A/N: Once again, I'm using some dialog from the episode in this chapter. See if you can spot it.
Disclaimer: If you can recognize it, it ain't mine.
In addition to being the projectionist, Haley wore many other, smaller hats around the place. Her least favorite chore was changing the marquee, because it meant climbing up that goddamned rickety ladder. If asked she'd say she wasn't afraid of heights, she was afraid of falling.
Haley descended her aluminum nemesis one baby step at a time, trying not to tense up every time the damn thing shuddered under her. It didn't help her peace of mind that one arm was occupied with holding the big plastic letters and the pole used to attach or detach them to the sign. When her feet finally stood on solid pavement, she let out a sigh of relief and headed back inside to switch the letters for different ones to put on the marquee. She unlocked The Vogue's main door and strode in. As she made her way across the lobby a sixth sense caused her shoulders to tense. Some asshole snuck in behind her!
"Uh, excuse me, sir," she began in her least polite voice, turning to face the intruder, "but we're not open y-" She froze at the sight of the fifty-something man in an expensive business suit wearing an expression of severe displeasure. Oh crap. "M-Mister Matthews!" Haley stammered. She couldn't help it, the guy freaked her out with that stare of his. Nevertheless, she tried her best to spit out a halfway plausible excuse to help Kirby avoid yet another heated confrontation. "Listen, uh, Kirby's not here right now. I can tell him you came-"
At that exact moment, Kirby came trotting down the stairs from the second floor lobby. His slight not to Haley let her know he'd take care of this. Haley shot Matthews an unconvincingly surprised look. "Oh wow, look at that," she blurted and beat a hasty retreat. She didn't go far, though. Her excuse to herself was that she needed to get those letters to put up on the marquee. They were kept in a drawer behind the concession stand.
Haley didn't normally eavesdrop on other people's conversations, but she could never seem to tear herself away whenever Kirby and Matthews went at it. Matthews was Annie's father, which sort of made him Kirby's not-quite-father-in-law. Haley could tell the two men never liked each other, but ever since Annie's death, it was like a cloud of poison rose up whenever they were near each other. It was Matthews's money that bought The Vogue, because he couldn't say no when his daughter asked for it as a "wedding present." There was a catch, though. The money wasn't a gift, it was a loan, and he'd been relentlessly hounding Kirby to pay him back ever since.
Their voices were too low to make out what they were saying at first, but that didn't last. Haley's stomach clenched as the two men got more and more agitated and their voices rose to near-shouts.
"...every time you stop by, every time you call, I feel like I'm getting cut open," beneath the anger, Kirby's pain rang out, "I see Annie's face every day, all day long. You have no idea what I'm going through to get you outta my life."
Haley's throat tightened at the sadness she heard in his voice, still raw even years after Annie's death.
Matthews's face twisted in an ugly smile. "You have one week," he hissed, "If you can't get the money, I'll take great delight in coming down here and tearing this shithole down."
And with that, the older man turned and stormed out of the theater. Kirby threw up both hands and flipped a double-bird at the guy's retreating back. Under different circumstances, Haley would've laughed at the childish display. Kirby then stomped out of the room without throwing so much as a glance her way. Haley stood alone in the lobby for a moment, then looked down at the stack of plastic letters in her hands as if she'd forgotten what they were for. Then she shook herself and went to finish putting up the sign.
A couple of hours later, after she'd gotten all her little chores done and Kirby had time to cool off, she found him in the basement slouched behind his desk, a hardcover book lying open in front of him. He glanced up at Haley's approach. Anyone who didn't know him would've thought he was perfectly fine, but Haley knew from the subtle changes to his face that he was still down. He always was after a bitch-session with Matthews. Haley went with her tried and true remedy and pulled out a joint from her breast pocket and lit it. Kirby waited until she took a couple of puffs before he held out his hand. She wordlessly passed it to him. While he took a hit, she leaned over to see what he was reading, absently tugging the cuffs of her long sleeves further down her wrists. It looked like a collection of articles. She checked out the author's name on the upper margin of the closest page. "A.K. Meyers?"
"A well known film critic back in the day," Kirby explained, "Big fan of the esoteric."
"Hmph," Haley grunted. She wasn't a big fan of critics herself. She always saw them as something like parasites, the way they made their living off of other people's talent. Plus, she didn't like the idea of somebody telling her what her opinion should be. She'd much rather make her own decisions about how good or crappy something was.
