Bailey seems so tired. South feels guilty about the sand in his hair.
“The good news is they bought it,” says Bailey, as soon as the door’s closed. “Full budget, full season. The bad news–” He waits out the noise. “Is we’re a midseason replacement.”
They blink.
“We get double budgets for twelve episodes?” says Rebecca.
“No, they want twenty-three.” Bailey rubs his head. “They’ll choose twelve to air.”
“That’s–” South begins.
“That’s network politics.”
“So what are we going to do?”
Seven and Bailey lock eyes. “You know,” Bailey says, starting to grin.
“Anima in machina,” Seven whispers, delighted.
Jeremiah is the only fifteen-year-old boy in the world who understands about girls.
“I didn’t get her anything,” says Aaron, sweating.
“The flower shops are already closed,” says Jeremiah, counting Aaron’s money. “Go to the dumpster behind the closest one and pick out seven rose petals. Wash them with soap and water. Put them in a jewelry box.”
“Are you sure?” asks Aaron. Jeremiah is.
Jeremiah doesn’t have a girlfriend, not because he’s gay, but because he understands about girls. Maybe that means he can’t be bothered? Maybe that he’s too in love with all of them to choose.
Mother Figure sighs before the report card’s even open. “Oh,” she says. “I thought the tutors were helping.”
“But they are!” Boboli tugs at the card above the ST OMÖJLIGS SCHOOL OF STOCK seal. “I did fine in Background Noise and Dying, and I got four archetypes this term–”
“Sure, sweetie, but you know what’s bringing your average down.” She taps him on the head with the card.
“I hate Henchmanship,” he mumbles, but he likes it, really. Likes it so much he has to keep failing. He’s afraid what it’ll mean about him, if he shows how good he is.
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
“Hey, F-bomb, you left your Discman on,” says Trudy, and reaches for it.
“Don’t,” says Fern. “I’m starving the batteries.”
“Ah ha. That’ll teach them!”
“Yeah.” Fern grins. “No. I like vinyl better than plastic because it sounds warm instead of sharp. I can’t carry a turntable around, so I work the batteries until the headphones get all fuzzy.”
“That’s not warmth, goofball.” Trudy taps the Discman’s cover. “That’s noise. You can’t tell the difference?”
“There isn’t a difference.” says Fern. “Ask a physicist. Warmth is noise.”
“Then why not just wear crappy headphones?”
“I do,” she says, “I do.”
Lettie plays it until Tonya unplugs her speakers. She burns it onto a CD, just that track, and sticks it in her Discman; she can listen to it two and a half times on the way to class, and again between there and the cafeteria. She puts it under her pillow and listens until she’s too tired to hit repeat.
Tonya slumps down in her seat when she realizes Lettie’s got her headphones on at the movies, right up until the feature. “It’s not even that good a song!” she hisses.
Lettie agrees. Stupid beat. Stupid minor chords. Stupid desperate euphoria.
“There’s this old radio joke,” says Ira. “The doctor goes ‘well, I’ve got your test results,’ and she goes ‘gosh, Doc, what is it?’ and he says ‘hypochondria!’ And there’s a beat, and she sounds hopeful and says ‘… is it contagious?'”
Eunice laughs. He’s got that perfect Richard Crenna delivery, quick and impatient, just waiting for the audience to quiet down enough to shove in the next joke.
“You still telegraph,” she says.
“You still like it,” he says.
“Cancer?”
He grins; this time his eyes are darker. “Nah,” he says, “something else, I wasn’t really listening when they told me.”
The bubbles stop. Vicious hauls Captain Hawk up out of the pool of blood, then grabs his big shiny gun and blows some more holes in his chest.
“He’s dead,” he mutters. “He’s dead now.”
“They don’t die,” says Professor Cold. He’s tired. His robes are open; his undershirt is dingy. “You really can’t understand? He’ll be in suspended animation, or a clone, or some kind of time anomaly…”
“I cut him and shot him and drowned him!”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“I hate them!” screams Vicious, and throws down the body. “Fucking heroes!”
“Really?” Cold shrugs. “I don’t envy them at all.”