"Hey!"
Jade had practically announced herself as she walked up to the craft services table to the side of the stage. Turning around to face her, Tara would have replied, but the sugar-glazed donut in her mouth made her raise her free hand in an attempt at a wave instead.
"It's Tara, right?" Jade crossed her arms, realizing too late that she should have waited for the girl to finish eating.
Tara nodded slowly, still taking her time with the donut and eyeing Jade carefully.
"I...just wanted to say you did a good job yesterday with the Bird Scene," Jade's eyes broke contact for a moment, feeling this was quickly becoming a one-sided conversation. "Didn't think you'd catch on to the point of the assignment so quickly."
Tara's eyes narrowed, as if to say, "What point?"
As if she could understand the visual gesture, Jade continued, "You...didn't know you weren't supposed to ask how you did?"
She shook her head, chewing another chunk of her donut.
Jade's eyes narrowed now, her suspicions about the short stack of pancakes in front of her growing all the more, "Okay, why are you here, then? You want to learn acting, or maybe you wanna 'try it out' to satisfy your boredom? What is it?"
Tara closed her eyes and took one last bite of her donut; taking her time to chew and swallow before opening her eyes and answering the now irritated goth girl in front of her, "Free food."
With a shrug, Tara turned back around to wipe her mouth with a napkin, leaving Jade momentarily stunned before she walked away as well.
Sikowitz clapped loudly as he emerged onto the stage and motioned for the students to gather in their seats.
"Good morning, class! Now, I know I said we were going to go over some more Bird Scene assessments, but first I'd like to introduce a little...exhibition, if you would!"
Half the class's faces lit up with excitement while the other half made rather disgusted faces; all of them confused on what he meant.
"Oh, relax! This is all still part of class today! As some of you may know, I was a teacher at the prestigious Hollywood Arts in California! Many of my students showed much talent in acting and singing, but only few presented extremely well in both at once!" Sikowitz raised his arms in Jade's direction as she was headed to her office backstage. "Jade! Introduce yourself!"
She turned on her heel, unsure of what to say, and raised her hand in an attempt of a wave. As she was about to turn back round to the office, Sikowitz dashed over and dragged her to the center stage; despite the furious mutters of protest from her.
"Now Jade may be my hard-working assistant here in the theater, but she was also one of my best students! When she put her mind to it, she could blow an audience away with her singing while intimidating—or charming—them with a look! Isn't that right, Jade?" Sikowitz prodded her with an elbow and an embellishing smile.
Jade just replied with a shrug and a long sip of her coffee cup. Some students applauded her while others simply nodded in acknowledgement. Tara did neither of those; instead sitting quietly with her arms crossed.
"So for today's 'lesson', I'm giving Jade the opportunity to demonstrate those dual skills in action! I'll put on a song you're very familiar with, and you'll choose someone to join you? Any takers?" Sikowitz backed up to the speaker system connected to his laptop, as Jade's eyes immediately fell on her candidate, who raised a curious eyebrow upon meeting her gaze.
"Tara, let's see what you've got." Jade set her coffee cup down and picked up two microphones. She tossed one mic to Tara, who caught it easily in her hands.
Sikowitz handed Tara a sheet of paper with the song's lyrics, which she glanced at for a moment before passing it back to him, "I know the song." He nodded back and proceeded to hit the Play button on his laptop.
The familiar R&B and electronic synth intro quickly brought a smile to Jade's face. She and Tara turned their backs to the audience until a stream of heavy beats led into the first verse. Jade turned on her heel, about to sing the first lyrics, but another voice suddenly filled the stage.
Someday I'll let you in
Treat you right, drive you out of your mind~
Tara belted out the lyrics first, making Jade stand still, jaw dropped, and watching the smaller girl "steal" her first verse. The audience of students quickly sat up straight, staring at Tara in total shock as she stepped forward with grace and stage presence; completely different from the aloof, donut-munching stranger barely a minute ago. Jade managed to shake out of the daze in time for the next lines, which Cat usually sang before.
You never met a chick like me!
Burn so bright, I'm gonna make you blind~
Jade stepped in line and turned to face Tara, who also did so with a surprisingly smug look on her face. They both sang the lines into the chorus, keeping up their respective faces at each other; smug and near-irritated.
Always want what you can't have
Is it so bad if you don't get what you wanted?
Make you feel good as I whip you into shape
Yeah, so let's get it started!
Give it up, you can't win
'Cause I know where you've been
Such a shame you don't put up a fight
That's a game that we play at the end of the night
It's the same old story, but you never get it right
Give it up!
Neither one of the two missed a beat, despite how fast the lines came, making the audience cheer with excitement as they cleared the chorus. Jade, however, kept her eyes fixed on Tara, who was backing away from Jade with a grin and crooking her finger almost...teasingly in keeping with the post-chorus lyrics.
