"Why?"
Quinn faced her friend for the first time since they started talking. Santana's direct and simple question was genuine. Why?
"I don't know."
"You are a coward, Fabray."
"It's only fair that you call me that."
"I should slap you in the face."
"Or that, although I don't think it's very civilized."
"It would definitely be more satisfying."
Quinn nodded and tried to hold Santana's hand, which the young Latina woman wouldn't allow. Quinn looked to the side of the dinner's window. It was a cold autumn day in New York, and soon the city would be freezing cold.
"I leave tomorrow."
"Don't expect me to go to the airport to say goodbye."
"I know. This is our farewell. Better this way."
"Okay Fabray, I wish you the best."
Santana sighed and got up from the table. She left 15 dollars for what she consumed and for the tip. She decided to walk the streets of New York: those somehow becoming again filthy streets, with garbage bags piled up, rat infestation, crimes on the rise, but all still far from what they were in the 1980s, as they say. Well, Santana was born in the 1990s in Ohio and wouldn't have known beyond reading about the city and what she saw in the movies of the time, so New York looks dirty to her. Sometimes it all made her think about moving to fresh air in cheaper cities. Living in New York was tough for someone earning a low salary as a social media manager for an advertising agency on weekdays, plus a few bucks playing in a bar on the weekends.
Santana got in a building that was three blocks from the dinner, she took the elevator to the seventh floor, and then put keys on to open the door to apartment number 704. There was a soft sound coming from one of the bedrooms, which made Santana worried.
"Rachel?" Santana knocked on the door.
"Yea?"
"You are early home. Is everything fine?"
"Yea."
"Can I get in?"
"No."
Santana rolled her eyes. It was hard to deal with people addicted to drama.
"I talked to Quinn."
"I don't want to know!"
"Yes, you want."
"No, I do not want!" Rachel's voice came more emphatically from behind that door.
Santana shook her head in disbelief. Rachel would freak Santana out everyday if the latina took the diva too seriously. Santana looked at the worktable and sighed. She needed to find something better as soon as possible, although the options weren't that wide. What could she do with incomplete college education in a city like New York? Making her pop rock band work, opening her own business and giving up her own personal life to make it work, settling for uninteresting jobs, going back to college to finish that damn major and still have to work at a bad job to pay for it. Right now, she wouldn't have time to think about any of that.
Santana went into the kitchen, filled her water bottle, opened a bag of salted cashews, and sat down at her desk. She accessed the to-do list on her work's cell phone, turned on her notebook and auxiliary monitor. The work was basically done on Twitter and Instagram, and also had the customer lists through the messaging apps. Santana worked from home, except on Mondays, when she had to spend the day at the agency, or when she got calls for emergency meetings. She put on her headphones, accessed one of the playlists, and got to work.
An hour later, Santana was called out by a gesticulating Rachel.
"What?" Santana took off her headphones.
"What did she say?"
"That she's leaving tomorrow."
"Did she say why?"
"Nope... She turned into that old Quinn trapped in a shell"
"Quinn is a coward if she's running away because of that." Rachel raged.
"That's what I said."
"What do we do?"
"We? Berry, please!" Santana frowned. "Fabray is an adult person, she owns her own nose. Sincerely? I have my own problems to solve."
"Are you talking about this shit job you brag about so much?" Rachel pointed to the table and the computer.
"This shit job pays the rent, doesn't it? It even pays when you can't fulfill your share."
Rachel was silent for a minute.
"At least I didn't give up." Rachel regained her composure and said defiantly.
"Neither do I, but I have bills to pay."
"You make money with your band. You don't need this."
"I make a few bucks with my band, Rachel. And we are paid to play the covers set, because that asshole don't want to know about our original songs. Nobody can live only with the band savings. Dani is still a waitress, Jordan does Amazon delivery, and Eliott works at a petshop. You should wake up yourself."
"What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean."
Rachel was quiet once more. She herself worked at a dinner when she needed money. Rachel was a senior in Nyada and did some gigs here and there, mostly in television advertising. Every time that happened, she felt hopeful and generous enough to spend the money rather than save for lean times. Whenever that happened, it was Santana who got her out of trouble.
The last gig Rachel did was two weeks ago, but her bank account was already in the red. Four weeks ago Rachel was auditing to be cast in an Off-Broadway reissue of Tick Tick Boom, and was even asked to audition twice, but the producers chose another actor named Greta Lee Rose, and invited Rachel to try an audition against a reject college girl from NYU to be Greta's understudy. Rachel decided to give up: her ego said either she was the first option or she was nothing.
"San..."
"Rachel, if you don't mind, I'm still on the clock."
"You do home office! What difference does it make if you stop for a minute now?"
