"A City Not for Dreamers"
(Or, "One Day in Sharpay's Disillusioned Life When She Let Herself Regain Illusion")
by TehFuzzyPenguin
Disclaimer: No part of the Disney franchise belongs to me, except a few DVD movies...that do not include HSM.
Sharpay had transferred, her first year at UNM, because she just couldn't stand it. Also, because the University of Florida had finally accepted her application the second time around, and she was willing to take the implication if it got her out of New Mexico. (Her summer theatre director had told her, "It's because every time you get a role, you progressively migrate from the character to yourself as the rehearsal process goes on. You have to be able to show more than just you. And you can't reinvent a Rogers and Hammerstein song for an audition, no matter how much you want to." Chad had shrugged, and said, "So channel Gabriella." But then, that was when they rejected her. This time, he didn't say anything, mostly out of not knowing about it.)
She'd also tried to transfer to SCAD, but that was mostly an art college, and none of the conservatories would have her. It was sobering. Chad, whose academic interests landed him at UNM with a temperamental girlfriend and a small sports scholarship, tried to understand why it was such a big deal, and failed.
So now Sharpay was stuck in New York City, a cup of tea in front of her and several thousand cups of tea counting up the days to follow. Because as it turned out, there were tons of up-and-coming actors in this city who could sing a Rogers and Hammerstein song in the original tempo in an audition and stay in character throughout the production. Sutton Foster had made it seem so easy. (Then again, Sutton Foster probably never lived in a cramped studio apartment in Brooklyn. Also, she had a Tony.)
Sharpay sighed, and left her tea on the table to go up to the counter. "Do you have any pie?" she asked.
"Baby, this is not a pastry shop," the loosely-termed barista replied.
"This is a café," Sharpay countered.
"You gonna pay for it?"
"I always pay, Benny."
And even though Benny saw her every day and asked her how her life as a starving, unemployed actress was working out, he never did any favors for her, which she was somewhat glad for. At this point, she couldn't take anything for granted. Even if it came in the form of an anemic, sickly middle-aged man who slept in the back of his café.
"I got a few more pieces of apple pie," he offered.
Sharpay grimaced. "Something un-American."
"There's nothing un-American about pie."
"Key lime?"
He looked at her strangely. "Does this look like Miami?"
"Gainesville," she corrected. Benny disappeared to get the pie, which would invariably be apple. Sharpay retrieved her cup of tea and moved closer to the register. When he came back with the (apple) slice on a plate, she stretched and smiled. "You're amazing."
Benny grunted and asked, like he did every day, "What are you going to do with your life?"
Sharpay checked her watch. "Well, in two hours, I'm going to go put on a kiwi costume and dance with a banana for Naked Juice."
"Is that what they call acting these days?"
"Oh, it's fun." Sharpay dug her fork into the pie and broke off a mouthful. "Leah and I make up songs."
"Hey, hey," said Benny. "Pretend it's eleven at night and I'm your bartender. Tell me what you wanted to do."
Sharpay took a few bites before saying, today, "What I always wanted to do. Have you seen Coyote Ugly?"
"You want to dance on a bar?"
"I want to set fire to a bar like they did in that movie," and one day that might have been true, but she couldn't remember when that was.
He snorted. "You have never been to the real Coyote Ugly."
"I have. I woke up the next morning feeling like a cat had died in my mouth, floating on a raft to Rhode Island. It would be suicidal to set anything in there on fire." Benny laughed, because here was a story that was only this side of a lie. Sharpay finished off her pie, and drained the tea from her cup. She pulled out a ten dollar bill and laid it on the table. "Here. My tea for the rest of the week."
"Oo, my best customer."
Sharpay gathered her coat and got ready to go put on a kiwi costume, because as it turned out, there was a lot of things right above the homeless line that you could do while you were waiting for your big break. "You know," she said. "I used to want to be an actress. Be Sutton Foster. Get a Tony. You know, I'd start out at NYU or something. But then I got rejected. So then I just wanted to go to a conservatory. And then I just wanted to get to New York. So for four years, I dreamed of getting to New York."
Benny clicked his tongue. "You've been here for two years."
