Chapter 12
Julie
“What do you think you’re doing?” I said, sounding approximately as insane as I felt, the instant Helena was out of the room, and Krysten laughed.
“How long do you intend to live a life of lies, my dear?”
“I wasn’t intending to do any of this. I was intending to wash my hands of this and step away after having done a good deed for my friends!”
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and you are driving dangerously fast down it.” She leaned back in her chair, holding her coffee up with one hand, gesturing as she did, somehow not spilling the coffee even though she came infinitesimally close over and over.
She seemed to always do that, and it gave me even more anxiety than my baseline level lately. “You should tell her the truth.”
“Tell her what, that I’m a sad loser who lives in a laundry closet with no job and no hopes and that I’ve been lying to her this whole time?
She won’t…” Won’t talk to me anymore. Was that what it came down to?
Really? I’d asked myself before why I didn’t just come clean, but I knew it would be disastrous if I just told her.
But disastrous how? Sure, she could talk about me, ruin my reputation, but…
what fucking reputation was there to ruin?
Was I really just desperate for her to keep talking to me?
I wondered what choice I’d made in life that led me to every other wrong choice it was possible for a person to make. Then I remembered that obviously it was calling Kingmaker, and at least I felt better for having a specific person to be pissed off at.
“Well, then I suppose it is up to you!” Krysten said, her hands up. “I will not tell you how you may live your one precious life. I look forward to hearing how you maintain your secret identity.”
“Did you literally do this just to put me on the spot?”
She laughed. “You must think me quite clever to have come up with a scheme like that! And you would be right. Yes, my dear, that is precisely what happened.”
“I swear to—” I clasped my hands together, making a long, frustrated noise.
This was Estelle’s fault. I should have just accepted that Helena didn’t want to talk to me anymore, and then I’d go and contribute for Jewel, and the whole thing would have faded away.
I’d thought for a second I’d had it figured out, that maybe I was doing okay after all, once I got the studio under Kingmaker’s office to sign on, but I’d taken one step forward and two steps back now.
But it wasn’t like I had a choice. June’s rent wasn’t going to pay itself, and neither was Daniel’s bill. I slurped my coffee moodily, setting it down with a frustrated sigh.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll make it work. It’s… I’ll figure it out. What do you want me to do, anyway? Keep banging on doors?”
“And make a fool of yourself? No, no. I have gained just slightly enough respect for you to not leave you to embarrass yourself publicly.”
“What—you had a different strategy in mind this whole time and you just wanted to embarrass me?”
She didn’t answer. “We have one studio that has signed up with us now, and we will use that to get the others to pay attention. The fear of missing out is a powerful tool. We will make everyone think that all the best things in the industry are happening with Jewel, and then they will be scrambling to catch up. In this city, everybody always feels like they are one step from falling behind. They will be desperate to sign on.”
Oh, preying on the desperate. Now this was putting Kingmaker’s teachings to use. “Okay… so how do we do that?”
“I have discussed this with Liv, because she is as vain as she is pretty, and she cares for nothing beyond the optics, which makes her perfect for this. We will have an event. You are no longer trying to sell industry professionals on the app, but inviting them to this event. You will need to leverage your industry connections to cast a wide net.”
“Krysten, I don’t have industry connections.”
“Well, then it is a good thing you have a smart woman who specializes in connections!” She leaned forward, setting down her coffee and folding her arms on the table. “Just do take care you do not get too distracted by a pretty face.”
“I-I’m not… um…” I shuffled in my seat. “Is it that obvious?”
“This one thinks I am deaf, blind and dumb. It is obvious that she is also quite fond of you.”
“Oh, god, Krysten. She thinks I’m married. And her friend told me under no circumstances am I to do anything with her.”
“Then why do you not tell the truth? Your head is a birdcage whose bird does not sing.”
“Because.” I hugged myself. Because I’m not good enough for her was not something I was saying out loud at a table with other people. “Because reasons.”
“Because reasons, she says. This one will be the end of me, I swear it.”
I was going to be the end of myself, too, at this rate. I really needed to change course, and fast.
∞∞∞
My body was held together by a couple of clothespins, some chewing gum, and a dream by the time Monday rolled around.
