A/N. (I don't own most of the characters and certain parts of the plot. Courtesy goes to the creative team behind Glee.) My first Glee short fic! Tell me what you think! Your comments/reviews will help me be a better writer. SPECIAL THANKS TO kcollinsp FOR BETA-ING THIS WHOLE THING!
My Fanny Bryce
Part I
"You're already in your Fanny clothes?" Sidney remarked with a look of surprise when he saw Rachel applying makeup in front of her vanity mirror. "The opening is six hours away. Or is Rupert planning on a quick staging with full costume?"
The young actress turned to face him and made a pretty lengthy series of gestures using her hands. He narrowed his eyes at her as he tried to process the code. "Sorry, I, I d-don't understand ASL."
Rachel rolled her eyes and reached down to her purse to get her iPad. The tall, lean man who sported himself in a respectable suit, was making himself comfortable in Rachel's couch when his favorite star flashed her iPad screen to his direction, from which he read, "There will be a quick staging in fifteen minutes but I personally asked Rupert to excuse me because I need to meditate and absorb Fanny Brice into my spirit."
"Oh," was all Sidney could utter, unsure of what else to say.
Rachel cleared the message on the screen and encoded a new one. "I mean no disrespect, but that couch is already reserved," Sidney read through squinted eyes, and Rachel quirked her palm upwards – telling the man to get up and leave the couch alone.
"You're expecting a lot of visitors, huh?" He guessed with a sweet smile as he got up to his feet.
Rachel shook her head and flashed another message on the screen. "They're for the flowers and the giant teddy bears that my fan base will deliver in a while."
"Oh, your fan base, r-right," Sidney stuttered, trying to hide his disbelief. After all, you must spoil the gem that made your show sell twice as fast as the marketing guys expected. "Okay, I'll be leaving then. I dropped by to wish you good luck. You'll do great tonight, Miss Berry."
After one polite nod towards Rachel, Sidney fled her room.
Gazing back at the empty couch, Rachel thought about having it reserved for the large bouquet of flowers that he would have left there if he were here. She imagined him being so proud of himself for saving enough money from his weekly allowance.
Rachel looked to her mirror and stared at her reflection for a while. She turned down the air conditioning in her dressing room when she felt a chill in her fingers, and her arms shivered under her thick Fanny Brice coat. There were random shouts and frantic footsteps outside the thin walls that made up her room; a pressure that surely kept the cast and crew in states of frequent panic.
Her iPhone kept vibrating due to the never-ending tweets from the hashtags that she had been tracking for the past five days. She would stay up all night in Elliot's bedroom and refresh Broadway dot com and all other social media networks, blushing at the good words by the critiques, and moping at the callous negations about her performances in the previews. Mostly, though, the scales were tipped towards the moping. The frantic world of reviews left her nights quite sleepless and her appetite nonexistent.
"A rookie as one of the most iconic roles ever? One word: unstable."
"Like there will be someone who could top Barbra's performance… She should quit now before it's too late!"
"The revival, as a whole, seemed promising. It's the rebellious-type Fanny Brice I'm worried about."
"A nose job won't hurt."
"Fifty percent Fanny Brice, if you think of it."
Those words resounded mockingly when she closed her eyes and tried to breathe.
He would've kissed her so hard so that the voices would drown into oblivion.
It didn't take long before Rachel had another visitor. The door flung open, and a sweaty Annabelle Laurent with her clipboard barged in. "Rachel! Staging starts in five minutes! Rupert wants you in-," She lost her train of thought when she saw the actress already in her costume. "Did you think there was going to be a matinee?" The stage manager mocked, her French accent wrapping around her vowels.
Before Rachel could grab her iPad, Annabelle raised an index finger at her. "And quit the vocal rest card. I'm not buying your meditation excuse."
Rachel took a sip of water from her jug before clearing her throat. "I already told Mister Director that I may be excused from the final staging today."
"Je sais, but he just changed his mind. Rupert decided that we're to do the new song in tonight's show," Annabelle argued.
"What?! That's insane!" Rachel exclaimed back.
"D'accord! But he's decided, so we got to do it. Manteau des Fanny out! And slip back into your working clothes, or Rupert himself will drag you to the stage. And we both know you haven't exactly been his favorite person these past few weeks… nothing personal, though."
Rachel rolled her eyes.
"Deux heures quinze, Rachel! Deux heures quinze!" Annabelle bit out, before shutting the door harshly.
"I didn't understand half of things she said. Why is she even in this country?" Rachel muttered under her breath. She could hear the stage manager yelling some French profanity as she moved down the hallway. Sighing, the young actress did as she was told and ran to the stage where the female ensemble members were stretching.
"Hello, Dwarfy Brice!" Santana greeted from behind. "Ohmigod, I am so excited to see your name go down in Broadway history as one of the biggest opening night debacles ever!"
The smaller woman held her chin up and composed herself. "I will do great tonight. Your psychological tricks won't get into my head today, Santana. Everyone knows I'm a star."
Her last sentence resounded in her head but it was in his loving and comforting voice.
Santana laughed. "Ya, keep telling yourself that, Berry. I can't wait 'til you get that throat itch again and miss a show. Then everyone will know how much brighter your understudy's star will shine."
Her psychological tricks are probably working, Rachel thought. Before she could jeer back, though, Rupert Campion, with the strands of his auburn hair disheveled and his buttoned-up shirt (that was about a size too big) semi-soaked in his sweat, called out her name and handed her some music sheets.