Come a little closer
Come a little closer, baby, baby
Come a little closer
Come a little closer, baby, baby~
It was clear that Tara was nailing the lesson perfectly at Jade's expense, and that made her almost furious enough to break from the song, but she tempered herself and stepped toward Tara, taking back her first lines of the next verse.
Stop trying to walk away
No, you won't ever leave me behind!
Tara turned her back as Jade closed the gap between them and nonchalantly dismissed her with a wave of her hand as she picked up the rest of the verse.
No~ You better believe that I'm here to stay (Is that right?)
'Cause you're the shade and I'm the sunshine, ooh~
Jade intentionally improvised her cut-in during Tara's lines, letting her know she was on to her. Nonetheless, they turned to face each other again and proceeded to the chorus again.
Look at me now, 'cause I got you where I want you
Isn't it so exciting~?
Wanna shake you, wanna break you
Take a backseat...'cause now I'm driving!
The second chorus passed as cleanly as the first one, with Tara maintaining her playful façade while Jade was barely keeping her anger in check with the song. To the audience, and maybe Sikowitz, they were simply demonstrating a seamless blend of acting with singing; but to Jade, this was practically a sing-off, a musical game of cat-and-mouse that she might have been suckered into by the short stack in front of her. If Jade wasn't so caught up in Tara's playful expressions in keeping with her 'character' in-song, she might have caught that Tara was subtly replacing some of the lyrics on the fly, but she noticed none of it.
As the song came to a close with a sustained, harmonized note between Jade and Tara, the students and Sikowitz broke into a huge applause, more than in any class before. As he shut the speakers off, Sikowitz approached both the girls, who were still facing each other and catching their breath, and patted them both on the back. "Excellent! Wonderful display of high-quality singing and top-notch acting! You could all learn a thing from these two!"
Jade was deaf to Sikowitz's praises as she was too busy glaring at Tara, who was still wearing a smile before returning to her seat. She would have pursued if Sikowitz hadn't ushered her backstage to return to her main duties. With one last look back, Jade could see Tara taking a long, nonchalant drink from her water bottle as other students crowded around to ask her different things.
The next few hours passed quickly as Jade lost track of time from skimming more boring legal documents and requests. As much as she wanted to chuck them all in the trash, she knew from her mother how important even the most boring-sounding page was to a business, and even she didn't want Sikowitz to be out of a job—not to mention, her. She set down the last page she was working on and stood up to stretch her legs. Her eyes wandered around the empty office room aimlessly until they fell on a door to an adjacent room marked "Green Room". She hadn't bothered to check it out before, but curiosity got the better of her as she opened the surprisingly unlocked door.
The green room was a space reserved in theaters for actors to lounge in when not on stage. Despite the name, it wasn't always colored green, especially nowadays. This room seemed to fit the bill as the walls were mostly dark, like the stage and office rooms, and dust lined many of the closets and tables. Jade expected most of what she saw since the theater wasn't exactly bustling for a long time, but then she turned to one small alcove with a bar for hanging clothes.
It was the only closet space to have clothes in it, some small button-up shirts, oversized T-shirts, one hooded sweatshirt, and a single canvas duffel bag under all of them. Jade recognized one of the shirts as the green checkered button-up Tara was wearing the other day, then she looked next to the closet at one of the red couches pushed up against the corner. A thick blanket and pillow were folded at the end of the couch, suggesting they were used recently.
Before Jade could inspect any more of the space, a voice cut through the silence behind her, making her almost jump and turn around in surprise.
"What are you doing here?" Tara stared at Jade, her eyes almost glowing with hostility.
Jade crossed her arms and scoffed, even as Tara was glaring at her, looking genuinely upset for once. "I should be asking you that question. I'm here because I work here! What's your excuse?"
"I don't answer to you!" Tara snapped, "Now get out!"
"I don't answer to you!" Jade snapped back, "But I do answer to Sikowitz, who I bet would love to know why one of his students is using this green room as her personal dressing room!" She made for the door, ready to deliver on that threat, when Tara groaned loudly and called back to her.
"Alright! I'm staying here! And Sikowitz knows, so don't bother telling him!"
Her hand was hovering over the doorknob when Jade heard the whole confession, stopping in her tracks and turning back around to face Tara. "You're...staying here? I don't get it. Did you get in a fight with your parents, or..." she put the pieces together in her head and stared at the closet and Tara with a bit of shock, which Tara seemed to expect based on her unchanged expression, "Do you...live here? Are you homeless?"
"Why so shocked?" Tara scoffed, "Is it because I look too young, too clean, too pretty to be homeless? I may be homeless, but I'm not a Neanderthal!" She pointed to a nearby vanity mirror with small cases of makeup and a glass with a clean toothbrush. Sensing this conversation wasn't ending soon, she went over to the couch and plopped down like it wasn't covered in dust and cobwebs.