"The difference is that I don't want to work until midnight to complete the day's tasks."
Rachel sat on the sofá behind Santana's desk. She sat there, fiddling with her cell phone, sometimes muttering something, because she knew it irritated and took Santana's concentration away.
"Rachel…what is it?" Santana said impatiently.
"Are we going?"
"Where are we going?"
"Say goodbye to Quinn."
"I know I won't. I don't answer for you, Berry."
"I think you should go."
"Why?"
"Aren't you the one who has an on/off relationship with her?"
"Quinn and I had sex on three occasions. This is not a relationship, not even close. I wouldn't even classify this as a friendship with benefits. Dani is more like my friend with benefits than Quinn ever was."
"If you say so..."
"Berry, you tire me sometimes."
"It doesn't mean I'm wrong."
…
Dani picked up her acoustic guitar and played a few chords before going back to writing on paper. She mumbled a few sentences and thought it was good. Composing was a process that felt more natural to her when she was at the piano. The problem was that she lived in an apartment so small that to put a piano in there, she had to give up her own bed. The shower was next to the fridge, and the toilet was the only private thing with a door in that place because it's in the closet… almost.
"This is looking promising." Dani heard Elliot say from behind her.
"Hey El." Dani noticed that his bandmate was accompanied. "Kurt? What a surprise!"
"Hi Blue." Kurt smiled at the girl.
"Have you decided to join the good ones?" Dani made a slight provocation.
"I came to talk to Satan, actually. She already arrived?"
"Not yet."
Kurt was part of the band until they fell out when the others mates decided to insert original music and change the orientation from pop-Broadway style to something more rock'n'roll. He threw a pompous tantrum and gave a speech about valuing memory and the arts that was the band's initial philosophy before announcing he was leaving the group. The bond, however, was never completely broken because: 1 – Kurt was close friends with Santana and; 2 – Kurt and Elliot were a couple. That's why, from time to time, he accompanied his boyfriend to rehearsals, although he was more interested in reading Vogue.
While waiting for his friend, Kurt sat on a bench in the soundproofed room at Community College that the band used to rehearse new songs from the repertoire. Dani called the rehearsal because she had a new song to show and needs the band's help to work on it. She showed the new song on the acoustic guitar and Elliot started to think of some arrangements. In the band, Dani was a multi-instrumentalist, like her idol Paul McCartney, and like him, she only had the bass to play in the band. Elliot was a good guitarist, a Queen fanatic, and Jordan played drums. Santana played almost nothing (sometimes she played a tambourine or some other instrument just to make small effects in the songs), but she was responsible for singing most of the repertoire, in addition to being one of the band's lyricists along with Dani.
Speaking of the devil, she arrived at rehearsal looking unfriendly, still upset about Quinn's departure and Rachel Berry's nagging. Santana wondered all the time where she was thinking when she agreed to move in with a dazzled diva when Kurt moved in with his boyfriend and Quinn…well, when that all happened.
"Lady Lips, Queens, Dan..." Santana leaned over and gave a peck on Dani's lips. "Good Morning."
"Good morning, bae."
"Is this the new stuff?" Santana took the paper Dani had written on to take a look. "Looks good."
"Sounds good!" Elliot added.
"I did it thinking about your voice. No unnecessary frills and straight to the point. We all know you are the most qualified person to do this." Danny explained and looked annoyed to Elliot because he was the one that tends to make everything sounds like Ann Wilson with Bruce Dickinson, and Dani is too soprano to do decent low raspy notes. "Shall we try to play once?"
"Sure."
Should Jordan be there for the rehearsal? Not so much. The band's original music work usually started with Santana and Dani, who provided the skeleton of the song. Elliot was good at riffing and arranging, and Jordan... well, he played drums, although he had a good inclination to manage the band and get gigs. Dani gave Santana the guidelines, Elliot started rehearsing some vocal arrangements and within half an hour the three were playing the first version of the original song that had just been born.
"This… actually is fine." Kurt stopped reading the magazine and started paying attention to the creation process. "It's the first song of yours that really has appeal."
"Really, Shay!?" Santana grimaced and widened her eyes to emphasize the irony.
"It's not that your original material isn't good... it's just not good enough. But this song… has potential."
"I hate to admit it, but Kurt has a point." Elliot took his guitar out and placed it on the stand. "It's not that our material is lacking in quality, but it's the first time I've seen potential for a hit."
Santana wanted to argue, but the group's discussion was interrupted by Jordan, who was over an hour late. He, as the eldest of the group, took on the responsibility of managing the gigs and arranging rehearsal spaces. It was a job, however, that he didn't do alone and no one agreed to give a penny more when they share their profits. Not that this discouraged Jordan, because his goal at that first moment was to be able to give visibility to a band that was very good at doing covers, but that had the potential to go further with the original material.
