The chapter title comes from the poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade", written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
Thursday at ten minutes to five Finn arrived at the hall for the latin gig, steeling himself for what was to come. He'd agreed to do it, so... Nobody knows me here, he told himself. If I look like an idiot, so what.
Not many others were there yet, just Mario and a couple of the dancers, the latter already in costume and working on their makeup. Mario dug out the shirt, handed it to him in silence and pointed him to the side of the makeup area, where a middle-aged Hispanic woman waited.
"You're Finn, right? I'm Juana," she said in heavily accented English, gesturing to him to sit down. "Don't mind Mario, he's like that with everyone. Especially with having to find a substitute."
"You'd think he'd appreciate it a little more then," Finn muttered, quickly changing his shirt and sitting down where she had indicated. He did his best to not look in the mirror to see the shirt and how it looked on him, though this was extremely difficult as Juana started showing him what he needed to do for makeup.
"Don't ask a leopard to change his spots," she said in reply. "He gets away with it mostly, except with gringos like you." She showed him what he'd need to use, which was very dark. "You'll need a lot of this so you don't stick out too much," she explained. "And you'll need a moustache like the others." She gestured to a pile of fake facial hair and a bottle of adhesive, and Finn blinked at how offhandedly she stated this. She cast an appraising glance over him. "Make sure you put some on your chest as well, no amount of makeup can cover that."
What does she mean, that? "Uh, what?" Finn stammered.
"You look like a teenager. You're supposed to be manly, you need to make yourself look it." She shook her head. "At least please do your best." She looked at him until he started to reluctantly pick through the fake hair. "I have to go, I work in the kitchen," she said at last, and left Finn to finish getting himself ready alongside some of the other band members who had now arrived.
Manly? Finn wondered. In this shirt? And he looked plenty manly (don't I?), some guys just didn't get much chest hair ever. Rachel liked his chest the way it was - or at least she had, back when they were doing that sort of thing. The memory of it just made him more frustrated, though more sad than annoyed now. And jealous, wondering if there was some older guy like that TA with his sights on Rachel, and yeah he was just a teenager. He looked at the others next to him, their shirts leaving their chests half-bare, showing muscles and a lot of hair. And I'm looking at them like this why? Finn frowned, shook his head, and started to apply the thick tan cream.
He did a pretty decent job, at least that's what he told himself once he'd done, and the fake moustache he put on didn't look all that different from the ones the other musicians had. Theirs were probably real.
Maybe this wouldn't be so bad, everyone else was dressed up too. But the shirt was awful, and the others - they had the short solid look going for them, but even then they still looked stupid. Finn knew he was worse, tall and awkward, he'd be better once he was playing and he could get his mind off it, but even among the "band" he would stick out.
Nobody knows me here, Finn repeated to himself, and decided to put even more of the fake facial hair on, some sideburns, maybe he could make himself look different enough that he wouldn't think he was himself any more. Or something like that, what actors sometimes told themselves when they were getting into a part. He'd feel better about the whole thing if he could hide himself.
Then he was ready, and he talked politely to some of the others while waiting the last few minutes before the signal to go on.
Once they were on, he found the playing to be okay, though as he'd thought all along it was really boring. At least while he played he could focus on the drumming itself, not anything else, and yes the shirt did have plenty of room in the shoulders for that. He didn't look much at what was going on in front of the band, some singing and dancing, nothing all that special. It was clear the other band musicians were mostly going through the motions too, as they backed up the soloists, so he followed suit.
The next day Finn heard from Rachel, who called between classes to give him the information about Saturday night.
"We're meeting at nine-fifteen, at NYADA," she said. "On the path outside the building where, ah, where you met me last week." Rachel was clearly trying to avoid referring to their fight.
"Uh, okay, I guess," Finn stumbled. That was going to cut it close, at least if he went home first. "I thought you said ten?"
"The show is at ten. But we're going as a group, James made the arrangements for the tickets, so we're meeting ahead of time and walking to the theater." She paused, waiting. When he didn't answer she went on. "You can still come, right?" she asked, sounding plaintive but hopeful.
He could go straight from the gig, he decided. Traffic onto Manhattan would be a bitch (Santana's term for a lot of things, he should avoid picking it up) and there was nowhere to park, but if he took the subway instead he'd be fine. "Uh, yeah," he answered. "Yeah, I'll be there. Look, I have to go. I love you and I'll see you tomorrow."
