Chapter 8
"Alright." John mumbles, looking through the small space in the half-open door of his room. "Coast is clear."
Phillip puts his shirt on, coming to stand behind John at the door. He peeks at the space outside. The hall is totally empty.
"You realize I'll have to walk no more than ten steps to my room, right?"
John closes the door carefully and turns around. "Yes, but if someone sees you leaving my room they'll be onto us."
Phillip rests his arm at the door behind John. "Is that really so bad?"
"Of course it is. We work together, it's not appropriate."
Phillip crosses his arms on his chest. "It's a little bit different with us. I know you're thinking about Rachel and the advice you've been giving her but we're not like them. You're not my boss."
John makes a face Phillip's seen him do when he's about to say something he really doesn't want to.
"You're not my boss, John." He repeats more fiercely now.
"Maybe not on paper," the other says, tilting his head to the side "but symbolically, yeah, I am. I make more money than you, have more visibility than you. You're my understudy."
"Symbolism doesn't count here!"
"Excuse me? Symbolism counts big time here. It's my whole point, actually."
"You know what? I should get ready for rehearsal." Phillip tries to reach the doorknob but John takes his hand on his.
"Are you pissed because I'm stating facts here? We agreed this would be casual. There's no point in telling people about us."
He sighs, then raises his eyes to John's again. "You're right. Sorry." He leans down, pecking his lips quickly and giving him a tiny smile before peeking at the hall again and leaving the room.
John closes the door silently and gathers his towel and clothes for the day. His nightstand clock tells him it's fifteen past seven. He takes a shower in his bathroom quickly and heads to the kitchen, where Rachel, Lisa and Matt are having breakfast.
"Morning." He greets the three of them and gets behind the counter.
Rachel and Lisa have cups of coffee in front of them and Matt has a bowl of cereal in front of him. John opens the fridge and gets milk, turning around and looking at the three of them, silent and seeming a little bit miserable.
He pours some milk in his cup and raises his eyes to the three of them from across the counter.
"Does anybody want milk?"
Lisa shakes no with her head and Rachel lowers her head to the counter. Matt raises his bowl and he pours some more milk in it.
"What's the matter with you people?" he asks them.
Nobody say anything for a few seconds, until Matt takes a deep breath.
"Lisa's worried about her job because she hasn't been herself in the theater and Rachel went out yesterday after we got home and came back with a bad face on."
John looks from one to another.
"Honey, it's okay to take some time to feel normal again." He tells Lisa. "I mean… you did come back to work remarkably fast."
Rachel soothes Lisa's back without raising her head from the counter.
"It's also okay if you take some more days off."
Lisa buries her face on her hands. "I don't want to not be back. I just… I…" she grabs her cup and stares at it for a few seconds. "I want to feel normal and I can't do it if I'm stranded here all day with you getting home at the end of it and watching me with pity eyes."
There are a few more seconds of silence as John looks over from Rachel to Matt.
"Okay." He says, making Lisa look up at him and force a smile. He turns then to Rachel.
"And you? What did you do last night?"
Rachel raises her head from the counter, hair spilling everywhere despite the attempt at a ponytail from the day before she's still wearing.
"I went over at Noah's."
Everyone, even Lisa, stare at her with round eyes.
"Nothing happened, okay? He invited me to talk and we did."
"About what?" John asks her.
"Does he really live in a trailer?" Lisa adds.
She takes a sip of her coffee. "Yes, he lives in a trailer. Not that I ever entered it." She quickly states.
"Why were you there for?" Matt asks her.
She carefully chooses her words. "He wanted to talk about his past as a bully." She quickly raises her eyes to John's and sees he has narrowed his eyes.
"What?" Lisa asks.
"I have a problem with bullies. I was very sad to find out he was one of them."
Lisa turns on her seat to look at Rachel. "So you went there to talk to him about this?"
"Well, yes, he felt he needed to provide some kind of explanation."
"You went to high school with him?" Matt asks.