"Guys, I only have one word to talk to you all right now." Jordan made a suspense.
"Say it, Gandalf." Santana's nickname referred to Jordan's huge beard and, of course, the fact that the drummer was already 30 years old.
"SXSW."
"That's not quite a word, but what about it?" Elliot questioned.
"We are going to play at SXSW."
"What?" Dani's eyes widened. "SXSW? Are we going to play in Austin?"
"You bet we are!" Jordan said excitedly.
"How did you get it?" Danny asked.
"I signed up and sent in our latest demo. The selection for the newcomers' line was released today. We're in. We have a 40 minutes show to perform our own songs. I know we have to work hard on our setlist of originals, but we can do it, guys."
"This is all great but why do I feel like there is a 'but' to this story?" Santana crossed her arms.
"Well... SXSW doesn't cover any expenses. So for us to be able to go, we will have to pay for everything: accommodation, transport, food..."
"Okay, fair enough, but if we can't barely pay our rent, how are we going to afford a trip to Texas paying for everything, including excess baggage?" Santana insisted.
"We won't go by plane, my dear Satan. We're going on a road trip. I'm negotiating gigs in some cities that are along the way, and with the money from the shows, we can set up our financing until then, and we are also working to turn Dolores Kissed Me a better known band. But for that, we're going to spend a month on the road."
"A month traveling in your van?" Santana freaked out.
"Actually…I thought about renting a motorhome."
"What?" Dani, Elliot and Santana said at the same time.
"My father runs a rental car shop, and he has two motorhomes at his disposal. What we need to do is drive to Boston and start our tour from there." Jordan ran a hand through his long beard and smiled. "With the motorhome we can save on accommodation and food… mostly. It has room to sleep five people comfortably: the four of us and a roadie… or… I don't know… Kurt."
"You're not serious!" Santana was in disbelief.
"I've never been so serious in my life." Jordan smiled. "Well, SXSW takes place in March, which means we're going to spend February and March traveling. That gives us just over two months to get our stuffs organized."
"Leaving our jobs to engage in this madness?" Santana was fearful. The band, and consequently themselves, never played a gig outside of New York City.
"If we don't take the risk, we won't have a chance at all." Dani pondered and Elliot nodded in agreement. "SXSW is not just a 40-minute show. It's a place where producers, managers and record label owners will come together and will be open to conversation. It's an opportunity."
"I don't know... I need to think." Santana took her bag and left the room.
…
"SXSW?" Rachel said excitedly as soon as she heard Santana break the news. "I've heard about this festival. I mean, film students at Nyada comment on some festivals that are beneficial for beginners and SXSW is one of them. Not to mention the panels that are organized there. It's like a super conference. A San Diegos's comic com for musicians and filmmakers"
"Yeah, I know it's a big deal."
"Of course It is." Rachel sat down on the sofá and faced Santana, who was leaning against the living room's wall, her arms crossed and a frown on her forehead that looked hard to get out of.
"It's a fine opportunity. I want to go to SXSW, but this month-long tour idea is crazy. It can't be done."
"Have you gone crazy?" Rachel got up from the sofá and shook Santana. "The most brilliant part of this story is the tour. We have to do this."
"We? Since when did you insert yourself into this story?"
"I can do the opening show. A set of three or four songs at least."
"Berry! Land! Nobody wants to hear showtunes at a pop rock band concert."
"I can think of something attractive enough to open for your band."
"The answer is no!"
"Don't be frowning, San. It will be a mutual benefit. In addition to performing for a whole month, I can still do some work for you guys."
"Like what?"
"As a social media manager."
"Do you want to do what I do every day?"
"Have you ever heard the saying blacksmith's house, stick skewer?"
"What do you mean?"
"That you work all day promoting these agency's clients, but you don't make the same effort or use your knowledge to promote your own band. But I can do it. I can manage social media and even do a tour documentary. Imagine the historic record that will be if one day your band is really successful?"
"What about Nyada?"
"This is a perfect Nyada project to me."
"Rachel, this is crazy. I have my relatively stable job. And we have this apartment to take care of."
"If things work out, you won't have to go back to this job. We can leave two months' rent paid. We can ask Shelby for help to come here at least once a week to make sure everything is okay."
"What if you audition to something and get into a Broadway play?"
"In that case, things would be even easier: you go and I'll take care of things here." Rachel hold Santana's arms. "San, it's going to be okay. Trust me. Also, there's one thing you're not considering."
"What?"
"Quinn moved to Austin, and we will be able to find out why."