I hadn’t taken a day off from my eighteen-hour shifts of running myself ragged all over the city, and I was starting to disassociate as I dumped another handful of trail mix into my mouth and checked myself in my phone camera before I headed into the studio, a more upscale venue than my regular one.
Which, granted, wasn’t saying much, but still, nice place.
My suit felt a little out of place at the other one, but here I felt right, especially telling the guy at the front that I was here to meet some people, and asking if either of Stephen Shale or Helena Warrick had come in yet.
“Mr. Shale is already in room 4, ma’am,” he said. “You’ll find it down the hall on the left. I can send Ms. Warrick in after you, if you like.”
“Thank you, that’d be awesome.” I’d meant to say something like lovely or wonderful, but I was getting delirious. Whatever. Awesome it was. “Have an awesome day.” Shit, there was awesome again. I was slipping.
Stephen Shale lit up when I came in the room.
He’d finally gotten over his terrified nerves, and he seemed to like hanging out and getting pumped up with me, so here we were.
He was even starting to dress a little bit less like a prep school dork, with a new hoodie that had a shocking black-and-yellow industrial design and a beanie that was, admittedly, a little too neat and proper on his head.
“Stephen motherfucking Shale,” I said, raising a hand to dap him up, and he met the energy. I adjusted his hat for a more relaxed style, and I gave his shoulder a shove. “What’s this hoodie? You look badass, dude.”
“Ha, thanks. I got it from my momma’s friend.”
“Ugh, way to kill the vibe, man. Next time say you got it from a street vendor under an overpass in Queens.”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. Where’s the new girl?”
“Helena’s probably going to be on time. You and I are just early. And I’m glad you are, because we’ve gotta talk.” I pulled up a stool, dropping onto it with my hands between my legs, leaning forwards. “Listen, we’ve gotta get that hit.”
“Oh, uh, I’m trying.”
“No, you’ve been learning, rehearsing. Now it’s time to put that to good use. I think you’re ready to go for it, dude.”
He lit up. “You think so?”
Not even remotely. He was still green as hell, and all the learning I’d crammed in about music just gave me new ways to describe how he didn’t know what he was doing.
But recruiting other talent turned out to be harder than I thought, and I wasn’t about to let Helena find out I was a talent agent representing a grand total of one talent.
I’d gotten a handful of other people to sign up, spending the weekend in so many music venues that my ears were still ringing, talking to artists who were so shit that nobody else would stoop to the level of taking them up, and I only had to say a couple of things about my qualifications—things that were technically true, if a little misrepresented—to get them to sign up.
But out of all of them, there was only this one girl who actually showed up to anything, a wannabe punk rocker who had probably had one shower in her life and spent all her money on amps in hopes she would get better at guitar if she had an expensive enough one, and she…
wasn’t winning any Grammies any time soon.
At the very least, my lists in the app didn’t just have Stephen Shale anymore. And for the rest, well, I’d gotten pretty good at making shit up.
So I continued to make shit up, and I said, “Hell yeah, dude. You’ve felt it, haven’t you? You got the rhythm and flow inside your bones.”
“Yo, yo,” he said, apparently picking up my near-rhyme to turn it into a rap. “You’re goddamn right, I feel it really… right.” His face fell.
“Uh-huh, yeah, well, freestyle ain’t your beat, but that’s all right. You’ll learn.” I waved him off. “We’re going to have an event in June. You’ve gotta be ready to hit the stage for it.”
“I’m ready now, man.”
“Dude, you don’t have any songs written.”
“Uh, yeah. Well, I’ll just write ‘em real quick and then I’m ready.”
Thank god Sheila had been so good in my songwriting lessons. This kid wasn’t writing his own rhymes any time before hell froze over.
A knock came from the door, and I turned back to where my stomach fluttered at the sight of Helena coming into the room, the tech at the door behind her. “Let me know if you need anything,” he said, and he stepped out and shut the door behind him, but I really wasn’t listening.
Jesus fucking Christ on a cracker, every time I saw Helena, she was hotter.
I think it was the casual look today, her hair back in a loose ponytail, wearing a chunky sweater and an oversized pendant with faded jeans, studded ankle boots that would look tacky on me but were drop-dead sexy on her.
Next to me, I heard Stephen let out a quiet whoa, and I’d never related to the guy so hard.