The Saturday show was scheduled to start earlier than the others, something about the hall being used for something else later, so Finn made sure he got there in plenty of time. He took the subway and then the bus, getting to the hall at four-thirty, leaving an hour still before anything was due to start.
So he got ready, layering on the fake hair pretty thick this time. The skin underneath was starting to get a bit raw, unfortunately, so the adhesive stung a little, but he'd be okay. The tan cream, too, he put on more heavily, having found it getting patchy as he played the previous night. Luckily the drumming wasn't that active, but even so he had been coming close to sweating out of the makeup.
He talked a little to the other members of the band as they got ready; they were pretty cool guys, mostly recent immigrants who were kind of stuck for work, and all of them were much better musicians than most of what they were called on to do. There's actually the makings of a good band here, he reasoned. Pity they don't get to be one. Though if these guys couldn't get better work, it didn't say much for his own ability to build more of a career.
He sat there with the others, and waited to go on. And waited.
Finally he heard: "Mike's running late."
Sitting backstage with the rest of the band, Finn looked over at the door, where Mario had just stuck his head in and said those words. "Uh, what?" he asked. Mike was one of the singers, he had a solo in the third number.
"Mike's running late. So, everyone, we're swapping the third and fifth numbers, and the rest of the singers need to turn up the backing vocals for the first four. He'll need time to change, so we'll wait until he gets here to start." Mario looked around at the group. "Okay?" Seeing nods, he turned away.
"Uh, hold on." Finn's delayed reaction kicked in and he went after Mario. "How late are we talking here?"
"Just ten more minutes. Family emergency, he says, though it had better not happen again." Mario looked up at Finn. "Is there a problem?"
Other than how your crummy show is ruining my life and how you treat your employees like crap? Finn supressed his honest reaction, and settled for "No." He was sympathetic to whatever problem Mike was having to deal with, especially since it didn't seem like Mario was, but the timing couldn't have been worse. Belatedly he wished he'd turned the stupid gig down entirely, since he didn't suppose it would matter all that much what this asshole said about him. But now that he was here, he couldn't really bail on the others, and he needed the money. At least the pay's good, he consoled himself, since he'd stuck to his guns on getting the standard rate. Times six should mean I can afford to take Rachel somewhere nice for Valentine's Day. Right after it, anyway. If she's still speaking to me after tonight. In question now was whether he'd make it over to NYADA in time to meet her.
Twenty minutes later, Finn reminded himself grimly that nobody ever means ten minutes when they say ten minutes. Mario should have had a better backup plan, what if Mike wasn't coming at all? But Mike finally arrived, looking stressed, and they were given the signal to go on.
By the time they were done and Finn could check the time, it was after eight, and Finn was desperate. He only had a little more than an hour left to get cleaned up and over to NYADA, and the subway would take most of that.
"Finn." Della, one of the dancers, paused in the door. "You need a ride tonight, right? I can drop you off at the subway."
"That's great," Finn answered, relieved. New York traffic and parking would never have let him make it to NYADA on time, that's why he hadn't driven, but on the subway he still had a chance even with the delay; getting a ride there would make all the difference. "When are you leaving?"
"Right now, I'm late to pick up the children as it is." She looked ready to go; her last number had been one of the earlier ones, and everyone was scrambling to clear out before the other group moved in.
Shit. Finn took a quick glance at himself in the mirror, still all made up, the tan makeup starting to streak from the sweat brought on by his exertions. I guess I should be able to take care of it on the way there. He pulled his jacket on, closed it over the hated costume shirt, and grabbed his bag. "Thank you so much," he told Della as he followed her outside, glad that at least the others were nice people even though Mario wasn't.
Della drove him the mile-and-a-half to the nearest subway stop. As they went, he picked at the fake moustache but found that it was mostly stuck; two previous days of abrading his skin had made the adhesive grip more strongly, and he didn't have anything to help wash it off. He got some of the edges, but all that did was make it droop rather badly. He certainly didn't want to risk tearing his skin away, and while he managed to get one of the sideburns off, all that showed was how fake the rest of the makeup was.