"No, I grew up in Ohio."
"So why does he have to apologize to you?"
Rachel hesitates. "It's complicated, okay?"
"It's confusing, that's what it is." Matt states, looking at the time at his watch. "We'd better go."
Rachel seems relieved that particular conversation ended. Matt and Lisa leave the kitchen in order to get to the car but John grabs his friend's elbow gently, making her stay behind.
"You see, that's the kind of behavior that just complicates things." He tells her. "He feels the need to explain himself, so he asks you to come over and you do. He would not have wanted to do this if it was anyone else. I was bullied in high school and he didn't feel the need to explain himself to me. But it was you and he wanted you to like him and you wanted to give him the chance to make you like him."
They hear a motion at the stairs and suddenly Phillip is in the kitchen grabbing a toast from the toaster and biting it violently.
"Am I interrupting some heavy talk?" he mumbles, mouth full.
"No, we were just leaving." John says, grabbing his keys from the table and giving Rachel one last stare. "Bring the toast, come on."
They all leave the house and meet Lisa, Matt, Alex and Simon already outside in the chilly September morning.
Kate's looking over a pilot as her phone rings on her desk. She picks it up without taking her eyes off the paper.
"Ms. Mitchell, Anita Martinez is outside and wants to see you", her assistant says, "Should I let her in?"
"Um, sure." She answers. A few seconds later, her office door is opened and a very excited Anita enters, quickly sitting on the seat across from Kate.
She puts the pilot aside and looks over to the girl in front of her.
"What can I do for you?"
Anita picks up the paperweight on the desk and stares at it distractedly. "Well, you know… I was wondering where you've been. You didn't show up in the theater yesterday, we sort of missed you."
Kate smiles. "I'm sure you did. But I'm also sure you all managed without me."
"Yeah, of course." She drops the paperweight and gets a more serious air. "Listen, I have thought about it for a while and I feel like I should talk to you first."
Kate watches the girl swallow.
"I don't want to go on with the piano thing."
Kate blinks at her.
"Why not?" she asks, calmly.
Anita makes a face. "Because it's boring. It's very, very boring. You know I've had more fun here in two days than in all three years of classes in UCLA?" she moves around in the chair. "I see you work and it's like magic. You put up fires every minute of your day!"
Kate raises her eyebrows. "No, I don't. You realize that most of what I do is sit here and read pilots and scripts, right?"
"Yeah, and that's also magic! You get to choose what piece of art you bring to an incredible success."
"I think you're impressed with all the artistic part of it, Anita, but it's not what I do here. I pay the bills, I arrange contacts. It's not the same than going on a stage and playing for a hundred people."
"Yeah, but that hundred people? I hate those people! They're snobs! I play and I play and I just want it to be over so I can go home. But it's not over, because dad wants to introduce me to all of their friends who are also very boring. And old! I don't get to be with people my own age in these presentations. I was so relieved when I knew that you and your boys would come to see me that day." She thinks for a second. "Is that a thing of families with money?"
"I don't know. But as a child of rich parents who wanted to have their offspring in the liberal arts, having their oldest daughter not attending college is not exactly the dream."
"But your sister made it up for you."
"Exactly, but you're an only child. You don't have someone else to fulfill your parent's dreams."
Anita sighs. "I shouldn't have to fulfill their dreams. Cliché, I know."
"You want another cliché? You can't always get what you want."
Anita looks down for a second. "I thought I'd have an ally in you."
"Yeah, everybody seems to think that. I don't know why, honestly."
The younger girl looks at her like it should be obvious. "You've got power and you've very persuasive. You can bend people towards any direction if you really want to. You're a good ally to have."
Kate's confused. "But why would I want to bend you in the direction that'll make your parents mad?"
"And it all always comes down to that with you: you have business with my parents."
She doesn't say anything. The problem with people is that they're always reinforcing the obvious. If everyone would just understand that they have a part to play and it's not always what their heart is set on then everything would be so much simpler. Still, she feels the girl in front of her needs some comfort.
