Chapter Eight

Monitor was pacing back and forth behind his heavy oak desk, cupping his 'chin' (the juncture between the bottom of the two screens that made up his lower face), in deliberation.

A woman was sat in his office, facing him, her legs crossed at the knee and riding up her pencil skirt. Her face, framed by voluminous chestnut hair, was stoic yet, at the same time, quite predatory.
"You were supposed to be outside," She said reproachfully, lighting a cigarette.

Monitor's four faces looked troubled. "I had business to attend to," He replied vaguely.

The woman scoffed in reply, her free hand running through her hair. Moulted strands wrapped themselves around her fingers, three of which were missing both skin and flesh. "That's easy enough for you to say." She said with an aggression that was barely held in check. "I want more money. It was bad enough having to talk to that creep, let alone touch him,"

One of Monitor's faces rolled its eyes. His back to her, the four screens flashed with the words - 'LIAR', 'SKANK', 'WHORE' and 'DESPERATE' (the last wrapped into two lines on account of its size).
He readjusted the cufflinks on one sleeve. "As far as I heard, ahuh, you were all over him," He baited, snidely.

The woman glowered, tendrils of smoke writhing from the end of her cigarette. "I had to make it look believable, didn't I? Look, you were supposed to be there to comfort the girl and convince her to be the butt of whatever scheme you're plotting. It was your screw-up, not mine. I'm not getting involved again."

Monitor turned, facial-screens all back to displaying their usual firm and tired expressions. He sat down in his chair heavily. "Suit yourself, Miss O'Zidead." He gestured to the door. "My receptionist will pay you your money,"

The ghoul sniffed. "Right. That's what I thought,"
She stood, taking a drag on her cigarette before blowing out a thin trail of smoke. "Pleasure doing business with you, Monitor."
As she exited, she tapped her cigarette, leaving a deposit of ash on the plush, executive carpet. "Not", she mouthed. The same words appeared in quadruple all over Monitor's face.


Doomie came to a gentle stop and parked outside of NTV's studio-and-offices building, in the shadow of the Head of the Network's tower.
Beetlejuice was first to step out onto the concrete—except it didn't quite happen that way. As soon as his foot touched down on the ground his legs gave way beneath him, stringy and wobbly.
Woah! My legs are like jelly. Trying to pull himself up on his feet, and struggling, he tried not to think about why his legs had caved, even though he could still feel the ghost of Lydia's lips brushing against his cheek.

Lydia dashed around to him. "Need a hand there, Beej?"
"No, but a pair of legs should do it," He said as she helped him up. As soon as she did so they became solid again, and he found he could walk once more. "Thanks, babes,"

"We'd better move fast, I wouldn't want to keep Monitor waiting,"
"Uh, yeah." Beetlejuice turned and waved their convertible over. "– Doomie!" He assumed his upper class, intellectual persona. "We will rendezvous at a later point this afternoon."
The car honked in recognition.


Beetlejuice and Lydia were used to the inside of the NTV building, and so were mostly underwhelmed. Having taken the elevator up to Monitor's office, they were shown into a waiting room by an attendant who had been stood in the elevator lobby anticipating their arrival.
Beetlejuice and Lydia looked at one another. Classy. They both began to feel a little more appreciated than per their normal visits to this same office.

Sitting down in deep armchairs while they waited for Monitor to call for them, Beetlejuice gasped at the sight of the latest copy of Slime magazine on the coffee table and reached for it; he hadn't yet managed to get through his own copy.
Lydia drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair, watching the clock. As soon as it struck for midday, the oak double doors on her left swung open.
The receptionist behind her desk stood. "Mr Monitor will see you now,"

Beetlejuice rolled up the magazine and tucked it in the inside of his suit jacket. "Save that for later," He said, before the two of them walked into the high-ceilinged, well-kept office.

A large table had been brought in, with five chairs on either side and one at both of the short ends. Monitor was sat at the end facing them, and a strange woman was on his left. He stood, raising his hands. "Lydia! I'm soo glad you could make it, ahuh." He began to eagerly make his way over, rubbing his hands together. At the sight of Beetlejuice however, four noses wrinkled unhappily. "Oh… and uh, you too, Beetlejuice."
Said Ghost with the Most, hands in his pockets, frowned.

