Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Darcy sat with her arms crossed over her chest, her legs crossed tightly over one another. Physically she was actively working to contain herself, as Eliana wrapped up her lecture.
Her most recent lecture, for accuracy’s sake.
The issue – well, one of them – was that Darcy had never really done well being lectured at or talked down to.
It was one of the reasons she’d sucked so badly in school.
She wasn’t an idiot, contrary to what a handful of assholes used to say behind her back.
And sometimes to her face, depending on what level of a fight they were looking for.
To her own point, she didn’t give a damn if she got another suspension, so, yeah, she would throw down if necessary.
But she did terribly when trying to focus when she wasn’t dialed in and interested.
She knew basic algebra, so why, exactly, did she need to take calculus?
Nothing about it made any sense to her; the numbers blended together, and she was lost in math and science before even really getting started.
And every teacher she’d ever had got to the point where they were frustrated by her constant lack of understanding.
No, she couldn’t explain where, exactly, things started not making sense.
None of it made sense, right from the start.
She’d been unable to stand the way those teachers had stared at her. Like she was a total failure.
In some ways, she felt very similarly about this situation right now.
Eliana was different from her old, judgmental teachers, in just about every way. She was tall, dark-skinned, glamorous, and she didn’t make Darcy feel like she was an idiot even when she was lecturing.
Apparently, one of her specialties at the public relations firm We, The Romantics had been connected to once they’d signed their deal with Copper Canyon Records was to work with people experiencing a speedy rise to fame. From the start, Darcy had seen why.
She was constantly on top of… well, everything. She’d seen Eliana more frequently in the last six months than literally anyone else other than Blythe and Emerson, rivaled only with Zayd, their manager.
“Please tell me that we are on the same page here, Darcy,” Eliana finished, aiming a serious, expectant stare at her.
“We aren’t… not… on the same page,” she hedged.
Though Eliana was clearly frustrated with her response given the narrowing of her eyes, the reality was that Darcy was being honest with her because she respected Eliana and didn’t want to lie to her.
She reached up, rubbing her fingers over her temples, feeling her frustration – not at Eliana, but at Juliet – pulse through her. At this point, going an entire day without this feeling would be completely foreign to her.
“I’m sorry. I am. But she never stops! It’s been over a month since the NAMAs, since she started this. And I’m just supposed to completely ignore it? Ignore every time she insults me?”
“Yes,” Eliana stated firmly, hitting her hand on the table between them. “That’s exactly what you’re supposed to do. Because – as you said – she isn’t. And that’s exactly what we want at this point. If she’s going to keep taking shots at you, let her. It’s a much better look for you to rise above.”
Darcy winced; she’d never been very good at that.
Eliana looked down at her tablet.
“Let’s see here. When Juliet says something like, I can’t help but find it amusing when Darcy speaks as though she has multiple successful albums under her belt already.
Maybe she could come and talk to me once she’s been doing this for more than five minutes.
How many people are capable of a single hit album but then end up going to work at the bowling alley back home?
” Eliana recited, looking up at her, expectantly.
“What do you think would have been a good response to that, when prompted?”
Darcy’s stomach sank.
Eliana continued without needing an answer from her.
“Let’s go to the tape and look at what you said, hmm?
I think that spending the last ten years working hard not in the music industry has only given me more to write about.
I’m not shocked that Juliet doesn’t realize that; when someone has never had to worry about anything of substance, it must be difficult to try to create anything that has impact and range. ”
Hearing her own comments echoed back to her, Darcy slumped back in her chair.
“I’m thinking perhaps you didn’t have to sink to her level and respond?” Eliana questioned, but it wasn’t really a question.
“You’re… probably correct,” she acknowledged, grudgingly.
But she’d been so burned up about it. How dare Juliet Jacobs – someone who had a silver fucking spoon in her mouth long before finding musical success – impugn her work ethic?
Even though Darcy had only found success earlier this year, she’d been making music for a long time.
She just hadn’t been lucky enough to find her break earlier in life.