"I'm sorry." She offers.
"No, you're not." Anita replies easily.
The door is opened and Julian peeks inside.
"Hi. I know you're busy but can I talk to you about something real fast?"
She nods. "Sure, come in. Anita, is there anything else you'd like?"
"Nope." The girl stands up. "You should be in the theater." She adds, looking at Julian. "You know Puck can't lead rehearsal to save his life, right?"
"I'll be there in ten." He tells her. "Go on."
Anita leaves the room and she faces Julian, standing in front of her desk.
"What's in the deal with the agreement between the network and UCLA?"
She blinks. "What do you mean?"
"The undergrads being here. What's in it for you?"
"What's always in it for us. Money."
He puts his hands on the back of the chair he's supposed to be sitting. "That's all?"
She grabs the pilot she was previously reading and opens it again. "Yes."
"UCLA pays ABC to have these undergrads here."
"Exactly."
He narrows his eyes. "Are you lying?"
She looks up. "What?"
"Do you lie a lot? With you condition? Is that one of the perks of it, you get to lie all you want and people don't know it?"
She gets up, now. "What are you implying?"
He seems taken aback by that.
"No, really, what is this about? Because you're aware of my condition you think that everything I do is about that? So you get to come into my office and make all kinds of accusations?"
"I didn't say that."
"Why are you here?"
Julian hesitates. "Because I talked to someone who implied that there might be something fishy with this deal."
Kate stares at him, exasperated. "I'm gonna need more info than that."
"That's all I got. I thought you might know something."
"Okay. I'll go to Peter and legal about this. But don't go around broadcasting this, alright?"
"Yeah." He says, relieved.
"How is tech going?" she asks him.
"Good. It's starting to look like the real, final thing." He smiles a bit. "Puck had a bit of a freak out yesterday, he thought we were insane for going through with this. I told him you wouldn't pick a project that wasn't actually good."
She makes a sound that's halfway through a snort and a chuckle.
"Okay, so that's settled." He puts both hands in his pockets. "You think you'll stop by at the theater anytime today?"
"I don't know, I've got a lot on my table." She gestures to the pile of scripts in front of her. "We'll see."
He nods. "Okay. Have a nice day."
"Yeah, you too." She lowers her eyes to the pilot again.
Julian stands there for a few seconds before turning to the door and leaving her office.
She looks up the second the door closes and picks up her phone.
"Leonard, can you get Peter on the line ASAP?"
She waits as it rings one, two, three times.
"Hey." Peter greets. "Haven't heard from you in a while."
"Julian is onto us. He just left my office. Came here saying someone told him that there might be something fishy about the UCLA agreement." She gets up from her chair and turns to the window.
"How? Who do you think said that?"
"I have no idea." She says, looking at the construction across the street. "But it had to be someone in the theater. He's been spending twelve hours a day in that place."
"Alright, put someone you trust on it." He tells her. "In the meantime, not a word about this to anyone, okay?"
"Yes, sir."
She hangs up the phone and takes a deep breath. On the other side of the door, in the little waiting room between the main hall and her office, Anita leans away from the door, somewhere between feeling enthusiastic and scared.
Lucas is sitting in the audience midafternoon, watching as Puck is on stage talking to Jessa and Phillip, who're rehearsing their barricade scene.
"What's your major again?"
He looks over to where the voice came from and sees John and Rachel sitting a few seats to his right.
"Um, photography."
John raises his eyebrows. "Aren't you supposed to be taking pictures, then?"
Lucas lifts his camera. "I am. I'm just very discreet about it. And I can't really take the pictures with me anywhere, they stay with Helen at the end of each day."
"What's been done with them?" Rachel asks him.
"It's most of what has been printed or posted on magazines and newspapers."
"Oh." John takes his phone off his pocket.
"But you're not allowed to google anything on the press about you." Lucas says, tilting his head to the side.