Monitor cleared his throat and motioned to the woman seated at the table. "Lydia, I would like you to meet Mrs Violet Nell." The woman stood. "She's a producer at the Neitherworld Universal Record Label. She's veery interested in you,"

Violet's deep red hair was tied up into a perfectly neat ponytail. Her face, accessorised with thin, rectangular spectacles, was pinched and firm, and a holier-than-thou air gathered around her. Nevertheless, she smiled in an assuring, patient manner, though even that may only have been because the situation suited her. "Yes, well. Happy to make your acquaintance, Miss Deetz. You may call me Vi." Her voice was thick with a German accent. She extended her hand.
Lydia shook it courteously. "Pleased to meet you, Mrs Vi Nell."

"Please, everyone take a seat." Monitor gestured.
Beetlejuice smirked. He reached out to the nearest chair and held the back of it in a manner that some would take as him being ready to pull it back to seat himself, but Lydia knew him too well.
"Don't mind if I–" Before he even got so far as to lift the chair off of the ground, Lydia coughed emphatically. "He means sit down, Beej."

He looked up at her, surprised, only to find that she hadn't even been looking at him, that she'd spoken on instinct. She had taken to her seat and had pulled out the one beside her for him to settle into, and as he watched she turned to look him with wordless insistence.
Beetlejuice wasn't used to being beaten to his own punch line. His eyes dilated, becoming large and puppy-hurt, but he eventually wilted as Lydia continued to stare him down. Submitting to her will, he pouted and sat down heavily beside her like a child about to tantrum.

"Ahahah." Monitor laughed nervously. "Uh, as Vi and I were saying, we are particularly keen to get your career started, Lydia,"
Lydia was reminded why they were here in the first place. She fidgeted where she sat. "Forgive me but, Monitor, I don't understand. You've only heard me sing once in a karaoke act, and Mrs Nell hasn't heard me at all,"

Violet pushed her glasses higher up her nose. She began fishing around in a handbag sat beside her. "Oh, that isn't true." She pulled something out of it and held it aloft. It was a CD. "I was given this sample by Monitor. It is you singing, yes?" On the cover was a shot of Lydia singing onstage at The Head Case.

Lydia turned and glared at Beetlejuice. "Oh, I see. Yes, ma'am."
So much for him catching tips in a hat, he'd been selling merchandise that night, hence all the money he'd managed to collect. He must have 'juiced up some goodies, CDs included, and Monitor must have bought one.
"Eheheheheh…." Beetlejuice tried to laugh off, raising his hands defensively.

Violet pocketed the CD once more. "It is a raw talent. Very raw. Needs a lot of polishing and fine tuning, but… it is a start." She interlocked her fingers and rested her chin on her hands, sitting importantly. "We have a lot of superstars on this side, Miss Deetz. It gets a little boring without fresh talent. You are the freshest we could possibly hope to net; I hear you are still human,"
Lydia glanced down into her lap, humbled. "I'm not dead, ma'am, no."

"Then that is your image. Your tagline. You are a fish out of water; a living soul in this land of the dead. You are young, you are beautiful. It does not matter if your voice is only so-so. There is a formula to a pop star, Lydia, and you are a potent formula. With the right help, you could be huge,"
Lydia's face had flushed red. She felt incredibly flattered and overwhelmed to say the least. "I… I don't know what to say,"
Monitor and Beetlejuice cried simultaneously: "Say 'yes'!"

Lydia closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to sort through all of her thoughts. She needed time, she wanted to sleep on it at the very least.

She placed both of her hands flat on the surface of the table and said as steadily as possible: "I… I'll have to think about this." She glanced to the side as she thought. "I have a big event coming up…"
"Ahuhuh, we'll work around you!" Monitor insisted, almost a little desperately, clapping his big hands together. "Just name a date,"

Lydia hesitated. "Well, I…"

Beetlejuice was looking at her hopefully, a little sincerely. For a minute Lydia even began to believe he wanted her to do this for herself, not for him or the money. In a way too, she did want to do it for him.