“The first part of this comment.” Eliana tapped her index finger against her screen. “I will accept it, if you had to respond.” She darted her eyes up to Darcy, locking her in. “However, you didn’t have to take the next step, where you directly bring up Juliet.”
Only, Darcy had known Juliet would be listening. She’d known Juliet would be waiting for what she’d say next, with this same heated anticipation Darcy felt about her.
“Heard,” she acknowledged, grudgingly. Because she did get what Eliana was saying, conceptually.
Eliana looked back down at her tablet, clearing her throat. “Truthfully, I can’t wait for Darcy’s next album, because I really can’t wait to see what someone with her incredible literary expertise and education background comes up with.”
Darcy felt the little muscle in her bottom eyelid twitch as Eliana repeated one of Juliet’s other comments about her, one that had been made on her Wake Up, New York interview.
It wasn’t like Darcy had made some sort of elaborate show of hiding that she didn’t technically finish high school. Darcy wasn’t a liar, even if it meant people might judge her.
But… it wasn’t like that was something that was just known about her, either.
As far as she knew, it wasn’t like there were enclaves of people dissecting her decision to get a GED.
No, for Juliet to have made that comment, Darcy felt like she was taking this – this thing between them to the next level.
Because Juliet obviously had started looking more into her life. She wanted to make things more personal. For all Darcy knew, the next thing Juliet was going to bring up would be Darcy’s mother and her abandonment.
And lord help Eliana if/when that day came, because Darcy wasn’t sure even a literal muzzle could keep her mouth shut.
Eliana cleared her throat. “Now, what would be a good response to this latest piece I read? Because, personally, I’m thinking you ignore it – and Juliet – entirely.”
“I just don’t understand why she started it in the first place,” she tossed her hands in the air, frustrated exasperation cutting through her.
“Zayd and I can work on nailing down her team to have a conversation,” Eliana swiftly said, clearly anticipating where this conversation would go.
“It’s been a little difficult to get a direct meeting immediately because of Juliet’s tour.
” Eliana waved that away, “I understand that you’re used to fighting your own battles, Darcy.
But this is literally my job; let me manage this. ”
Darcy took in a long, deep breath, holding for several seconds.
Before she calmly, measuredly, blew it out.
And even though she was reluctant to do so, she nodded.
This was Eliana’s job, and she was really damn good at it, even if Darcy wobbled on being able to apply her consistent media training the way she should.
“In the meantime, focus on this. Finishing up your album.” Eliana gestured around them in the studio. “You do what you do best, and so will I.”
Darcy worked her jaw back and forth, but nodded, again.
“Great.” Eliana aimed a no-bullshit stare at Darcy. “And because I’ve gotten to know you these past few months, I’d appreciate if you would give me your word that you won’t comment on Juliet in any more interviews.”
Darcy couldn’t help but balk at that. She could try, but…
“Even though they’re always bringing her up?” It felt inescapable by now. Every time she was doing anything – interviews about her last album, about their upcoming album, about her life – they brought Juliet up, always mentioning whatever the most recent snarky comment was.
The look in Eliana’s eyes was sharp. “Especially because they’re always bringing her up.
Don’t feed into it.” Her phone chirped. Even though she didn’t look down at it, she seemed to know exactly what the alert was.
“I have to jump into a call, but I’ll get you on the line later and we can workshop some deflections for you to use.
Or you can workshop them with Blythe, and you can run them by me for approval. ”
Blythe was truly talented at dodging comments she didn’t want to answer. So good at giving a butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth smile accompanied by bland words to move the conversation along.
An impressive talent that Darcy didn’t – and had never – possessed.
With that, Eliana closed the case on her tablet and tucked it away in her designer bag, before she stood.
As always, she offered Darcy a short, firm handshake, paired with her blindly white smile, that always seemed genuinely warm.
She was, truly, a master at being the utmost professional while exuding a friendliness that never felt fake. “We’ll chat again soon.”
