Chapter
2: Girls Night Out!
Robert rubbed his temples, trying to
ward off the inevitable headache. He picked up a dozen applications
and started to look over them. This was going to be a long day and
Erik was getting very irritable. Erik picked up a stack of papers and
started shifted through them, tossing application after application
carelessly on the table. Three quarters through the pile, Erik
stopped and pulled an application out of the pile, looking over it
slowly.
"What do you think?" he asked, putting the
application on top of the one that he was looking over. Robert
straightened his poise and looked over the application, lowering his
glasses slightly.
After a few moments, he looked up at Erik,
let out a small laugh, held up the applications, and said, "You're
not serious are you?"
Erik's eyes dimmed slightly showing
Robert that he was serious. "Serious as a heart attack," he
replied in a low voice.
Robert stuttered for a few seconds
and fell silent, thinking of how to word what he wanted to say.
"Erik, she's 19. If she's in the chorus, she would have
to play a prostitute. She's still a child. I don't think that people
would take too well to having a child playing a prostitute. Plus,
look at this." He held up the application. "She has no
listed formal training and she doesn't have any experience. "
"And
who are we to stop her from gaining experience?"
Rob
groaned at Erik's persistency. He looked at Erik warily and said,
"Okay, how about we put her in the 'maybe' pile?" Before he
could answer, Rob handed him another huge stack of applications and
said,"Here, go through these and tell me what is what."
Erik's
jaw set in anger and he started to flex his fist in and out, making
fist after fist. Erik never was one for patience and he tended to get
angry quite easily. Erik sat back further in the chair, taking
approximately thirty seconds to look on all of the other
applications. After five minutes, he finished the pile and reached
across the table to pick up the "maybe" file. He shuffled
through the pile and eventually came to the application he was
looking for. He pulled it out and looked over it again.
Her
name was Christine. She was 19 years old, live in New York on her
own, had no remote family, and was trying to make it as an actress
apparently. His mind started to cloud up. New York City wasn't
exactly the best or safest place for a teenager to be living in
alone. Erik looked at the application in his hand blindly.
"You
wanna grab lunch?" Rob's voice came through Erik's thoughts.
Erik looked up at Robert, confused.
"What?"
"Lunch?
Want to go get lunch?"
Erik nodded and said,"No, go
without me." He turned his attention back to the paper.
"You
want me to bring you back anything?"
"No, thanks,"
Erik said in an annoyed voice.
Robert put his head up
defensively and said, "Okay, okay, just asking."
Erik
didn't look up or say anything. He just kept looking down at the
application. Robert looked at him hopelessly, put his long gray
trenchcoat on, and left. Erik reached across the table and picked up
a notepad. He pulled the pen out from behind his ear and wrote down
all of her contact information. After he was finished writing
everything down, Erik picked up the application and put it in the
"definitely" pile. He had a few favors he was owed and now
was a perfect time to use them. He would take care of everything.
"No,"Erik muttered. "She's in."
*
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Christine looked down at the sea of
papers in front of her and let her head hang down slightly. College
applications. Everybody eventually had to fill them out, she kept
telling herself.
"New York University?
Bernard University?
Boricua College? Columbia University?" she muttered as she
flipped through each application. Christine had been a wonderful
student, received really good grades, and scored a 1,400 on the
SAT's. She was set. She could be a doctor, a lawyer, a stock broker,
but none of it really interested her. She only wanted to sing. Yet,
there was the practical side that said, "What if it doesn't pan
out? Then where are you?"
Christine decided to try for
one serious major and use music as her minor. She decided that if
music didn't work out, she would be a doctor. She was certainly smart
enough to be a doctor and she couldn't sing forever. That way if
music didn't work out at all, as she suspected, she would be a
doctor. Then, if health didn't work out, there would be music. She
knew that she'd be alright.
"Then again..." she
muttered aloud. She looked down at her clothes and bit her lips. She
wasn't exactly doctor material. She was wearing olive green baggy
army print pants, a white spaghetti strapped tank
top that said, "It's a small world, so you've got to use
your arms a lot" in black writing, and a pair of black Doc
Marten boots.
After filling out most of the applications,
there came a loud knock at the door.
"What the..."
she muttered as she made her way to the door. Peeking out the
peephole at the top of the door, she saw Meg standing there clutching
a pile of videos.
"Meggie," she muttered, with a
giggle as she opened the door.
"Hello! I come
baring..."she said dramatically, as she held the videos above
her head. "Chick flicks!"
Christine started laughing
and said,"Okay, what is it today?"
