Opportunities
(Quinn)
I wanted to be with Rachel in the audition. It was an important opportunity to her career and I really wished been there to show all my support. Damn it, we were talking about a damn HBO series, which means money and quality most of time. Of course there were exceptions like True Blood later seasons. The producers would shoot everything in New York, but they could do it in Spain, or Iceland, or Brazil, whatever, it was a kick-ass HBO product. How envy I was! I wish I could work on something like that. When I opened my email box, I made my daily ritual since I became unemployed: take a deep breath, with a good answer and open my eyes. There was some answer for one of dozens places I sent my resume.
There was one:
"Quinn Fabray,
We appreciate your interest in working with us, but I am afraid to say that all job vacancies are filled. However, resume in our database and we will contact you as soon as a new opportunity arises.
Regards,
William Thompson."
Come on! Go fuck yourself William Thompson!
On the other hand, SuperG Burgers sent me an electronic receipt of my paycheck about the freelancer I did for it: 500 dollars for photographed their burgers, processed photos on Photoshop and sent them all ready to draw up the new menu. I was still waiting others 500 dollars for photographed monkeys in the zoo to an old unbearable socialite. Of this money, I would have to save something for the income tax. I had a saving account just for that. Santana's tip to make your life easier. Usually you have to pay less of the amount you have saved and with the rest of the money or you can keep saving or use it.
What was meter to me was that that money would allow me to pay my part of the rent, however, I was falling to help on the other bills, like water rates, electricity and gas, in addition to market and transportation expenses. Rachel wasn't charging me for it, but this situation was killing me.
I massaged my own shoulders and neck. It was so difficult to live in the adult world with so many bills to pay. Things were easier in Lima, even with my pregnancy and my father kicking me out. If I didn't get anything until the end of next week, I swear I would go to Razorback and ask to photograph or film porn. If Lars Von Trier could do it and say it's art, so do I.
"Fabray!" Santiago walked hand in hand with his girlfriend. "Just the one I was looking for."
"I hope you aren't in trouble with any professor."
"Not really. Are you still unemployed?"
"Unfortunately."
"Look, I got an internship at the Bad Things." I widened my eyes and made a great effort not to die of jealousy.
"How? When did you make the selection process?"
"Two weeks ago for job vacancies in the art direction department. I went there for three days tests and they called back yesterday."
"Wow. That's... great, Tiago. Congratulations." Most for I die of envy. This was getting frustrating. It seemed like everyone in the world was progressing, but me.
"It's just an underpaid internship. Anyway, that means I'm going to leave my gig in the studio and I want to know if you are interested in replace me there. It's a three times a week part-time job for $600 bucks. It's not much, but at least it is safe money every month and it allows you to continue with your freelancers while you don't get something better." The situation was so bad that I didn't have much to think about.
"What must I have to do?"
"I'll take you there to talk with Corey. And don't worry because you know the job: just edit some videos for the journalism guys, and work as a camera operator sometimes. And when you have nothing to do there, just take over the studio and answer phone. If I could do it nicely, you will do it with your eyes closed."
"Of course. I'm better than you in almost everything!"
"But in the art design department. That's my thing."
"True!"
There was nothing to discuss: Santiago was fantastic as set designer. In the absence of response among the producers, a three times week job was better than nothing. Besides, I had seen some of the Santiago's routine work. It was not bad. The main users of the studio, the journalists from "Washington Square News", solved most of the reports with an iPhone. But there was work, yes. The staff was mostly formed by NYU students, hence the fact the staff was underpaid.
I followed Santiago up the studio. The general coordinator, Corey Blaze, was arguing with someone when we arrived, so we had to wait almost 20 minutes. There seemed a serious discussion, or Corey should have the ability to not take anything for anyone who has problems with it. We already knew each other because Santiago and I use a lot the studio dependencies to edit our work. And also because Rachel and I were once almost caught on a quickie by Corey in the editing cabin. He wasn't surprised when Santiago introduced me as his replacement.
"You will take the same time of your friend". I nodded. "Monday, from 14 to 18h. Tuesday, 11 to 15h. Thursday, from 14 to 18h. Is this a problem for you, Fabray?"
"No sir."
"Deal. I have to give you a request for the contract, but I'm without time right now. Anyway, fill out the form yourself, then you bring it here for me to sign and then you leave the paperwork in my office. If you do this until the day after tomorrow, so I will see you on Thursday."
He gave me two papers: the form and a list of required documents. Nothing complicated. It took me an hour to arrange the first part of the bureaucracy, which was made Xerox and complete the form. It was annoying having to wait two hours to Corey sign the papers before running back to the office to deliver the paperwork. Is that part of the studio's budget because it was funded in part by NYU. As much as the studio operated with relative independence, there was some red tape in the university.