After the fashion contest would be okay… A little voice in her mind whispered.
Another voice worried back: But then when I go back to college–

No, think short-term, Lydia. These Neitherworld exploits never seem to last more than a few days, and if this is the off chance that it lasts all summer break then so be it.

Pausing for a moment longer, realising that this was probably one of those chances that if never taken you'd always live to regret, she finally gathered the strength to give her answer. She smiled. "… I can start from next week,"

Violet, too, smiled - in the way most people like her did when they felt like they had extended their precious time to the needy and had been worried it would all be naught. Good Decision, that smile said.

"Brill-iant, wonderful… ahahah. Here, here, we'll make it official," Monitor said excitedly, gathering some paperwork from his large desk over by the back wall, which he then proceeded to give to Violet.
The female stood, brushing out invisible wrinkles from her crisp, brown suit. "Miss Deetz, follow me, if you please,"
"Oh, uh, yeah," Lydia stood hurriedly and began to follow the woman into an anteroom in the corner of the office, leaving Beetlejuice to withdraw his pilfered copy of Slime and flick through it in her absence.

Violet shut the door. The click it made was almost deafening, imprisoning, like they'd stepped into another world all together. She motioned that Lydia should take the one seat that was pulled up to a small round table, on top of which the producer then placed the important looking handful of documents. She pulled out a ball pen and handed it to her.
"Please sign this contract, Miss Deetz. Then we will be on our way. Read through it now or at your leisure,"

"Y-Yes, uhm, right away," Lydia suddenly felt nervous, the impact of her decision beginning to register with her. Nevertheless, she picked up the contract pages and began to read. She skim-read the bulk of text written in larger font before focusing on the fine print. She was no fool, she didn't want to sign her life away after all. Once satisfied, she signed on the dotted line.

Violet smiled. "Perfect. Now," She perched on the edge of the table, and Lydia's gaze was forced up from the paperwork. "Tell me, what is the music like these days on the Other Side?"


The day that a drunken Beetlejuice had engaged in conversation with the conveniently placed Dawn, Monitor had been distracted. And what had distracted him?

He'd had everything all planned out.

He had been there at the SOMFN evening. He had been lurking, asking the organisers when and where Lydia would be performing. It was only when he had been aimlessly wandering that he'd overheard an interesting conversation between a young man and an older couple by the food tent. Monitor had been gravitating over to the buffet line before he'd decided to eavesdrop on them.

The man who he heard speak first was in his late twenties and had been confiding something to his relatives. Monitor had recognised the man, but he hadn't been able to put a name to his face at the time. In hindsight he realised the man had once been wanted by the mayor for environmental vandalism before being elected as spokesperson for the Green is Keen council. Donny Juice. Beetlejuice's brother.

"Now, you know I don't like to gossip, and I assure you I mean nothing hurtful by this, but… I was just wonderin'… what's your opinion of Beetlejuice's relationship with Lydia?"

Monitor, intrigued, had stepped as close as he could without drawing attention. He then – literally – tuned into the conversation.

The large woman opposite the young man had scoffed: "He's obsessed with the girl, quite clearly,"

Donny had stalled for a moment before continuing. "I don't want to suggest anything that might be false, but I think… heck, I know even if they don't, that their 'friendship' is deciiidedly more than that these days,"

"What do you mean?" An irritable, stern-looking man had demanded.
"Now, uncle, I don't want to gossip…"
"It's on your mind, and you want to talk it off, so spit it out, boy,"

Donny had looked quite uncomfortable. When he had next spoke, he had done so quietly. "I can't be sure I saw what I thought I saw, but… " Whispering. Monitor hadn't been able to make it out.
The woman had then gasped, absolutely appalled. "You mean–?"
"–together?"
"–having relations?"

The upper two of Monitor's facial screens had both proceeded to display bold, red 'X's, while the bottom two flashed between images of both his own expression of horror and the word 'EW'.