She picked up the book and skimmed over the page. Oh great, he wasn't just a critic, he was pretentious as well. Haley started reading aloud in a pompous voice, "'In order to fully appreciate La Fin Absolue Du Monde, one must understand the context in which it premiered. The Sitges Festival is still young, but there is a boldness to their programming that makes this an essential stop for any fan of what are typically thought of as lesser genres. Science fiction, fantasy, or horror,'" she drawled the last word theatrically.
Kirby smirked at her performance. "He hasn't been heard from in quite a while," he mentioned.
"Probably hiding in shame from writing this crap," Haley muttered, dropping the book back on the desk. "Think he might help you find the film?"
"Only one way to find out."
"You even know where this guy is?"
Kirby nodded. "He lives in upstate New York. Kind of a recluse."
"Well, when ya see him, tell him I'm a huge fan." She rolled her eyes.
Kirby chuckled and passed the joint back to her. "I'll get his autograph for you."
Kirby took off for Carthage, NY the next day, leaving Haley more or less in charge by virtue of being the only person who worked full-time at The Vogue. It didn't take long for Kirby's absence to leave her feeling pretty glum. By the end of the first day she found herself slumped in his office chair behind his desk, staring at all the familiar knickknacks and loose papers that took up whatever space wasn't already occupied by the ancient computer. Haley's gaze eventually settled on Annie's photo.
Looking at her smiling face, you wouldn't know that a few months after that picture was taken she wound up in the bathtub with her wrists cut. Kirby almost never talked about it, but Haley could be patient, and for whatever reason Kirby felt at ease enough with her to let a few things slip through. Over the months she managed to piece together what happened.
Annie was the pretty, somewhat spoiled rich girl, and Kirby was the bad boy. Somewhere along the line, their rebellious affair became something deeper. They fell in love, and they fell hard. That story might've ended with a happily ever after, except it wasn't just love that kept those two together. Addiction played a big role as well. Kirby was into heroin, and it wasn't long before he got Annie hooked as well. Pretty soon their lives resembled something like a train wreck. But then they found this place, The Vogue, and Kirby the film buff fell into a fantasy where this rundown old theater became a thriving art house. Annie stood behind him all the way, even going so far as to getting her father to help buy the place. When Matthews cut the check, however, he had a condition: they needed to get their shit together.
The shocking thing was, Kirby actually took those words to heart. Maybe he saw how bad things were and his future father-in-law's stern words were the last push he needed to straighten out his act. Whatever the reason, Kirby cleaned up. Annie, though, couldn't stop. Kirby tried everything to get her to quit, every kind of rehab program imaginable. Annie would stay clean for a little while, but once the current program was done, she went right back to shooting up. It got to the point that Kirby finally threatened to leave her. One day Annie came home and found all his things packed up in boxes, ready to move out. She called him on his cell phone, but he wouldn't answer. She left him several increasingly desperate voicemails that he didn't respond to. "I'll die without you!" she sobbed in her last message.
It was all a scare tactic. Kirby hoped it would be enough to convince her to quit for good. He came home late in the evening, ready to deal with a hysterically crying girlfriend. What he found instead was a naked corpse in a bathtub full of bloody water.
Hard to say which hurt him worse, the grief or the guilt. Kirby knew Annie's death was his fault. He would always carry that blame with him. It would have been easy to fall back on the heroin, but he didn't want to make it easy on himself by numbing the pain. Sobriety was his penance. Loneliness and self-condemnation were his punishments.
Haley stared at the photo of the beautiful, smiling young woman who once had so much to look forward to and tugged on the sleeves of her rumpled plaid shirt until they almost engulfed her hands. She felt sad for what happened to Annie, but more than that, she felt angry. In ending her own suffering, Annie inflicted so much worse on those who loved her. Her father was slowly going insane with grief, and Kirby was going through the motions of day-to-day life with a crater where his heart used to be. Haley knew Annie never meant for that to happen, mainly because the girl didn't even stop to think about how her suicide would affect everyone else. That was the worst part about it, she didn't think about anyone but herself at the end.
"Selfish bitch," Haley growled at the picture, regretting the harsh words the second they left her mouth. Like she was one to talk, laying down that kind of judgment. She got up out of the office chair and stalked around the desk until the photo was out of her line of sight. "Sorry," she mumbled, wondering if it even mattered.