33. Harlowe
After forty-five, mind numbing minutes of trying to edit footage of me playing the violin because my dumbass decided to use the massive tip Luca gave me to add a line to my cell phone plan so I could have more than one angle of me playing, I decided I absolutely wanted to play whatever game Orion Hart was trying to start.
It was Monday, and it was weird being at grad school with no classes.
Rehearsals were starting back up and I didn’t meet with my advisors every day.
I had all day free before rehearsal. I could have booked a practice room and hid in there all day, but even antisocial bat people needed friends and I liked the dancers here.
I showed up to the common room with my precisely ten gallon tankard of coffee and they were there in layers like they always were stretching and talking. Leif was there with them this time and he was clearly a lot more comfortable here than he was at dinner.
“Hi, Harlowe,” he grinned. “We were just discussed why Cullen and Rue didn’t convince me warming up here was better than the studio where Belinda and Harmony won’t shut up about their parts in The Nutcracker.”
I only knew Belinda was one of Mother Ginger’s children because Azriel kept assaulting her on stage. Cullen saw the look on my face and grinned.
“You know the bear that has to stand there and just shake their butt in the big sweaty costume while Paige and Gillian do their duet as the dolls? The Nutcracker has a huge cast and there are a lot of roles that pantomime instead of dance. They usually cast children and parents in those roles.
“The dance department this year is huge, so some of the roles they would have borrowed from the theatre department are cast with dancers. A good bit of the dancers are double or triple cast. Like, they might have an acting role in the party scene, but a good bit of them are snowflakes or flowers, which are challenging roles. The ones that didn’t even try at auditions because they thought they were owed a part because of seniority didn’t.
We’ve actually gotten several motivational speeches about it where this was explained to them, but they think Rue slept with someone. ”
“You too? Isobel is telling everyone I fucked Faustus.”
“Leif, Isobel is the reason we didn’t try that hard to convince you to warm up here. She can’t get to you in the studio.”
“Did you report her? I heard Faustus thinks men can’t be sexually harassed.” I said.
“Faustus is a fossil who thinks it’s still the Dark Ages, but with Wi-Fi.
Leif can’t report Isobel because her daddy is loaded, a politician, and on the board of a ton of arts organizations to help Isobel get a job.
She’s also an only child and his only child wants to be a violin player.
He could end Leif’s career before he graduated because Faustus would probably tell his biggest donor who made the complaint. ”
A piece of the puzzle. He could have me blackballed too, and I barely paid attention to his daughter. I’d never ask JaToya to do anything that would put her at risk and if Faustus was protective of his meal ticket, I couldn’t ask him. Which meant I had to go with Plan A and ask Topher.
“Ignore her,” Leif said. “I do.”
Yeah, did Leif know how many dancers were running interference to keep her away from him? Or that I’d been asked to as well? Leif was getting a lot of help to ignore her.
“She thinks she should be the one to write your ballet. She’s going to come for Harlowe,” Rue said.
“She doesn’t compose, though. I was fair.
When she found out I was looking for a composer for my ballet, she asked and I told her to send me a link to her compositions.
She said she didn’t have any. She’s never composed anything before.
Isobel said she would figure it out if I hired her, but it doesn’t work like that. ”
No, it didn’t. It was a skill just like playing the violin. You couldn’t just wing it.
“We do need to get to class,” Rue said. “We were also talking about doing a video to your music. Cullen and I were trying to figure out a dance, but Leif is better at that. We should have something to show you by tomorrow. Leif is going to record something for Cullen and me to learn. We’re only in the second act, so we can practice at rehearsal. ”
“Don’t hurt yourself on my account. I don’t know any of this ballet stuff. You handle the dance and I’ll handle the music.”
Cullen pointed his stretchy band at me.
“I think I found the perfect music for you to show us Lurch.”
I just laughed. I really liked Cullen.
“No music, no Lurch.”
Rue started giggling.
“He’s so invested in this, the rest of us are now too. Hey, the cool dancers are getting together in my room tonight to blow off steam before the performance and finals. You should come.”
“Yeah, I think I will.”
The dancers needed to get to class, and I needed to get to a practice room. I had a feeling my mysterious cello player would be there and whenever she joined me, Topher usually popped into my room.
I had some questions about Isobel.