Sharpay smiled in acknowledgement. "I know. Isn't that funny? I got what I wanted. And I'm not good enough to get what I came here for."
"Sob. Go get kiwi-ed up now."
Sharpay asked Leah, as she pulled on her kiwi costume, "What do you do when all your dreams come true?"
Leah, a fellow struggling actress, gave her a strange look, because no one's dream should be to dance in the streets for Naked Juice. "God, go back to sleep and dream some more."
Sharpay thought about Chad, about changing her number and running away (because it's called running away, no matter what she chose to call it at the time), about her developed obsession with pie after Pushing Daisies debuted on TV that he once again, tried to understand before realizing that she didn't understand herself (therefore making his efforts futile).
In the summer before college, Chad had said, "Ew, Naked Juice," once, and Sharpay had thrown hers away because she was trying (also, because it smelled slightly rotting, and she reminded herself that this was why she didn't stock up on them). And then she'd gone out and bought another bottle, just because she didn't change for anyone, not even Chad.
In the spring of senior year, Chad had said, "I'm sorry," and Sharpay had nodded, no tears because that would have been melodramatic, and she had said, "I'm sorry," back. And even six years later, she felt the sting of knowing that you could do anything you wanted with basketball, but there was only one way to go when you wanted to sing and dance and do that little pantomime on a stage.
Several hours later, Leah packed her foam banana away and made a sound like a dying whale. "Tea?" Sharpay offered.
"Always the tea and the pie," Leah said. "No, I'm antsy."
Sharpay had been like that, antsy all the time, like her skin was threatening to flay itself and run away if she didn't catch up quick enough. It was called "motivation," and maybe she did need to go dream some more. She waved to Leah as she left for the subway.
In the summer after junior year, she had said, "Come on, Chad, come on," and he didn't give in because it wasn't really called giving in if you wanted to do it all along, was it? And then she'd pushed him off the cliff and jumped after him and they fell far, far into forever. Chad had resurfaced and said, with a shiver and a smile, "God, I thought we'd never hit the water."
"You're back early," Benny said.
"I didn't want to go clubbing tonight," Sharpay explained, and they skipped right to their usual conversation.
"Tea?"
"Earl Grey."
"Pie?" Sharpay tilted her head, as though listening to her body.
"Not now. I've exceeded my pie quota for the day."
"What else do you eat? That's not healthy."
"Lots of things aren't healthy," Sharpay returned. "Cigarettes and booze and skydiving. I just eat my pie and chew some lettuce." Benny seeped a teabag, and Sharpay stretched. "Hey. What about you?"
"What about me?"
Sharpay gestured below her chin. "What's with the facial fungus?"
"It's called a beard," Benny said reproachfully, running his hand over the peach fuzz that scraggled off his face.
"You look like a blond Abe Lincoln, you mean. What's it for?"
"I escaped from prison with it," he said seriously. "I grew my beard out really long and then cut it to make a rope. And then I just never went back to being clean-shaven. Then I met a girl named Maria who liked it, so we moved here and opened a café."
He pushed the teacup over the counter, and Sharpay reached out to grab it. "I think I'm dying," she said as she drank.
"Must be the pie."
"No. I just—I haven't been on a stage in a while. I never thought about it before, but I think I'm dying now."
Benny asked, like he did every day (to his credit, he always managed it with the same amount of concern), "What are you gonna do about it?"
"I don't know," she said.
In the fall of their freshman year at UNM, Chad had said, "I don't know," and laughed, and she had laughed along because this is fate. And then he had looked at his watch and said, "I guess we go find out where our classes are." For the first few months, she had accepted this plan, but then something felt like it was dying inside her, so she pulled out a familiar application, checked a different box, and went down the other road.
Benny asked, again, "What did you want to do with your life?"
Sharpay thought for a minute. "Have you ever seen Serendipity?"
"Another New York based establishment?"
"Have you?"
He sighed. "Sure, yeah. I have."
"I always wanted to open a book and find a dollar bill with someone's number written on it." It was another lie to counter his lie, but they liked lying. At least they were knowingly deluding each other.
"Would you call it?"