The older man smiles. "You're nosy." He puts his phone back in his pocket. "It's probably for the best, anyway. You can go mad with people's comments in a picture or article on the press about you."
"You'd know about that, wouldn't you?" Lucas say, lifting his camera to take a picture of Matt delivering his monolog's lines.
Rachel and John exchange a look.
"You seem to know a lot of things." John says. "I had to tell Julian about what you implied yesterday."
"What was that?"
"The agreement between my network and your university."
Lucas doesn't stop photographing. "It's the responsible thing to do."
John eyes the boy with curiosity, not knowing what he meant exactly by that.
"Can we see our pictures?" Rachel asks.
Lucas stares at the two of them. "Sure." He goes sit near them, shows his shots.
"They're remarkable." Rachel says, watching herself in Bojana's character. "Really, really good."
"Wow." John mumbles as she passes to a picture of him in Luka's outfit. "I'm really good in this one."
Lucas smiles shyly. "Thanks. Your character is my favorite. I find him really easy to empathize with."
John smiles at the boy. "That's awesome."
"Yes. I just wish he would get the girl in the end."
Rachel passes him the camera. "It wasn't possible for them. She would have to give up her position in the party for them to be together. She'd have to give up everything she fought for when revolution came."
Lucas shrugs. "So?"
"'So?' She wasn't willing to give that up for marriage. Especially with a man from the very family that held dictatorship in the country."
"She should." He says simply.
Rachel raises her eyebrows at the boy. "What makes you think that?"
"They loved each other. They should be together."
"It's almost never that simple."
"Yeah, of course. Writers made a fortune through history by making it not simple."
"I think that the message sent is powerful, though. For women, especially."
"And what's that message? Walk away from your one true love for a position of power?"
Rachel swallows. "You talk like Luka didn't do the exact same thing. He made a choice too, you know? He chose to go back to his family, his position and his money when he walked away from the revolution."
Lucas lifts his camera again to take another shot. "Whatever." He mumbles.
A few seats ahead, Matt and Lisa are closely watching rehearsal. He stares at Lisa for a few seconds.
"How are you doing?"
"With the non-dancing thing?" she says, sarcastically. "Not so good."
"You should tell your doctor that."
Lisa seems distressed. "I had to describe in detail everything that happened. If I tell her I'm not okay she'll think there's still something triggering me."
"Isn't there?"
"She wouldn't have cleared me if there was."
Matt presses her lips in a thin line. "You got back really fast, Lisa. You'll have to talk about it s'more."
"I did talk."
"Not enough if you don't want to get up on that stage anymore."
"Okay, cut it out." Lisa says angrily. "What are you, my shrink? Oh, you're not, Dr. Altman is! And she cleared me for work."
He's taken aback by her defensiveness. Lisa gets up and leaves.
From the stage, where Phillip is standing aside while Puck talks to the actress that plays Bojana's mother, he notices Lisa's storm out. He follows her with his eyes and looks over at Matt, who shakes her head.
Anita spends the whole day after she gets back from Kate's office sitting in a further seat in the audience. She doesn't know what to do with the piece of information she got earlier that day. The way she sees it, it could go one of two ways: she uses it to blackmail Kate – which wouldn't make her even that guilty seeing as Kate's always saying that people have to do what they have to do – or she asks to be Kate's man in, scooping around and trying to find out who's the person that gave Julian the information.
Her thoughts are interrupted by Marley coming over and handling her a cup of coffee.
"You've been distracted. There hasn't been one sly comment about Dan and Claire today."
Anita smiles, staring at her cup as Marley takes the seat next to her.
"Everything okay?"
Anita doesn't look up. It's as if her life just got to a dead end. She needs to figure out what the next move is, the move that'll get her doing what she wants to do instead of what she needs to do. She's probably a big old cliché, the rich girl from Bervely Hills who's too bored with her life of trips to the Caribbean and just wants to do something exciting and out of the box.
