A/N: Thank you for reading my story and the responses! I don't know much about the system as to how to change top managements in the US (I'm so estranged from management or business administration for that matter anyway, so all mistakes are mine), but I'm trying to place that kind of things happening from here, like, with Beiste's help, Rachel, Finn, and their friends are going to try to overthrow the current management team of Sylvester Publishing!
Disclaimer: I do not own Glee and its characters.
Chapter 13 – July/August 2012
Shannon Beiste was carefully listening to the photographer telling as to what had happened to Rachel and Mr. Schuester and The Musicraker so far, while finishing touches on a lens-camera mount adapter for him.
"–Which means, Rachel and Mr. Schuester technically might have gotten laid off earlier, so that the magazine could be discontinued at the end of the year." Letting out a sigh, finished Finn, who frequented Beiste's small work studio in Dumbo when he had no work.
As Finn looked up to see the craft woman's face, she handed the adapter out to him without a word, nor with looking at him. He frowned as he saw her sporting an unreadable expression on her face and looking into the space. "Did I say something wrong?" He cautiously asked, studying her face.
Beiste snapped out of her thoughts and shifted her eyes from the space to the photographer. "Uh, no." She shook her head. "You did say nothing wrong, Finn. I just–"
Relieved, Finn started examining the handmade lens-camera adapter.
"I just don't understand." Beiste continued. She cocked her head to one side with a frown before she neatly put her tools into the metal box.
Too busy with examining the adapter in awe, Finn almost failed to hear what Beiste had said. He scratched the back of his head in embarrassment, internally cursing himself, for that he might have explained the situation not so well. "I'm not good with words, so–"
"Oh, no, no, no," Beiste dismissed with a waving hand, "I didn't mean that." She stood up to her full height, which was as tall as Finn was, as she took her work apron off before taking off her magnifying glass from her head too. She put the glass aside on the large wooden work desk and hung the apron on one of the hooks on the wall before pulling her black knee socks back on. "What I meant is," she circled around the desk and sat on the couch next to Finn, her arm crossing in front of her chest, her eyes towards the ceiling, "why does The Musicraker have to be discontinued? I mean, the company boosted profits last year and the circulation and sales of The Musicraker are taking off, you know, in this day and age."
"Really?" Confused, Finn frowned. "How do you know?"
"Um," Beiste ran a hand through her short, black curly hair, "actually, I'm one of the board of directors with treasury stock." She confided.
Surprised, Finn widened his eyes and stared at the middle aged woman before him at a loss for words for a moment. So she began telling him about her relation to the company from the beginning.
Finn learned that her grandfather had founded a small publishing company called JBB Publications, right after World War I, long before she was born. The company used to publish the former The Musicraker named BMM, but it eventually got into financial trouble because her father, who had taken her grandpa's place, began suffering from cancer, which was the time when Beiste was about to enter a college. And JBB Publications ended up being consolidated by Sylvester Publishing in the late '80s.
"The position of the board member and the right of the major shareholders are like an inheritance from my father." Beiste apprised before adding. "My mother was a photographer like you, you know, that was how my parents met."
"Haven't you ever thought to be a photographer?" Finn curiously asked.
"Never." Beiste vigorously laughed. "I'm wearing a matching shirt," with a forefinger, she pointed to Finn's blue striped rugby shirt, then to her own different shade of blue colored rugby shirt, "but I'm a mechanic, not an artist." Finn joined her laughter. "I used to play with my mother's cameras and was always scolded when I was a kid. Well, sometimes thanked." She broke into a smile, remembering her childhood.
Finn wagged his head repeatedly, hearing Beiste's interesting background.
"Anyway," Beiste cleared her throat, "this is just an assumption, but, uh," she paused for a moment before carefully speaking, "Sylvester might want to eject JBB family with The Musicraker from the company." She frowned.
"JBB family?"
Beiste nodded. "Yeah. The officers, the board members, the shareholders. Sylvester Publishing has still some people from the days my father's company was under private management, you know, they used to work for JBB or some of them are their family members." Her frown between her eyebrows got deeper. "There was a discrepancy between JBB and Sylvester Publishing at the merger agreement."