It wasn't the ideal job, but it reassured me a little bit. I would have continue to seek formal employment and also to invest in freelancers who always underpaid me. I looked at the clock. It was late afternoon. Rachel hasn't called yet to give me news of the audition. I tried her number: it's off. I tried to think the best.
…
(Rachel)
I was trembling. I would meet with Boris Yves, one of the major producers nowadays. He began his career as a screenwriter, made several independent films, wrote episodes for some TV series, and two years ago Yves created a successful TV series for Showtime. Now he has new project with a whole season on HBO along with Katshovisk, who is an experienced guy in TV series production. Katshovisk is also Josh's personal friend. What I learned about all of it was that my chance in HBO wasn't necessarily come from my good performance in Across The Universe: there was a favorable conjunction of several factors, as happens a lot in Hollywood. Before anything else, you have to know people.
The assistant asked me to enter the theater where Slings and Arrows would be shot. There was a certain sense they occupy that kind of space for a series that would address just over a Shakespearean troupe. The place is very beautiful and old. I saw the first season of the Canadian version and I am very aware about the character I was auditing for. But I tried to do some exercises in the mirror to not repeat the original actress: it was important to create my own identity.
I positioned myself at center stage. Carton was in one of the chairs between Boris Yves, and a woman who is supposed be Linda Saldanha, the casting director. There was a fourth person sitting behind them. He was a young man, perhaps a little older than I, with black hair short cut, beautiful features, and seemed confident. I had the distinct impression that I had seen him before, but I didn't remember where exactly.
"Rachel Berry." Carton began. "Thank you for agreeing to do the audition." He looked for papers that should be my resume and photos. "I heard about your Tony nomination. Congratulations."
"Thank you, sir." I said still nervous.
"Cut the sir, please!" Yves Boris smiled. "In spite of these positions, we are all peers, Rachel. Relax."
"We just want to do a short interview to know you better." Carton resumed talks. "Unfortunately, none of us can watch you on stage, only part of the videos, so we wanted to have this contact. Anyway, tell me something about you that is not on your portfolio. Tell me what are you thinking now, per example?"
"Right now?" I smiled nervously. "I'm thinking about how I'll perform the lines."
"What lines if we didn't give you any yet?" Linda asked.
"I know, I know… but I studied the original series as best as I could. Well, you know how theater actors are, don't you? We decorate for auditing, staging and for everything after all. Even after a year playing that same role, it still beats a fear of reaching the center of the stage and forgets everything. It's a recurring nightmare of mine, inclusive. When I did 'Songbook' in particular. Sometimes I dreamed that I went naked on stage, but it wasn't intentional. The audience stared at me anxious and I just forgot the lines. Then I received a shower of tomatoes and wake up at this hour."
"And what happened when you actually stepped in?" Boris seemed truly curious. "Do you have any technique to relax or something?"
"I'm not sure if there is an effective technique for that. Of course I learned exercises to relax in college, and I did several of them while I was performing Songbook and Across the Universe, but the cold in my stomach never stopped. And I glad it doesn't. I would be worry in the day I step in the stage and don't feel anything. My jitters it's a sigh of my passion and my desire to do my best."
"That's nice, Rachel. Now I want to know how you build a character?"
"I research a lot about the subject, about my character, and I try to find the character right tone with my director. Still, for several moments, I can say I'm intuitive. But when I go on stage, I don't know what happens. Maybe it's the theater magic on the actors, but this time I just disappear and the character takes over, no matter what. It is so natural that even the impromptu speeches sound like her, not like Rachel Berry. I get so high. Acting is a drug. Acting and the applauses in the end, they are like drugs. The best ones somebody can use. Of course, after the play, I do some notes on my performance because I have very strong perfectionist side. But overall is this: I know my character and I need to defend her."
"On television or in the movies, the technique is a little different. Do you think you can channel your character in chopped times?"
"It is a matter of preparation. I know my only experience I have on camera is a short film directed by Quinn Fabray, but TV wasn't that different. Is still necessary to know very well who I am performing and this requires preparation. Otherwise, you become a pastiche of yourself."
"And when you need to be two characters?" Boris tried to entice me.
"It depends on who is dominant. In the case of Kate, she needs to perform Ophelia. So I know I can't be Rachel Berry experiencing Ophelia. It is essential to be Kate. If she's a good actress, her Ophelia must be great. But if she is bad, then the interpretation must also be bad. The biggest problem I see is if Kate is better actress than I am. I can deal with a different actress, but not a best one." I provoked laughter and think that was a good sign.
"Interesting. But tell me one thing, Rachel." Boris laced his fingers and leaned forward as if analyzing me over the background. "What if Kate is better actress than you think you are? What would you do?"