"Why is everyone literally sweating?" Rachel asked.
"The whole air conditioning system's been busted for the past two hours. There hasn't been any iota of chill out of the vents… just air," the director replied.
Rachel bit her bottom lip as she remembered having to deprive her dressing room of the chill that she felt. Weird…
For the next two hours, Santana watched as Rachel struggled with the new song and choreography. She took pleasure in waiting for Rupert to have a stroke with all the yelling, throwing of props, and Rachel's apparent inability to cope with the new material.
"Stop it with the riffs, will ya?!" Rupert scolded the young actress. "It's an F. I want you to hit that high F as it is."
Rachel rested her hands proudly on her hips. "While doing a couple of fouetté turns? That's rocket science! And so not Fanny Brice!"
"This Broadway revival is not about the Barbra-Fanny that the world has known, so don't go on lecturing me about it. Your job is to transform everything I tell you to do into something Fanny-worthy. What's so hard about that?"
"This number's not ready for tonight, Rupert. Just let-,"
"Okay, you know what? That's enough," He cut her off. "I understand that it's a bit too much to handle for you since your naivety eats you up when you're under pressure, so I'll help you through it." Rupert turned to the ensemble. "Lopez! You're up!"
"What?!" Rachel exclaimed.
"Wait, what?" Santana herself was stunned.
"Whu-, what?" Sidney, who was settled at one of the cushioned chairs before the stage, butted in. "Rupert, what are you-,"
"Relax, Sid. I just want your favorite star to see exactly what I want her to do."
He turned to Santana and asked her to do the new number as Fanny.
Rachel stomped her way to the left wing of the stage, folding her arms as her lips pouted. The understudy released her hair from the messy bun and positioned herself downstage to get ready.
The pianist played the notes and Santana sang the new song with full choreography, nailing even the high F during the fouetté turns that Rupert was wishing for. She grinned at the loud applause around her, and took a small bow onstage. Even Sidney stood from his seat at the end of her performance to send his compliments.
Santana glanced sideways and she could see Rupert and Rachel talking in the wings. Her high school classmate kept nodding to something that the director was telling her, while maintaining the annoyed pout in the curve of her lips, making Santana smirk deviously from afar.
The cheering gradually died, but something was still noisy at the other end of the theater. Santana squinted her eyes from her stance and squealed when she found that Brittany, Sam, Tina, Mercedes, and Blaine were still yelling her name in good spirits from the back of the house.
Santana ran all the way from the stage to where her friends stood. She hugged each of them tightly as they, in return, sang their praises of her performance. They were proud—so proud—of her, and Santana couldn't be happier.
"How'd you guys get in here at this hour?" Santana wondered.
"Kurt knew the stage door guy and he let us all in," replied Blaine.
"Porcelain! Where is he, anyway?" She scanned the faces, surprised that she hadn't noticed her roommate's absence.
Tina laid down her luggage. "He had to meet Rachel's dads to give them their tickets for tonight."
"Wait. So, Rachel's promoted to cleaning services?" Brittany wondered.
"No, she's back there with the director. She's been clumsy and her game's a little off today. Well, you know… same old crumbling-under-pressure Rachel Berry," said Santana.
"Oh gosh. Is she going to be okay?" Blaine worried.
Santana gave him a playful punch to the shoulder. "Relax there, Blainey boy. She'll turn back up. She always does."
Suddenly, the stage door girl that had let them in appeared, informing them that they had consumed the rest of their allowed minutes inside the theater.
"Awww, Santana we have to go, but we'll see you and Rachel tonight," said Sam.
"Yeah, Tina and Brittany should unpack," Santana replied.
"But before that, we're going to make a quick coffee run," added Blaine.
"A coffee run?" beamed Santana. "Can I go with you, guys?"
Blaine raised his brows. "Are-, are you s-sure? Don't you have staging sessions or rehearsal or something?"
"You just watched it finish. And an hour out wouldn't hurt, I swear."
"Then I guess you can come!" Blaine exclaimed, and they left the theater altogether.
At the café, the group of friends caught up with stories that had happened after their last reunion at Ohio. Everyone took maximum comfort in each other's presence, except for Brittany and Santana. When the former would turn her sight to the latter's direction, Santana would look away and pretend like she hadn't been staring at Brittany the whole time she was gleefully talking about her membership in The MIT Dance Troupe.
Santana kept up with her deadline and bid her friends a temporary farewell before heading back to the theater to start preparing for opening.
On her way to the women ensemble's dressing room, people continued to give their most sincere compliments for her impromptu performance, much to Santana's delight. Somehow, her vibrant number eased up the tension in the theatre.
Santana sat at her desk, in front of her vanity mirror and was about to prep her hair for the wigs, when she saw a peach Hallmark card resting peacefully among her things. She remembered that Quinn Fabray sent a little 'good luck' present to their apartment, thinking it was still Rachel's address. Sighing, she picked up the card and walked to Rachel's room.
A couple of knocks on Rachel door gathered her zero response at all (not even a yell that goes 'Wait a second!').
"Rachel?" Santana called out before knocking louder. "Open up. I have something for you!"
No answer.
She wrinkled her nose in bafflement before reaching down to Rachel's doormat and retrieved the spare key under it (Rachel kept a habit of keeping spare keys under doormats), and forcefully made her way in. To her surprise, all the lights were shut off and there seemed to be no trace of Rachel Berry.