I.
'Listened to my advice, I should hope,' said Cooper, one elbow up against the top of the filing cabinet, the other making the dainty peak of an elegant triangle as his hand rested carelessly against his hip. 'You should take it to heart.'
Shannon was crossing the room quickly as she heard this, a pile of papers in the crook of her arm. Briefly she wondered how he managed to keep himself wherever she needed to be before moving to the desk, placing another stack on top of them.
'Oh, yes, I did,' she said, then tilted the stack so that they all lay evenly and then carried them over to the filing cabinet, where she knelt down and opened the drawer above his knees, her fingers delicately tip-toeing through the folders there until she found the one she was looking for; Mandy 2 is what it said, and she didn't at the moment give a thought to its meaning when she stuck the pile of papers in there. They weren't typed—sketched up—but she had slowly grown used to that. At that precise moment she had mostly been filing papers, putting off the moment when new costumes would have to be created.
She slid the drawer shut, and glanced over at Cooper—then she glanced up, quickly, and stood. Awkward moment number two. His grin was shifty.
'I stayed up reading well past my bedtime,' she said, offering a small, almost apologetic smile. 'I'd forgotten how well Wilde could write.'
Cooper's grin widened, showing his white teeth, and he laughed briefly. 'The other advice,' and then he walked past her into the other room, where Freddi, Micki, and Angel waited for Jerry to arrive with Brian and Mandy, who would bring Reg, Trevor and Harley along with them. Shannon watched him as he went, that walk that went by so easily in the incredibly high platforms he was wearing. For a moment, Shannon considered that she too was expected to don them; then she decided that she would not do so unless someone specified. Or called her on it, which would be embarrassing. It was trouble enough that she was much shorter than everyone else there, but she didn't want to solve that problem only for everyone to discover that she could barely walk in those shoes. Maybe she'd only ever have to do it if she was expected to go somewhere that housed photographers; and being wardrobe mistress, that was unlikely.
The other advice? She wondered as he passed out of view, then grimaced. The other advice. Take care, Shannon.
Why should he ask about that? She crept towards the doorway, hands clasped together and held down at her side, her mouth shut, her eyes dark and inquiring as she peeked into the room. Why should he have said it in the first place? Unless it meant something, maybe. Take care of what? Herself? Was it a warning or a blessing? A reprimand?
A pair of eyes slid around to the side and noticed her, and then another followed. Shannon took a step backward so that she was not standing in the doorway, but soon enough there was a low voice calling—"Shannon?"
Micki sounded faintly amused, and Shannon stepped into view, tilting her head to the one side, suddenly extricating her hand to push strands of her hair back behind her ear.
Graceful wave of her thin, long-fingered hand, dark-skinned and expressive, coaxing, as if she was being humoured. Shannon took a tentative step into the room, then another; and then she felt as if she was being ridiculously childish and so she quickened her pace, trying to be the businesswoman she felt she was supposed to be.
She'd never tried to be a businesswoman. She had just intended to be someone's secretary, though why she'd done that, she could guess either. Typing didn't have that much appeal, did it? Was the scent of rubber cement so enticing?
Why couldn't she be professional, though? Imagining that this was something other than what it was, she could picture stepping into the room, saying listlessly, "Are we waiting for Jerry, then?"
A nod, perhaps, and Angel would straighten her business suit (and probably be named Angela or Amelia) before asking if anyone knew whether or not there was coffee in the lounge room.
And that would be before Cooper fixed his tie and telling her he wouldn't know because he never drank it.
It was monotonous. It was temporary. Shannon had never meant to do secretarial work forever, and while it was boring, it was conventional, predictable, dependable. Here everything went in whirlwinds without promise of stopping.
'At what time did Jerry say he was going to be here?' Shannon asked, trying to make smalltalk. Four blank glances met her in the eye for the immediate two seconds (she supposed no one ever said anything so to the point among their circles) following, and with their eyes all on her, no one but Shannon seemed to notice the door behind them open as Jerry Devine, cheroot in his fingers, entered the room; he stared at her for a moment as though he'd never seen her before.
Shannon stared back and then her brow furrowed, and suddenly she felt like squirming and dashing out of there, as though all the time that had just passed hadn't really happened, and she could turn around and run through the door and out of Bijou Music and not look back.
And she didn't look back. In fact, it was the other four who looked back, and all gave insincere and laughing greetings to Jerry, followed as he was by Trevor, Harley, and Reg; Mandy had a grin on her mouth even as her lips were curved around the tip of her cigarette holder, and then finally, heading in last, Curt and Brian, laughing already at something, arms around eachother. Curt reached around Brian's waist with the arm that wasn't already around it to throw the door there shut.
Shannon averted her eyes carefully as Mandy sauntered over to Angel and they began to giggle in whispery voices, as Jerry walked towards the centre of the room where he lifted a paper off of his desk.
'What are we doing next, Jerry?' Micki reached forward and stroked several pearls on the necklace around Angel's neck. Her expression always looked like the same thing to Shannon; amusement that had frozen on her face at a moment when she felt muted horror. It made her smiles seem unreal at times, and uncomfortably convincing, even if only mentally; emotionally, she could never reconcile herself to them. Something she couldn't do to anything, lately.