"In this case, I have to improve my acting skills somehow and make an effort to overcome myself."
"And what is your opinion about Kate, since you watched the original series?"
"She's very sweet and romantic. I good talent girl that try do to the right thing even though she is in a complicated situation of being a understudy of a crap actress, who is her bestfriend in the trupe, and having a relationship with the mains actor in Hamlet. But she overcome everything graciously and in an ethic way. I like her. Kate is my age. So, I think I understand her. There are things in life and in my own profession that I experience and I'm disappointed more than it should, because I'm an idealist above all else. Kate is too, but in a sense even more closed, which gives rise to prejudices. She struggles to break them."
"But if I told you that our Kate must have a bitchy side."
"Then, I will perform her as bitchy as you want me to be."
Boris Yves nodded at Carton and then to Linda. They whispered something before Carton talked to me.
"Okay, Rachel, this young man behind us is Luis Segal. Maybe you know him from dramatic plays in Broadway." So that's when I remembered him. He played All the King's Men and we've been view in the same charity's party with Broadway's actors. Josh made me donate $500 to an institution that time, but Luis and I weren't being introduced there. I waved to him. "Kate, may I introduce you Jack, our on-stage-screen Hamlet, who will be your romantic pair. I would love to see you to doing a scene."
"Sure."
Luis came to the stage with the script in hands and we talked briefly about how we would carry on. All under the watchful eye of the producers. Here's the situation: Kate was an actress who recently joined the cast of the classic theater company that was in financial trouble. She was a purist, a theater militant that believed that all good actors need to prove their values on-stage. Luis' character was a television actor and also a celebrity who sided with the company for a season to be recognized as a serious performer. The company accepted him as Hamlet because his name would attract sponsors. Kate and Jack, while developing an affair, come into ideological conflict. The scene that we should do is about it.
We perform the scene twice and I realized that our chemistry was good. Luis hugged me in the end of the second take as a sigh that we did great. Carton thanked and then gave us two sheets and asked to do a reading with intonation on a passage from Hamlet. Luis was Hamlet and I read Ophelia part, of course. I tried to give my best.
Ophelia: Good my lord. How does your honour for this many a day?
Hamlet: I humbly thank you, well, well, well.
Ophelia: My lord, I have remembrances of yours, that I have longed long to re-deliver; I pray you, now receive them.
Hamlet: No, not I; I never gave you aught.
Ophelia: My honour'd lord, you know right well you did; and with them, words of so sweet breath composed as made the things more rich: their perfume lost, take these again; for to the noble mind, rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. There, my lord.
We read the whole act and, once more, we did good. At least I thought so.
"That was very good, Rachel and Luis." Carton seemed happy when we finished. "Really good. That's why we like to deal with these theater guys, isn't it? Always burst with these texts."
"Thank you!" Luis said.
"Rachel Berry ..." Carton look one more time at my resume. "I'm hungry. By chance, would you and Josh are free for lunch? Luis? Can we talk a little more eating a good steak."
…
(Santana)
"Then you'll start this business of kitchen towels?" Johnny asked as drank his milkshake. "And you want me to get part of it as an artist to do sort of like a fashion collection or something?"
"Not only kitchen towels, although it will be the main product. The goal is prepare a collection with a few pierces each three months. It's not that complicated. You can create six draws and I'll release half now and the other half three months later."
"That's nice, San. But when you will start your company?"
"On June or July. I need at least two months to get the papers organized; I still have to convince zaide to be my partner or I won't have money to do anything. Must also correctly calculate the initial capital plus the raw materials and the prints are all guaranteed. I need to open firm ride site, contact partners, customers and coordinate collections. So, that's it: I have ahead three or four months organizing everything."
"It sounds exhausting, but also interesting."
"I will pay 200 bucks per drawing or photo and 5% in duties per pieces sold for a start, of course. That's why I need my friends now. I can't pay anybody known right now. So, I think it's a win-win situation: you help me and my company will help you projecting your name in the market."
"Sounds fair."
"It's a small company, Johnny Boy. I need to try to pay the initial costs in the first six months and not have significant loss in the other six months. If I manage to do it, then I can think on doing improvements after a year."
"Woah, a year?" He opened his eyes and stood up to take his milkshake.
"I know I should look for more pragmatic things, formal jobs, internships to help at home, but maybe Zaide is right about me. Maybe I even born to be entrepreneur to run a business, make plans, strategies mount. This is what I like to do besides singing. Better: I can make a lot of money with my business and spend a little bit recording some tracks and release them on-line for my personal satisfaction. The possibility to open my own business is very exciting..." I bite my burger.