The situation was far, far worse than Monitor had thought.

He had wanted to separate Beetlejuice and Lydia that night simply because he couldn't stand working with the man. As far as Monitor knew, the two had always been just friends. Honey-trap Dawn had been planted under the pretext of distracting Beetlejuice, while Monitor was supposed to distract Lydia and propose his deal to her in the meantime.

But… if Beetlejuice and Lydia were 'together' in any sense of the term, Monitor had to stop that dead.

He'd headed to the pavilion, and watched Lydia perform. He'd then stood, and waited, and watched the scene between Dawn, Beetlejuice and Lydia commence. If he hadn't been convinced of the two's assumed relationship by Donny's conversation with his aunt and uncle, he was convinced now. Lydia had flown off in a jealous dejection, not walked off sullenly because her best friend's attention had been drawn. She hadn't been supposed to get jealous.

Monitor had come to the conclusion then that direct involvement would be suspicious, and so had stood back and let her run right out of his grasp. The evening, however, hadn't all been for naught for he'd realised something: if Lydia was to become a star, then she and Beetlejuice had a bond that he had to sever.
After all, the Neitherworld's next biggest icon couldn't be seen with the Neitherworld's most hated.

Knowing the two of them, and knowing their history, however, Monitor (rightfully) presumed it would take more than just one interference to seperate them.
No, it would need clever manipulating; he would need to sow the seeds.

Now, in his office, watching as Beetlejuice tried very hard to ignore him by reading his magazine, Monitor spoke up. "Well, Beetlejuice, congratulations."
The pinstriped ghost glanced up and quirked an eyebrow at the ambiguous statement.

Monitor smiled, and gestured behind him with a cocked thumb to the closed anteroom door. "You've finally come up with a viable source of income."
Beetlejuice didn't know whether to feel complimented or offended. He decided to feel complimented. "Aw, thanks,"

Monitor dug into his suit jacket and pulled out a wad of papers thicker than the contract he'd handed Violet only moments before. He then retrieved a pen and twiddled it nervously. "Now if you can just sign this contract on Lydia's behalf then e-verything will be in order,"

Beetlejuice put down the magazine. What was Lydia doing in that room if not signing papers? Did this mean Monitor was actually accepting him as Lydia's manager, without a fight?
After all the years of Monitor trying to feed him to sandworms, gangsters and old-fashioned cartoon villains in the name of entertainment, Beetlejuice had developed a distrust of the TV mogul just as Lydia had. This, in turn, made him eye the paperwork suspiciously, while he turned over the idea of 'juicing up a lighter and setting it all ablaze.

Eighty-percent of the text was so small it was illegible.
"That's, a, uh, lot of fine print there, Monitor."

In all honesty, Monitor hadn't expected him to notice. Sometimes he wondered just how stupid the ghost was, or how much of it was all an act. Still, he had prepared for this. He made his way over to his desk, and pulled something out from one of the drawers.
"And there are a lot of beetles in this jar I'm offering you now, Mr B. J., sir,"

As he placed the glass jar on the table-top, Beetlejuice's eyes popped out on stalks. The container was filled to the brim with fat, crunchy bugs that were dusted with a tasty-looking, coffee-coloured powder. The instant craving made his mouth water and his tongue loll out helplessly, drooling a puddle on the floor. "Beetles?"

Hook, line and sinker.

Monitor began to walk the jar over to him, treading in a dramatically slow manner. He smirked. "Indeed. Caught fresh this morning, ahuhh. Dipped in cinnamon annnnd top soil,"

A small growl rumbled from Beetlejuice's stomach. "Let-me-at-'em! Let-me-at-'em!" It begged inside his magenta shirt.

It wasn't right to say he 'gave up' as though to imply he'd been struggling to answer; Monitor had had him at 'beetles'.
He reached out for the jar, licking his lips as he grabbed it eagerly with both hands. Clutching it to his chest with one hand, on an afterthought he also reached for the pen.

"Where do I sign?" He said, hungrily.