Interesting. Finn had enough time today. He leaned forwards and asked. "Could you please tell me more details?"
"So, you're saying that Sue doesn't like that JBB family still works, fills seats, or has the company's shareholders?" Tina was the first one to open its mouth. She and her friends/colleagues working at Sylvester Publishing met up at William Schuester's apartment in Upper West Side.
"Why am I here?" Santana bluntly said, folding her arm across her chest.
"That's my line." Petulantly murmured Puck, who had been dragged into the meeting by Mercedes.
"Why not?" Brittany, who was sitting next to the Latina, clapped her hands happily. "Sounds interesting!"
"We need your help, San." Rachel pleaded. "You have very special psychic Mexican third eye. And you," She turned her head to face her cousin, who was sandwiched between Rachel and Mercedes, "have it your way if you don't want to cooperate with us." She pushed the Mohawk hard.
"No, Rachel, he has to stay." Mercedes demanded. "He can be useful since Becky still has a thing for him." She threw a sharp glare at Puck.
"Sorry, I made you guys wait." Schuester's wife, Emma, chimed in as she walked into the living room, managing to steer a dinner wagon which was full of snacks and sweets and the right amount of glasses of iced tea, before beginning carefully putting one by one on the coffee table, putting her hand on her swollen stomach.
"I'll help." Marley jumped out of the couch to help the very pregnant woman. She was getting annoyed with her new boss, Mr. Tanaka, which only made her more eagerly help her former boss.
"Anyway," Will started, "Beiste's theory is comprehensible." He settled back against his recliner, his arms on the back of his head. "Some of the management team were always against my decisions without hearing me out, but some related to JBB were very understanding people and always careful listeners." He sighed, rather telling himself more than informing to his (former) workers. "I know that Sue's attempted to get rid of the JBB people from the top management, but failed so far, thanks to some of the shareholders and the board members, who I believe are related to JBB."
"If Beiste's right, JBB people of the top management are likely to be in danger to lose their job too." Kitty pointed out and crossed her arms in front of her chest with a frown on her face, leaning back into the sofa.
"If so, what's going to happen?" Jake cautiously asked as he picked a bag of snacks from the coffee table.
"Large round of layoffs." Artie said, nodding at himself plausibly.
"But appointing only yes-men to the important posts doesn't work for any companies." Tina frowned before whispering in her boyfriend's ear. "Do you think your boss is one of them?"
"Cooter?" Mike arched his eyebrow. "I don't know, but I've heard he'd hooked up with Sue once or twice." He revealed matter-of-factly. The senior writer of Athlester's revelation got every one of the people in the living room nauseous. "What? Nobody knew?"
"I can't help but wonder how you guy's company works to begin with." Santana snorted. "CEO is creepy pedophilia Sandy Ryerson in pink, the president is nothing but bossy shorty Dakota Stanley. Hello?" She rolled her eyes and shook her head.
Ryder held his hand straight up in the air before remarking as he saw Schuester nodding for him to encourage. "That's why they have a lot of able workers." He reasoned, which surprised everyone, who were now looking at Finn's assistant with a stunning face. He made a face, looking over them. "What? Did I say something wrong?"
"No, you just spotted on." Blaine reassured, patting Ryder on the back.
Kurt cleared his throat to get the meeting to be back on track. "What's her real intention, anyway?"
"That's why I asked you guys to be here today." Finn started explaining. "We're going to gather the necessary information to worm it out. I can't say what's gonna happen, I mean," he glanced at Rachel out of the corner of his eye, "I don't know whether or not we could stop the magazine from the discontinuance, o-or Mr. Schuester and Rachel could regain their positions, even if we would figure it out, but, uh–"
"At least we could let the people who might lose their jobs know in advance, yeah." Mercedes finished his sentence.
Matt nodded. "Yeah, we should be prepared for the worst possible scenario, you know, Athlester and Survêtement could possibly be discontinued too."
"Alright, what is my role played by?" Lauren demanded, her arms across her chest.
Out of her tote bag, Rachel pulled the to-do-list copies. "I typed the names and phone numbers of the shareholders and the board members who could probably cooperate with us." She handed them out to each of the people. "And in order to share the information easily–"
"Or not to talk about this at the office," Mercedes added.