"If you say so." Johnny smiled. He was so beautiful and he just
I didn't know when I began looking at Johnny like that. I liked him as a friend since the beginning, when we moved to New York and he helped us with almost everything. That time, he looked like a beggar, but I knew why: he was just recovering from a family tragedy: the reason he became a drunken pothead for a while. But the way he helped us just showed me how nice and decent guy he was. And I'm glad seeing he almost full recovered: his wardrobe got way better, his nails were always cut and clean, and his beard was shaved from time to time. He cut his hear a week ago and he looked actually very pretty. Johnny had a job, his own place, is smart, cool, and knew half city. Johnny was also was 25 and maybe he realized it was time to change, to leave his gilt behind to finally been a free adult. Maybe it was from there that I've begun to look at him more closely.
I tried to restrain myself because, on the other hand, I didn't want to betray my boyfriend for free (except with Brittany) and neither was willing to break up with Andrew. My boyfriend was a good person who helped me to ponder over the life of college experiments. I know that Rachel always talked about it, but Andrew actually was the one experimenting everything by my side, not Rachel or Quinn or even Johnny and Mike. Andrew knew how hard Columbia was and everything else, that's why he was the best person to help me to overcome all temptations and stay on the rails. I saw my close colleagues got stuck in traps. Matt lost the scholarship because they discovered he was a drug dealer in the campus. Izabella still couldn't let go her stripper life and she was doing a loose term because her night life. Another day, we saw a sextape recorded in a frat party where she was being fucked by two guys. Of course college is supposed to be a time of experimentations and I had mine's. But was that really important? You can go to parties, smoke weed, get drunk, and maybe have sex with a hot girl. But if you do this your routine, then there is a problem. Rachel and Andrew really hit this hammer. That's why I respected Andrew so much.
"What's the next step?" Johnny asked.
"First I need to put everything on the worksheet... I have a plan done, but not with values into my reality. What I will do now is a study directed to my chances. I want something functional, so that my grandfather didn't need to spend so much money and I don't take as much time to recover."
"Got it." He finished his milkshake. "Well, San, I'll help you with some drawings and try to show you by next week, if it is good for you, But I'm not sure I'm the kind of artist for your project."
"Of course you are perfect." Double meaning. "Your drawings are great and I'm sure your name will be more in evidence with this job."
"Right, I can draw, but it's not what I want to do for living…"
"What?"
"If I tell you something, could you keep a secret for now?"
"Of course!" I wasn't the best secrets keeper, but I struggled.
"I write..." I wanted to answer, but I restrained myself to understand better what Johnny wanted to tell "It's a thing I do since kid. Firstly I wrote poetry and then started with short stories. I was studying writing in NYU before I quit after my mom's death. I quit all my dreams for a while because of this. But this past year, I started writing again, little things, some tales. I showed them to an old friend of mine put my stories in a blog without my consent. Well, an editor liked and ordered me a book. It's a small publishing house and I have to pay part of the costs, but it's my dream coming true."
"Johnny… this is wonderful. What blog is this? I want to read your stories."
"Tales From Underground… it's not a terror tales blog, I assure you. It's just a name, and my stories are there. John Jr."
"E is for…"
"Edward."
"I didn't know that."
"As I don't know the L in your full name."
"And you don't have to know. I loved my daddy, but he had an awful taste on middle names. Rachel's middle name is Barbra. Go figure."
"Okay… so, I won't ask about it to Rachel."
"Because if you do, I will cut you from my project and, maybe, literally." He laughed.
"How is she, anyway? With her first Tony nomination, I mean?"
"Unbearable. She is doing an audition for a new job this afternoon and I think she wants to hire a publicist."
"Really. I know one!"
"Is there someone that you don't know?"
"Well…" I left him embarrassed.
"Sorry. Who is it?"
"Nina Morris. She opened an office a few months ago and works with small names… anyway, maybe it's not someone that Rachel needs."
"Or maybe it is. You should talk to her about it. I'm sure she will take your suggestion into consideration."
"Right… thanks…" He smiled again and then checked some message on the phone. "San, I loved your lunch but I have to back to work."
"Do you?"
"I have client waiting." He put some dollars on the table that was enough to pay our meals and the waitress tip. "Do you mind if I have to run away?"
"No, that's ok. Good job!"
He said goodbye to me giving me a kiss on the cheek, which made me blush. Thankfully my dark skin can hide it better or I'd be even more embarrassed.
I was the first to get home. Quinn came next talking about her new three times week job, which made me glad because she was so stressed about it that she was making me crazy with her doldrums. Them Rachel got home with more great news. She got the part to shot eight in ten episodes, which she would earn 20 thousand bucks each. I made the calculi and apart her agent's percentage and taxes, Rachel would have money enough for the rest of the year. We celebrate the news with champagne.
That's when I received the phone call.
Brittany's kid born.