Except how exactly is being a producer really out of the box? It's not like she wants to be an undertaker, for fuck's sake. It's a much safer job than being a performer or a musician. Her parents have all kinds of connections in the business.
"How did you know you wanted to be a musician?" she asks Marley, raising her eyes from her cup to look at her.
The other girl seems a little surprised by the question. "My parents were in a band in the eighties. Music has always been in my life."
"Yeah, but how did you know? Was there a moment when it hit you or was it just…?
"There was no specific moment, I guess. I started playing keys and then the guitar and then took some singing classes."
"But you never questioned it? Never saw yourself doing anything other than this?"
"Not really, no. I love it."
Anita sighs. "You're lucky."
Marley adjusts herself in the seat so she can face Anita. "Speaking from the bottom of my heart, you should go for what you really want. Life's a lot easier for the Rachels and Julians in the world but the world also filled with people like you. And they make excellent professionals, too."
"What if I'm never as good at anything as I am at the piano?"
"Doesn't mean you shouldn't give up on it. Not if that makes you this unhappy."
Anita smiles sadly. "What if happiness is overrated?"
"It's not. You'll know when you feel it. You'll want to feel it for as long as you can. It's cheesy as hell but it's also so, so true. We all have our parts in life."
Anita seems thoughtful. With some sort of resolution made in her mind, she turns to Marley again.
"Thanks. For listening. We're not even close and you're doing this. Thank you."
"Anytime." Marley says, watching the other girl get up and walk away. She looks over to the first row where Dan and Claire are sitting alone, talking.
It's almost 9 p.m. and tech's almost at the end. Julian's really tired and one of the things that got him through the day was the perspective of a really nice steak he left home from the dinner before at Santana and Quinn's.
The last scene of the musical comes to an end, gladly, and he wraps it for the day. Everyone gets up and start heading backstage. Puck starts gathering his things around and spent the entire day in a weird mood.
"Hey, is it about the premiere?" Julian asks him, eyeing the papers on the desk and putting them in his bag. "Cold feet, still?"
Puck glances at Rachel, who's waking backstage with John and Lisa. "Kinda, yeah. It'll pass."
Julian finishes stuffing papers in the bag and grabs his guitar. "Want to have dinner at my place? I have leftovers in the oven from San's last night. Also, she sent you to hell for not showing up."
"I'll call her and apologize." He stares at Julian for a few seconds as he packs his guitar. He's dying to talk to him about last night.
Julian hosts the guitar bag on his back and raises his eyes to Puck.
"I think some steak would actually help."
Julian pats him on the back. "Great. I'll just leave this stuff in my office and meet you in the parking lot in, say, ten?"
"Sure." Puck says. Julian cannot shake the feeling that he seems a little bit distracted.
He heads to his office, anyway, leaves a bunch of papers and his guitar in there. There's a knock at his opened door and he looks up, sees Marley standing there.
"Hi." He greets. "I couldn't stop looking at the sheets you gave me. I went to bed at three yesterday."
She walks further into the room and smiles, clearly pleased. "What did you think of them?"
He smiles back. "I think you have a gift."
Marley blushes. He remembers being told that freshman year at UCLA.
He gathers the sheets she gave him the previous day and gestures for her to sit on the couch. He gets his keys from the closet and sits next to her, keys on his lap.
"Okay, let's go through your song."
He starts playing it and she sings it. He stops a few times to give her some pointers. She takes notes of what he says.
Julian doesn't know how long they do this until Puck shows up at his door and knocks.
"Dude, sorry. I'm just going through Marley's songs."
Puck nods, smiling a little. "It's okay." He stares at the two of them sitting on the couch. "Can I stay here? I won't say a thing."
Marley and Julian look at one another, shrugging. "Fine by me." She says.
He sits on Julian's desk as they start playing again. It feels good to watch them, to not be thinking about Rachel and how much she's disappointed at him and how maybe he's blown his shot with her.