Rachel affirmatively nodded at the senior editor of The Musicraker, "I created the mailing list, which is typed on the bottom."
"Beiste said that we could use the upstairs of her studio when the meeting would be necessary." Finn informed.
"Awwww, cloak-and-daggery!" Brittany announced in a chirpy voice, clapping her hands.
"Or you can use my apartment anytime you want." Will suggested.
"What about Jesse?" Tina asked, shifting her eyes from the copy in her hands to her tiny brunette of a best friend. "Finding him is not on this to-do-list."
"We should focus more on Sue right now." Rachel let out a sigh. "But I'm working on it."
"Okaaay," Mercedes chimed in, clapping her hands to get the others' attention, "let's get to work."
Since they formed DIA (Dumbo Intelligent Agency), Rachel started getting slightly energetic, but still no sparks in her eyes. Something was still bugging her. He thought. Was that about Jesse's missing? Of course it was. But there was something else.
Too absorbed in thought, Finn almost failed to catch the name reaching his ears, which his assistant had just mentioned. "What did you say?" Snapping out, he asked.
"I think I saw Jesse." Ryder repeated.
"What? Where?" Finn flew out from the media booth—they were currently in Hyde Park in London in order to take photographs of the music event for another magazine and its web site—to look around the crowd restlessly with the strained eyes. He, however, couldn't confirm any creatures in a form of the douche within his sight. It was impossible for anybody to find someone in this massive crowd. Frustrated, he ran a hand through his messy hair and turned around to face his assistant. "What did he look like? What did he wear? Where and when exactly did you see the Jackass?" He rattled off questions at Ryder.
"Um," The assistant shifted on his pipe chair, scratching his head, "he was wearing a black T-shirt and black jeans, like, as his usual self." He took a thoughtful expression on his face for a second. He folded his arms in front of his chest, one hand rubbing his jaw line. "But I think his hair seemed shorter than the last time I'd seen him." He tilted his head to one side. "His hair was… blow-back style? Is that a correct word? I don't know much about fashion and hair style, so…"
Finn nodded before encouraging Ryder to go on.
"And he just walked across from there," Ryder pointed to the area nearby the food booth, "to there," he pointed to the opposite direction, "before you did ask me 'what did you say?'" He saw Finn slumping his shoulders down. "I should've chased after him." He said apologetically, looking down at the ground.
"It's fine." Finn let out a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck. "We can't ditch this assign." He assured, though he was sure that he would have ditched the work and hounded Jesse to the end of the world if he were the one to see the douche bag. So he blamed himself—he should've listened to Ryder carefully. "We've got to know that he's in London at least." He pulled out his cell phone out of his back pocket before texting Rachel about what Ryder had seen.
"Alright," Finn called out to his assistant as he picked up one of his camera bags and hung it on his shoulder, "it's time to work."
For now.
"I understood the situation you've been in. So I'll let you have your own time to think about it." The African American woman wearing Turban round her head smoothly stood up from the chair and held her hand for Rachel to shake. "But I'm looking forward a positive reply from you at the end of this month, Ms. Berry."
"Please call me Rachel." The tiny brunette also got out of her chair and took the woman's hand. "I had the very privilege to meet you, Madam Tibideaux." She saw the woman in a silk cape nodding with a stern face before elegantly walking her way over out of a French restaurant close to MoMA.
After having seen the woman off from inside of the restaurant, Rachel finally allowed her own body to be freed from the muscle strain. She let out a deep sigh—she didn't know how long she had been holding her breath by nervousness. Because, she was the Madam Tibideaux! The Madam Tibideaux, who had been rumored that she would be given a title of Dame in the near future, had been sitting at the same table with her!
Carmen Tibideaux was the publisher of Tibideaux & Heughan, which was well known as the best art/photography publishing company in the world.
If the phone call hadn't been from T&M (not the person herself, of course), Rachel wouldn't have gone out of her way to be here from her childhood house in New Jersey. This was T&M we were talking about. As she had said to Madam Tibideaux at parting, just sitting at the same table with her was the privilege.
Rachel had never ever imagined that she would have a possible opportunity to work at T&H, let alone they would get interested in her (somehow, Madam Tibideaux knew who Rachel Berry was. The publisher of T&H even had mentioned the special featured articles of New Directions).