"Let's
see...I got 'A Room with a View' which is too cute! Ummm..'Waking the
Dead', and in case we got too bummed afterwards, I got..." She
stopped, trying to make a deafening pause. Christine laughed and
grabbed the video from her grasp.
She started laughing
hysterically after she opened the case. "You got...'Basket
Case'?' she said, trying to catch her breath as she talked in between
laughs.
" Yup," she replied. "I thought that if
we're going to be watching some movies that we'll most likely end up
crying over, I might as well grab the funniest horror movie ever
made."
"Okay," she said, taking the movies and
leading Meg inside. "Which one do you want to watch first?"
"A
Room with a View," she answered immediately.
"Whatever,"
she answered, taking the video from her and taking it out of it's
case.
"Come on, sweeetie, haven't you ever seen
it?"
"Nope," she uttered while putting it in
the vcr, making a note to
herself to get her dd player out of storage.
"Are you
kidding me?!?"
"No."
"Ohhhhh, it's
so...tasty," Meg said, licking her lips.
"Really?"
she she said curiously.
"Oh yeah! I mean, Rupert Graves
and Julian Sands in the bare. Daniel Day-Lewis pretending to be a
prissy frilly fru-fru boy. It's everything a girl wants. Cute boys,
romantic plot, and it takes place in England and Italy. I'm surprised
that you haven't read the book already?"
"I actually
read it in high school. It was pretty goo, but I didn't think to see
the movie." She explained as she plopped herself on the couch
next to her.
An hour and a half later, Christine was still
giggling. She didn't think that it would get as graphic as it did.
Meggie, however, was blushing and the expression on her face, made
her laugh harder.
"Oh come on, it wasn't that bad,"
Christine said, trying to lighten up the mood.
"Okay,"
Meg said slowly. "Whatever, let's just put the next movie
in."
She picked up "Waking the Dead" and
started it. Within the time the movie started and the movie ended,
Meg and Christine were both crying and were both rather freaked out.
The movie was about a man, Fielding, who wanted to be the president
and his girlfriend, Sarah,
who was a revolutionist in the 70's. Sarah died in a car explosion
and later Fielding had a chance to run for congress, Sarah came back
to haunt him to the point where he thought he saw her and could talk
to her. It was depressing as well as somewhat haunting at the same
time.
"Uh...Chrissy, I think it's time for a laugh. That
was kind of...disturbing", Meg said steadily.
"Yeah,
let's watch 'A Room with A View' again,' she joked. Meg looked at
her, obviously not quite getting her joke. "Alright, let's watch
the other one," Christine said, as she got off the couch and
switched cassettes. Within twenty minutes, they were both laughing
about the idiotic plot of the movie, but Christine was still somewhat
apprehensive. Not that she'd show it to Meg. Meg looked at the clock
after it ended and sat up slowly, stretching her arms over her
head.
Christine's eyes widened all of a sudden. Meg looked at
her with concern. "What is it, Chrissy?"
"Meg,
do you know what today is?"
"The third," she
guessed. Christine shook her head and made a look on her face that
said, "Come on. Think!" Soon enough, Meg realized.
"Oh
crap! Call backs are today! Oh, damn it! See ya later hon," Meg
said quickly, grabbing her duffle bag and running out of the
apartment, without so much as a glance back.
"Okay,"
Christine muttered. She went back to the table and tried to focus on
filling out more college applications. As she started to fill out
more applications, she started to sing a little bit.
Now when
the rain falls,
It's heavy and gray.
It tumbles and pitches
through space.
I can remember when rain was soft and
You to
kiss the rain from my face.
Now when the rain falls, it runs from
it's touch.
With you wind was silk on my skin.
People in
love, walk inside the wind.
Where nothing can hurt you, it holds
you too close,
But now I'm outside looking in.
One day, all
I was circled about you,
Now when I move on without you,
Nothing
on Earth is the same.
Do you remember the sweep of the
rain?
The sound of it's drumming the sky?
People in love, walk
inside that song,
But now when I listen, the melody's changed.
The rain only whispers good bye.
I don't want to cry when I
think of you,
But now when the rain falls, I do.
Almost
as if one cue, the cordless phone let out a high pitched shriek,
making Christine jump. She stood up slowly and looked at the phone
nervously. Picking up the phone, she looked at it nervously, and
pushed in the little black button that said, "Talk". Her
heart doubled it's pace and she began to feel a little queasy. Her
hand shook a bit as she put the receiver up to her ear.
"Hello?"