"Sure. I'd lie and say I was their kid, though."
In the spring of her first and last year at UNM, Sharpay had said, "Please, Ryan, please don't tell." Ryan had looked back, confused with a hint of compassion, because after all, he was in Charleston, and said, "But why?" And she had answered, "Because I have to, can't you see? I have to go, I'm going, I'm gone. Please don't tell Chad when he asks." The corners of Ryan's mouth had turned down, and he had said, "Okay. I won't tell. I'll cover for mom and dad, too, okay? Go to Florida."
Sharpay had thrown a jacket and her purse in her white BMW the first day of summer and driven off, supposedly to go buy a pack of water balloons. She went past the WalMart and kept going until her eyes itched, and then remembered the matching suitcases in the trunk and the credit cards in her wallet, and realized, this is me defying fate.
The bell over the cracked-paned door tinkled, and they both looked up, unused to customers in the late afternoon. A dark young man, in a beat-up leather jacket and too-big jeans nodded at them, and looked over the hand-written menu on the white board. Sharpay moved quietly from beside the counter. Mentally, she said, "Bohemian. One of the last ones," because his hair was artfully long, and his eyes squinted out of habit, and his mouth had that carriage of too many polysyllabic words. It was probably his dream to live and die in a place like her apartment.
He ordered his tea and scone, and sat down at a corner table, away from Sharpay. Setting his cup close to the edge, he pulled out a pad from his shoulder bag and a stub of a pencil. It was awkward, and Sharpay fiddled. The only reason she ever came in was to talk to Benny, and she felt somewhat exposed by this intrusion.
The dancing an hour ago caught up to her, and a slow fatigue spread over her mind. Sharpay felt the dreams coming on, fragmented and confusing because it had been forever since she'd gotten a good sleep. But she knew better than to fall asleep here, even with Benny.
Something about New York kept her up, anyway. New York, city of dreams and cynicism. All her dreams had come true now, after long silences staring at her phone and apologetic conversations with Ryan, who, for all his distance, still kept in touch with too many people. And god, she didn't know what to do when all her dreams came true. Pay back old debts? She owed Chad something, for leaving without saying a word. Sure. Sure.
She stood carefully, her head woozy, and walked up to the counter.
"I'll get you that pie now," said Benny, but she reached out and stopped him, laying her hand on his elbow. The touch jolted her. It couldn't have been more than five minutes since she got back—or was it?
"No—no, that's not—hey, you have my headshot?" The young man in the corner looked up briefly, evidently misconstruing the words. Sharpay couldn't care less. "That picture," she went on, "I know I gave you one."
Benny frowned, turned around, and scanned his tacked bulletin board, finally finding a sliver of white paper and taking it down to show a photo of Sharpay Evans staring down the camera. "This?" It was a 5x8 print, one of her last ones in this pose.
"Yeah. Lemme have it, I'll give you another copy."
"Hey, hey," he said, holding it just out of her reach. "You better promise. I want to have a photo of the best starving actress ever to reach this pitiful little metropolis."
"I promise," Sharpay said, "Now gimme. And a Sharpie."
"I don't got Sharpies."
Sharpay made a noise of frustration, and patted her jeans pockets superfluously. The man in the corner cleared his throat, and held out his hand. "I have a pen," he said, his voice husky with disuse. Sharpay smiled absently at him, and took it.
"I will give this back to you, I promise." He shrugged and paused to drink, before picking up his pencil again.
She ran outside, happy to find a strong breeze blowing through at the moment, and set the photo against the stucco of the building, writing on the back of it with her borrowed pen.
Finishing, she waved it, letting it dry, and then threw it up in the air, watching the wind take it into the cloudy sky.
Her head tilted back, Sharpay closed her eyes, feeling the air rush against her eyelids, and thought, hi, fate. Help me out a little.
The wind picked up even more, and she smiled, because she had achieved her dream, and now everything was going to be okay. For a few more minutes, everything would work out.