Darcy melted back into the comfy chair, dropping her head back and tightly closing her eyes. Exhaustion thrummed through her body, even on the heels of being thoroughly chastised.
When the door opened, she knew Blythe and Emerson had returned even without opening her eyes.
“So…” Emerson led, quietly.
“Did it take Eliana to knock some sense into you?” Blythe asked, with the bluntness that came so naturally to her.
Darcy blinked her eyes open, purely to aim an eyeroll at her. “You know, both of you would be feeling very differently about this Juliet thing if she was attacking either of you. And I wouldn’t be telling you that you’re overreacting.”
She felt very confident about that. She’d be firmly on either of their sides.
“I never said you were overreacting,” Emerson refuted with a frown.
“Fine, you didn’t,” she conceded, because she wasn’t trying to put words in her best friends’ mouth. “But you did say I needed to just move past it.”
And Emerson hadn’t said it dismissively. She’d been sympathetic to Darcy when Juliet had continuously taken aim toward her, but still. Darcy would never tell Emerson or Blythe to just “get over it” when they were being personally attacked.
“I said you were overreacting,” Blythe took ownership, as she settled on the arm of the couch next to Darcy.
“And not because I don’t think Juliet is being shitty, but because…
who cares what she thinks? She doesn’t know you, you don’t know her.
So, you have to stop letting yourself get twisted up by anything she says. ”
Blythe shrugged, like it was as simple as that.
Darcy did understand where her sister was coming from, conceptually.
She’d spent ten years doing everything she could to become successful, and she’d been told a lot of not-so-great things along the way.
A lot of no’s, being completely blown off, not being taken seriously.
Occasionally having her talent insulted.
After a competition last year, she’d had a brutal slap of reality.
She didn’t know Juliet, that was true.
But she’d spent years of her life admiring her. They were the same age – literally to the day. The summer when Darcy’s teenage life had been thrown into chaos because of her mother leaving, Juliet’s first album had skyrocketed.
There was this person doing exactly what Darcy wanted to do. And she was talented. And she seemed nice – ha – and approachable, and…
It was really stupid, but her insults felt personal to Darcy.
She should be beyond taking things personally from beautiful, wealthy girls; she’d had enough of that in high school.
Then again, maybe that was one of the reasons why Juliet so easily got under her skin.
Her comments picked at scars that Darcy had worked really hard to try to heal. The comments insulting her intelligence bounced her right back to school, where her hyper fixated ADHD and dyscalculia had been a fucking uphill battle.
And most of all, the comments Juliet loved to fire off about how Darcy’s star might be on the rise, but that she could very easily crash and burn.
That fear of crashing and burning was what kept her up at night, and Juliet was constantly broadcasting it to the world. Over the course of the last month, they’d gotten to the point where Darcy heard Juliet’s voice in the back of her mind, living there with her own. Echoing her deepest fear.
Her phone vibrated on the table next to her, and she slid her gaze to it, looking at the notification that lit up on her screen. It very clearly was from an alert that also had Juliet’s name attached.
Darcy only had one alert set – whenever Juliet Jacobs talked about her.
In spite of the conversation with Eliana, everything inside of Darcy immediately burned brighter, her blood thrumming through her veins.
She’d been dead tired – as she was constantly, these days – but these hits of Juliet-news breathed life into her whenever it happened.
At least Juliet was good for one thing, she supposed.
Blythe groaned. “Darcy! I thought you were shutting those notifications off.”
“Well. I didn’t.” It was the only thing she could say, because obviously, she hadn’t. Not exactly a good defense.
“How are you planning to ignore Juliet and her asinine comments when you won’t even shut off receiving notifications about her?” Blythe questioned with a groan, rubbing her fingers over her eyes.
“You literally just told Eliana you wouldn’t say anything back,” Emerson quietly nudged her. Not in admonishment, but a reminder.
Darcy narrowed her eyes down at her phone. “You’re right,” she muttered, but she felt energized by the new idea already finding a rhythm in her mind. “And I won’t say anything.”
She wouldn’t have to.