They eventually get some drinks from Julian's bar and Puck opens his notebook. It reminds him of college, him writing his final papers and Julian composing something, playing it over and over until he finally deemed it perfect.
Somewhere around eleven they stop playing her songs and Julian puts the keys away, yawning.
"They're all at the bar." Marley says, cheeks flushed. She drains the rest of her drink before speaking again. "Dan, Claire, Anita. Drinking, singing. Possibly making out."
Julian and Puck look at each other.
"All three?" Puck ventures.
Marley rolls her eyes at him. So does Julian.
"Why don't you go over there?" Julian asks her. "Be a part of things, try to participate. You don't stand a chance if you're not there."
She looks at Julian, probably wondering how he knows. Puck looks like he doesn't have a clue.
"I don't stand a chance even if I am there." She mumbles, seeming miserable. "He doesn't even notice me." She adds in the smallest voice he's ever heard her do.
Puck makes a face like he gets what's going on now. He exchanges a look with Julian, pleading him to be the one who say something.
"She gets him. She's a performer, she knows what he does." She goes on, seeming miserable. "I can try to empathize, I can try to imagine what if feels like… But she knows. She gets what it's like and what it takes."
Julian seems as helpless as Puck now.
"Have you ever felt like that?" she turns to them intently now, as if she's expecting an honest answer. "Like the person you like is not exactly from a completely different world from yours but not exactly from the same one either? And you envy those people that are with them every day, going through the same stuff that they're going through because it doesn't matter how much you try to empathize, you'll just never be able to be with them in that way."
Both Puck and Julian seem thoughtful and slightly taken aback. They stare tentatively at each other but break eye contact pretty fast.
As usual, Julian recovers faster. "You can try to be in his world."
She eyes him curiously.
"Sing him something."
There's a few seconds of silence.
"Isn't that a little… juvenile?" Puck asks from Julian's desk.
"Since when is singing for someone juvenile?" Marley asks, turning to Puck indignantly. "Is Sir Elton John juvenile? Is Sir Paul McCartney? Miss Taylor Swift?"
Puck and Julian both raise eyebrows at her.
"Ok, scratch Taylor. I love her and all, but I get your point."
She gets a serious air now.
"Alright. I'll sing for him. He'll definitely notice me then, huh?"
The guys smile at her resolution.
Anita checks her watch. It's 11:12pm. She's at the main hall of ABC's building, behind a massive couch, waiting for everyone to leave the office so she can snoop around. She hears steps and voices coming and holds her breath.
"Please cancel my meetings for the next days, I'll be in the theater until premiere." Kate says.
"Sure." She hears Leonard's voice.
They leave the hall and Anita stands alone there, heart beating fast.
She considers turning back and forgetting about the whole thing. It should be easy to just finish college and endure a life of boredom. It would make her parents happy.
But she remembers what this week has been like and doesn't think she could ever go back to UCLA now.
So she enters Kate's office and sits on her big, comfortable chair. Her desk has a few things, a laptop, some papers on the side, pens. She goes through the papers and sees they're contracts for a sound firm.
She looks over the drawers. A few other contracts, lots of scripts. She does this for a while until she sees her own contract, the very contract the signed a couple of weeks ago. There's a paper with it. She sees it's a printed e-mail sent to Kate.
Dear Katie,
I'm very glad you and Peter decided to go along with it. I think it's for the best interest of your network. Broadcasting television is about to go through a serious crisis.
Just make sure to stir my daughter in the right direction.
Best of luck to you and the network,
Antonio.
Anita stares at the e-mail for a long time, even though it's a remarkably small one. She notices that the paper starts trembling on her hand and notices she's shaking.
She folds everything, putting it in her coat pocket. She closes the drawer and leaves the office as anger starts building inside of her.
She sees security on the hall but doesn't even flinch.
"Hey, who are you, madam?" the guard asks her.
"Your boss' toy." She answers, walking to the exit in a decided manner.