Della gave him a glance. "I think it's either all or nothing," she said. "You're just making it worse by pawing at it."
"I guess so," Finn said, giving the moustache a last tug and failing to get it free. "I'll have to wash it off when I can." At least they were meeting at NYADA, there should be a public washroom where he could clean off.
Once Della dropped him off at the subway, Finn checked the time, and cursed. Depending on the subway times, he might not make it. A quick call to Rachel produced no answer, but he really didn't have any concrete thing to say. It was still early for her, since she was closer; maybe she was in the shower or something.
He called Kurt, who said she'd already left for NYADA, something about meeting James earlier.
"She's meeting him before this?" Finn didn't like the sound of that.
"She said there was something for his project that he wanted her to listen to. I don't know any more about it than that."
Finn grumbled, not liking the sound of this at all. Rachel had told him all she was doing for the project was sing, why would she need to listen to something? And now, when he might have to bail on her, for there to be another guy around... argh. "Shit. Look, I'm running late, the gig got backed up, and she's not answering. I'm trying to get there but I might not."
"And I need to know this why?"
"Look, if she calls in, can you tell her? Please? I don't want to leave a message until I know for sure." He certainly didn't want to disappoint her while she was in some sort of cozy listening room with that James dude.
"Finn! I don't know what's going on, but I know she's been really looking forward to seeing you -"
But the subway was coming soon, so Finn cut Kurt off. He didn't need to hear the lecture anyway, he was pretty sure he knew how it went. "I'm sorry, okay? Just - sorry, I have to go." He put his phone away and raced down the stairs.
On the subway he attracted stares, which he figured must mean he looked pretty bad. New Yorkers preferred to act like they'd seen it all and sometimes really had. He caught his reflection in the glass, and cringed; even with the poor reflection, he could tell how badly the heavy makeup had streaked and the fluttering of the half-peeled-off moustache. There was even evidence of his fingers from where he'd tried to get the fake hair off.
A small boy with his parents pointed at him, whispering something to the man, and Finn did his best to ignore the mocking expression the kid had. He was already tense enough every time they seemed slow leaving a station, watching the minutes slip away from him.
At NYADA he headed into the first building he could find, and luckily found a washroom right away. It was immediately clear, however, that the environmentally friendly foaming soap provided was completely inadequate for the job of getting rid of the thick tan cream that still caked his skin, or the fake facial hair.
Fuck. And he was out of time, they would be waiting. Rachel would be waiting. Finn left the washroom and headed towards the place she'd told him they would be meeting. Maybe it was fitting that whatever was probably about to happen occur in the same place where they'd had their argument, he figured numbly.
Hell. Finn's steps slowed as he approached. This whole night had disaster written all over it. But after everything else, all the frustration of January, even of everything that had happened and how they had both felt since his dumb train stunt... he was emotionally and physically exhausted. What's one more disaster, I guess, he mocked himself.
He couldn't walk away from Rachel, not again, not now that he was getting more of a sense of just how special they could be to each other. What was it that that friend of Scott had kept saying, that guy he'd met at the Christmas party who referred to everyone as "buddy"? "Go big or go home."
Well this wasn't big, it was a joke, as if someone had invented it to torture him. But if he wasn't going to measure up, at least he'd know he tried. "Never run away," his mind reminded him, those words that had made him think it was Rachel singing to him.
But he looked like a horror show, he'd completely embarrass himself, and Rachel too. She'd be humiliated, he shouldn't...
... or was he just telling himself that because he wanted to bail?
He got closer and saw what he was sure was the group, quite a lot of them, maybe about forty. Shit. Really public, this is like the entire class and more. And he spotted Rachel, pacing a little, obviously looking for him, her posture tense, worried. She looked more dressed up that the others, her hair and makeup done more than a class outing would call for even at night, and his stomach sank further as he realized she'd dressed up for him, to make this as much of a date for them as she could. Meanwhile, he looked like a freak. Fuck.
He should at least talk to her, let her know what was going on. She would want that. If he had to make it up to her later about how he looked, he could give it a shot, but there was no making up for not showing or only calling her at this point, not when he had a chance to be there. And if she was pulling away, he wouldn't do it for her, not this time.
Finn summoned his courage, squared his shoulders, and walked towards the group.
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