
Kelsi, unused to manipulating her reactions like Sharpay, shivered a bit with giggles. "So you decided to get married?"
"No." Sharpay pulled a face. "God, no. Marriage is—was always a weird idea. The whole...fidelity thing. As though—as though you could possibly only love one person. Like a promise. And I don't make promises." For an instant, they were friends, catching up after years and years and wondering how they had survived without each other. Sharpay could pretend that, and anything Sharpay had ever believed, Kelsi had believed as well. Kelsi thought about those long, long years in between.
"You got married," Kelsi pointed out, because she'd finally learned that hypocrisy wasn't a virtue.
"Turns out you file your taxes differently. And you get to visit each other in hospitals." Sharpay finally lifted the cup to her lips and drank. And once again, she'd asserted her position over Kelsi, and Kelsi felt diminished and small and stupid for actually having teacups, made specifically for drinking tea. "Besides," she said, when she'd swallowed, "so did you."
It wasn't a good point, but Kelsi followed it anyway. "Bryan's—Bryan." She'd never been very poetic.
"Just like I'm Sharpay," Sharpay said, and Kelsi understood her meaning but didn't reply to it. "I like Bryan," she said.
"He loves you," Kelsi said. "Well. Not you you. Not to say that you as a person are unlovable. But I mean, if we ever wanted to do Broadway, he'd want you first. He loves—"
"He loves me," Sharpay said. Her eyes closed for an instant, and then she opened them. Kelsi was surprised at the change; suddenly, Sharpay seemed several hours more tired.
"Do you need to stay here?" she asked, somewhat concerned.
"No." Sharpay sighed. "No, I have a hotel room. I just—I just get tired sometimes."
"You should sleep," Kelsi advised. "You have a show tomorrow."
"I have a show tomorrow night," Sharpay corrected. "I saw your name. I missed you. I had rehearsal all day. I am tired and I'm sitting in your kitchen, drinking not-too-bad tea. It's worth a late morning." She rubbed her eyes, smearing eyeliner on her fingers. "Damn. Anyway. Here I am. Aren't you happy?"
Kelsi paused. No, she thought, she wasn't. She wasn't mad, or sad, or anything. "I—" It was obvious that Sharpay didn't care about the true answer to her question, so Kelsi said, "You should stay. Bryan would love to meet you."
"Yes. Bryan." Sharpay smiled. Draining the tea from her cup, she stood and said, "I need to get back to my hotel and the mint on my pillow. Thanks for the tea."
Kelsi stood with her because good manners manipulated her muscles more than force of will. "It was nice seeing you," she managed.
"Oh, something about her," Sharpay said. Stopping at the door, she turned, leaned on the doorjamb like she had so many times before. "I'd like it if you came to the show tomorrow. We could—well, Bryan can come to dinner with us." She flipped her hair and Kelsi's fingers twitched in a long-dormant reflex. "Actually," Sharpay said in an off-hand, totally planned way, "Call me. In the afternoon. And we can...relax before the show."
"Relax?"
Sharpay laughed and mouthed, "Relax."
Kelsi laughed along weakly, and Sharpay showed herself out without any hint of the awkwardness that usually came when people showed themselves out. Figures.
It suddenly occurred to her that she didn't have, and had never had, Sharpay's number.
----
The phone rang at three in the afternoon. Kelsi removed her earbuds when Bryan burst into their office, his eyes wide. "What?" she asked.
"Sharpay Evans is on my phone." Kelsi jumped, but not for the same reason that Bryan was so excited. "Sharpay Evans is on my phone and she is inviting us to dinner after her benefit thing."
"Oh," Kelsi breathed. "Oh, Bryan, that's great!"
"Sharpay Evans is on my phone!" Bryan said one last time, and handed the phone to Kelsi. "It's actually for you," he explained, somewhat sheepishly, and Kelsi smiled.
"Go get ready for your dream date," she said. Bryan grinned, and Kelsi thought about the calm, witty man she'd met when she first moved to Seattle, and wondered if he'd come back when Sharpay left.
Bringing the phone to her ear, she heard Sharpay saying, "—look, just use my shower, then, it's not like I'm going to walk in and rape you."
"What?"
"What?"
"Oh. Hello, Kelsi." Sharpay's voice faded as she probably covered the phone and said, "It's the exact same as yours!" Kelsi jumped as Sharpay's voice returned to its normal clarity next to her ear. "Sorry," she said. "Michelle broke her shower."
Something echoed in the background. Kelsi assumed it was Michelle, because then Sharpay yelled, "I'm on the phone!" And then to Kelsi again, "Sorry, sorry. Michelle broke her shower and has to use mine. How are you?"
"You saw me yesterday," Kelsi said dryly.
"Fine, yes," Sharpay waved aside in her voice. "I know I told you to call me, but you don't have my number so I'm inviting you now. Come to the hotel and say hello to many Broadway stars and two teenagers." Someone mumbled something in the background, and Sharpay repeated the mumbling. "And Michelle wants hotdogs. Do they sell hotdogs in your city?"
Kelsi paused. "Um," she said.
"Whatever—Michelle, go take the fucking shower! Whatever. Come over. It'll be a wild party." Sharpay gave the name of her hotel and her room number, and hung up without a goodbye.
Kelsi stared at the phone for a minute before turning off her iPod completely and leaving the office. She looked around for Bryan, and found him once again deliciously disheveled, trying to figure out what to wear.
He looked up from their drawers when she entered the room. "Are we allowed to go to this thing tonight?" he asked nervously.
"Darling," Kelsi said, and frowned at Sharpay's term of endearment. "Bryan," she amended, "we were invited."
"But we're not gay," Bryan pointed out unnecessarily. Kelsi kissed him.
"Yes. But we work with gay people all the time. We're honorary gays." Kelsi frowned at the drawers with Bryan, because neither of them was very good at fashion choices.
"Like Jews?" Bryan asked with a teasing smile.
"Yes," Kelsi said, "Just like those gay, singing, dancing Jews." She pointed to a blue argyle patterned tie, something so atrocious that even she knew it had to go. "Not that. And relax. It's just Sharpay." Bryan snorted, and she realized how pretentious it sounded. "She eats hotdogs." Bryan tried not to smile. "She wants to know if Seattle has hotdog stands."
"Is that why she called?"
"She wants to see me before the show. Um. And maybe we'll go out and get hotdogs." Bryan looked worried. "Me. You don't have to come."
"Good," he said, and went back to contemplating his socks.
Kelsi smiled and watched him for a few more minutes before leaving. On her way to the Alexis hotel, she wondered, for an instant, exactly what she was getting herself into.
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Author's Note:
Thus ends part one of my massive Kelpay fic that was required according to my fanon (in Lines Letters Words Stories Life, they meet again long after the events in Clean Getaway). Just so you know, I'm not making fun of the Jews, I'm making fun of the fact that some people (like me) consider themselves honorary Jews because they participate in many Jewish customs (like Yom Kippur).
review?