Ryan had said, during their final year in college, "Sharpay, you have to do something. I mean, yeah, he's moved on, but you have to tell him where you are, or why you're there, or something. He'll still hang in limbo, no matter how long you leave him there, until he knows it's definitely over." And Sharpay couldn't explain why she wasn't able to do such a thing like go back and explain, she couldn't make Ryan understand that she could only move forward, higher, all the way to New York. "Come back," he'd replied, when she tried. "I know you need this, but please, just for a little while, just come back. We miss you."
"Where'd you go?" Benny asked, when she went back inside. She rubbed her hands, trying to get the blood circulating again. No matter how much she tried, she couldn't stop smiling. "Hey, sunshine," he said. "What'd you do with my picture?"
"I signed up for an audition," Sharpay said, and lifted her teacup to her lips. Remembering the pen, she stood back up again, still sipping, and held the pen out to the man. "Thanks."
He nodded, and she set the pen next to his tea, returning to her seat.
"So now what's you dream?" Benny asked, having decided that their visitor wasn't important.
"Have you seen Breakfast at Tiffany's?"
He laughed harshly, and answered, "Actually, no, I haven't."
"Oh. Well then," she said, amused.
The man in the corner finished his tea abruptly, and stood, looking around for a place to put the cup. "Over there," Sharpay said, pointing to a section of counterspace next to a stack of napkins. He set it down and went back for his bag, stuffing the pencil stub and pen in his jacket pocket. His motions suggested that this might be the last time he graced this establishment.
He paused before the door, though, looked back at Sharpay and Benny, who were now smiling at some story Benny had made up, and tore the page from his pad. Approaching, he said brusquely, "Here," and thrust it at Sharpay.
Sharpay took the paper gingerly, turning it right side up and smoothing out the jagged, torn edge. "Oh," she said, this time in surprise. It was a quick sketch, only revised to allow for proportional correction, of her looking up at the sky and smiling at fate. "It's—"
"I was going to keep it," he interrupted. "It was beautiful. But it's a personal moment, I think, and I felt like I was stealing it from you." He stood awkwardly.
"Thank you," she said. She reached in her back pocket and came up with a few folds of money.
"No, no," he said. "It's yours. You created it. You don't have to pay me."
Sharpay extracted a ten, and found his hand, shoving it into his palm. "I know," she said. "But you deserve it, so I'm going to pay you." He nodded his head, and turned quickly, stalking out the door.
"Well," said Benny. "Aren't you flattered?"
Sharpay carefully folded the sheet and stood up, delivering her teacup to the designated place. "Yeah. Sure I am. Hey, it's been a long day. I'll see you next week."
"Are you not coming tomorrow?"
Sharpay looked back and smiled that same, self-fulfilled prophecy smile. "I've got to sleep some more."
----
Ryan Evans came out of a dance studio in the Midtown Manhattan, wiping his face with a towel and laughing at something his friend, Marshall, had said. The wind cooled his skin, and a piece of paper, blowing in the breeze, hit his chest.
He reached up and grasped the sheet, pulling it down to get a better look. Though it had been smudged from contact with buildings and street posts, and possibly several days old, the print was clear enough. He smiled at the face staring back at him, turned it over, and read the note on the back.
Marshall turned around and said, "Hey man. Hurry up, we've got places to be."
Ryan laughed quietly, and held the picture up, waiting for a good gust to blow. He let it fly off into the wind again, wondering if it would make its way to where Sharpay wanted it.
Hi, fate, he thought. Help her out a little.
Over his head, the photograph whispered to the world, hoping that fate would deliver the message to the right person.
"I miss you," it said. "I'm sorry."
-end-
Author's Note:
So, this first time with a double title, and that's just because the original was too long. It also happened when I was (once again) trying to finish a GA piece, but those tend to take time and ferment. These just come and go. I apologize for Sharpay's OOC, but we must think that this is a depressing time for her, and she's probably not used to the idea of not being wanted. Even after two years. Almost everything in this story is (for once) inspired by real events. Except the photo part, that's inspired by "Old Scars," by xXxMidnightxXx, which is a Wicked fanfic. It's fantastic. But the rest of it. All happened to various people I've met. The secret transfer. The random sketch artist (he was actually a poet). Even the Naked Juice part. Especially the Naked Juice part.
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