Cooper leaned forward from where he stood and whispered something into Mandy's ear, and they exploded with smothered laughter. Shannon glanced up at their faces again, briefly, before turning her head to the other side, fringe obscuring her face at the angle it was held, watching Brian and Curt. The latter sat in a chair, while Brian had himself slightly draped over the chair arm, one of his own arms lying back and stretching across the chair back, where the fingers of his hand just barely touched the strands of Curt's hair. Neither one of them way giving all of their attention to Jerry. There was so much affection there, Shannon realized. Then her glance shot over towards Mandy, still laughing.
Mandy laughing, Cooper standing behind her, Angel to her left, and Micki behind that, one of her hands resting elegantly on Freddi's shoulder.
Brian and Curt, secluded, somewhere else, an island, surely.
Shannon couldn't make sense of it. And that's when she realized that Jerry had been talking for some time.
'…now that we're back,' she caught, and then she peered over at him. The cigar met his mouth again, and the smoke that curled up afterwards seemed to be slithering away from his lips in revulsion. Shannon couldn't stand smoking; unfortunately, everyone smoked here. Except, of course, Angel never did, not with Shannon around. Shannon managed a half-glance in her direction, only to find that the red-haired woman felt eyes on her and glanced over with a half-cocked smile and a quick, fake wave. Seconds too late did Shannon look away, feeling conspicuous, as Angel practically pranced over, making her tiny steps across the room as Jerry went on.
'And if we're going to come back to them now, we'll make our way in style;' the words curled like the smoke did, steady, confusing, insidious. His eyes were on her now. Not on hers; she glanced up, and still it seemed that though their eyes met, he was looking at her, all of her.
Angel's fingers fluffed up her hair with a fond smile plumping the apple of her cheek, and Shannon turned her head down so that she wasn't being watched, in the direction of Angel's hand.
'What is it?' she whispered in a barely audible voice, her eyes hesitantly meeting Angel's and her lips hardly moving at all.
Angel's eyes were sparkly, and she turned towards the group with ferocious, feline energy. 'Well of course we'll be stylish!' she cried, in what was a little like a shriek; Shannon was looking out of her, and though Angel didn't look back, Shannon felt instinctively and intuitively that the woman could see her with her peripheral vision. 'Shannon's being doing loads of work, Jerry.'
And then the supportive voices came from everyone else, the nods, and the agreement, and Jerry only held his cheroot and cocked his head. 'Fantastic,' he said, and lifted the cigar as though in a salute before the end came down to his mouth again.
Shannon could only nod her head, barely able to look up, her fingers twisting themselves in her own grasp. 'Yes,' she said, still nodding, after the voices died away. 'Yes, it'll all be fine.'
A concert? She looked at the piece of paper in Jerry's other hand an squinted. Yes, she recognized the name of the club printed in bold letters at the top; and then she looked at Jerry again, to find he was looking at her.
Somewhat awkward, she glanced around. They all were. She bit the inside of her lip and tried to compose her expression. Brian and Curt were looking at her when her eyes turned in their direction, and the moment they noticed they looked at eachother.
And then Shannon got the sense of someone else looking at them, and turned her head towards Mandy, attractive in a false sort of way, charming without setting one at easy, and her accent obviously faked, put on. She knew Mandy was American, Brian's American wife. It was a little strange, but here Shannon could swear she was watching Brian across the room, sitting on a chair with Curt…
But she couldn't prove anything, for Mandy felt eyes on her and looked up. It was strangely silent in the room.
'Well, darling, just show me the designs tomorrow,' Mandy said in a higher voice than she usually had, giving her head a strange little toss and bringing her cigarette holder to her lips as her eyes rolled about in her head, a smart little smile lingering about her lips. 'I'm sure they'll be fabulous.'
II.
'…And by the way, Harry, talking about silly marriages, what is this humbug your father tells me about Dartmoor wanting to marry an American? Ain't English girls good enough for him?'
'It is rather fashionable to marry Americans just now, Uncle George.'
'I'll back English women against the world, Harry,' said Lord Fermor, striking the table with his fist.
'The betting is on the Americans.'
'They don't last, I am told,' muttered his uncle.
'A long engagement exhausts them, but they are capital at a steeplechase. They take things flying. I don't think Dartmoor has a chance.'
'Is she pretty?'
'She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. It is the secret of their charm.'
Shannon paused in her reading. She was no longer speaking things out loud, but for a moment she hesitated, and then a finger absent-mindedly touched her lips, for once bare of red lipstick.
'She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do,' Shannon repeated in wonderment. Then she cleared her throat. Was that how Lord Henry Wotton would say the line? She thought not. 'Most American women do. It is the secret of their charm.' Shannon paused again, and tilted her head slightly while trying to dredge up a feeling of lethargy and listlessness.
'She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. It is the secret of their charm.'
In a moment she had rushed out of the room, leaving the book sitting there, open on the bed. She had suddenly remembered needing to draw up sketch designs for a concert Brian would be giving in a matter of time. And yet, there had been another reason, for it was only 7 o'clock. The phrase had been so jarring, and her voice had been so unlike her…
'She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American woman do…'