Sure, she had known about the publishing company and had some copies of their publications—one of them was a photography collection of Condé Nast Publications, like Vogue and GQ, which she betted that Kurt and Tina definitely would be surprised, and they probably would mock, saying it was impossible for a person who owned such a book to have some (poor) taste in fashion. Meanwhile, she really, and honestly, had not the slightest thought that she was going to apply a job at T&M.
For one, the company was based in London.
For two, working at The Musicraker was her dream, not at T&M.
She knew that she had an appreciation for photography. Yet, not a book editor, but a magazine editor—an editor of The Musicraker, specifically—was her destiny, at least she had thought, when she took a copy of an old issues of The Musicraker at a local music shop in New Jersey in her hands two days after she had been forced to give up her previous dream, a singer.
The copy of the issue was full of the things that she had loved. Great articles, talented musicians (neglected ones included), artistically beautiful photographs, splendid editorial design, even letters of the texts themselves—typography was an art to her eyes.
Magazine, or music for that matter, was never called the fine arts, and usually people dumped it into a garbage can once they finished reading. But for Rachel, to her eyes, every tiny detail in a magazine formed into one great piece of art work. You could own that piece of art full of information with only 15 dollars.
And musicians, photographers, writers, art directors, editorial designers, or even editors, those who were involved in a magazine, would spread their wings to fly high around the world in the future.
The Musicraker was one of the few legit music magazines to make that kind of things happen. She used to dream about that she would be the one featured in the magazine. But after the laryngitis surgery, her dream changed—she wanted to be the one to make things happen for them.
But now, The Musicraker was in danger of folding, let alone she had become history at Sylvester Publishing—even if she and her friends could bring the supposedly discontinuation of the magazine to a halt, there would be no way she was going to get re-hired as long as Sue was the chairman.
What mattered to her right now was, what was she supposed to do? More precisely, what would she want to do?
She would be lying if she had said that she had never thought of producing/editing a photography book. But she had always thought that that would be happening at The Musicraker if she would be allowed.
Did she want to work at T&M? A book editor and a magazine editor were more different than might first be surmised. And if she said yes to Madam Tibideaux, she had to move out of the City, which meant that she had to be far away from the people who she loved. Could she really do that?
Besides, she had a lot of things to take care of right now.
She was standing at the crossroad.
Rachel took a deep breath again. She looked around to find a waiter in order for another glass of red wine. While waiting for her order to be delivered, she pulled her cell phone out of her purse to ask Mercedes to meet up as she noticed that Finn had texted her.
Ryder happened to see Jesse at Hyde Park. Was just a blink, didn't make sure the person really was him. I'll keep you posted. Oh hey, you have a copy of Anton Corbijn's WERK but don't A SOMEBODY, and looking for the copy, right? Found one yesterday. Wait for me to bring it back to the City in 10 days. ;) – Finn
Widened her eyes, Rachel gasped as she got to know that Jesse could be in London or somewhere in the UK.
Jesse had an older sister, Lily, who was a journalist and had worked in London for a while before (but Rachel didn't know where she was working right now, since she had met her only once, but at least she knew Jesse's sister was not in London now). And she now remembered that Jesse once had mentioned that his uncle lived somewhere close to London. Why didn't she try to reach for his sister sooner? Why didn't she realize that he could be in the UK to lay low sooner?
Rachel pulled out her worn-out journal out of her purse and frantically flipped through it, remembering there was her cell phone number somewhere in it.
Four minutes and another glass of wine later, Rachel finally found it. She carefully pressed the number on the screen before waiting for Lily to pick up her phone (and internally praying the number hadn't been changed).
"Hello?"
"Lily? Lily St. James?"
"Yes, who is it?"
"Rachel, Rachel Berry."
A/N: 'T&H' exists in the real world, but it is short for 'Thames & Hudson,' which is also well known as one of the best publishers of illustrated books on art, architecture, design and photography. It's a London based independent/family-typed publisher, and has two distinct headquarters in New York and Paris. T&H in this story (Tibideaux & Heughan) is also a London based independent publisher, but doesn't have any distinct headquarter.
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