Jade stepped back into the room, following her and grabbing a chair to sit across from her. "Of course I'm shocked! I just wouldn't have guessed this! Did you run away from home or something? Abusive family?"
Taking a deep, exasperated breath, Tara looked straight at Jade, who was expressing more concern than anger, but still enough of the latter to show it. "You're not gonna leave until I answer, are you? Fine. I never knew my parents. I grew up in a foster home, then I turned 18 last week and I couldn't stay there anymore. Idiots there probably didn't even notice me leave since they had a dozen other kids younger and more trouble than me, anyway. I just happened upon this theater since it was close and that's when I met Sikowitz, who almost immediately offered to let me stay here. It's like he could tell just by looking at me; it was weird."
"Yeah, well it wouldn't surprise me if he actually was homeless for a time," Jade sighed, reversing her chair and leaning over the back of it, "But you're 18, so you've graduated high school, right? You could get a job and an apartment if you tried. Why stay in this dust bowl?"
"Well, my high school makes this 'dust bowl' look like a 5-star hotel, and I was barely able to graduate! News flash, not everyone has the opportunity to go to a school like Hollywood Arts and learn to be movie stars! Not like there's even one of those here, anyway..." Tara backed up against the couch's back cushion, sighing at that last remark.
"Judging by your bird scene yesterday, and that show you put on just now," Jade flashed a very brief smirk, "I bet they would have at least considered you. Did your dingy high school at least have a killer arts program?"
"No," Tara shook her head, but barely hid a smile as she recalled a better time, "But it had an empty conservatory no one used in years." She hopped off the couch and dug something out of her duffel bag. In her hands, she held a tiny music player with physical buttons and a small screen, the kind that everyone had years before they were combined with smartphones. "This was in my foster home for longer than I was. For years, this little thing and the dozens of songs and videos on it helped me sleep at night, study for exams, and stay away from anything stupid like drugs or gangs..."
Jade looked at Tara as she was staring down at her music player nostalgically. She wasn't usually one to have pity, but something about Tara felt...relatable, to an extent, despite Jade growing up like a princess in comparison.
Tara looked back at Jade and her face shrunk back to a frown, "Hey, don't look at me like that. I can take care of myself; I don't need your pity."
"Oh, really?" Jade glared, her pity starting to fade, "You still gonna say that when a hurricane blows by and you're either floating on that couch from flooding or trying to sleep without heat because the power's out? What's your plan? It's like you just leaped before you looked..." That phrase stopped Jade in her thoughts; recalling that's what Tori said her mother said when she first came here. No matter how happy she may be now with Tori, there's no denying that Jade is here because she had no plan of her own, either.
Dammit, she swore in her mind, I'm no better than her...
Tara frowned again and stuffed her music player back in her bag before heading out, "Anyway, Sikowitz is probably expecting me back and you to get back to work."
"Wait!" Jade caught up to her and held the door closed, "I...can't today because I don't have my own car, but can we meet here tomorrow morning? I want to at least...get you some new clothes and something to eat besides donuts. It'll be Saturday anyway; no class or work for either of us."
"Why?" Tara scoffed, "I just said I don't want your pity and you're treating me like a charity case?!"
"Well, I bet you don't want to smell like B.O. and mold, either, right? No one wants to, no matter how stubborn they are about it."
Tara reluctantly looked away and shrugged, "Fine. I'll think about it. But, seriously, we both need to get back now."
Jade nodded and opened the door, letting Tara go out first. She took one last look at Tara's "room" and sighed, closing the door behind both of them.
The end of the work day came soon after, and Tori was able to pick Jade up from the theater. She was bouncing more cover song ideas on the ride back, but Jade's mind was still stuck on her talk with Tara. Besides their upbringing, the two of them were more similar than either cared to admit: love of music, performing, and no tangible plans for the future. Even as Jade looked at her loving girlfriend, she wasn't sure how long this time they had together would last, and that thought alone scared her. She buried the anxiety, however, to focus back on Tara, who didn't even have a real home—let alone someone to live with.
"Hey, Tori," Jade hesitantly said, looking out the window for a moment before facing her, "Do you think I could borrow the car tomorrow?"
Tori looked at her, surprised by the sudden request, "Um...sure. Why, though?"
"I..." Jade bit her lip, wondering if she should tell her, but opted to avoid making the matter too complicated, "I want to get the groceries this time, and I don't want to distract you from your work! It's your first album, anyway, so you should have all the time to perfect it, right? You can just text me the list anyway!"
Tori blinked, but then smiled in agreement, "Thanks, Jade. I really appreciate that! Just get enough coffee for the both of us, at least, okay?" She quickly leaned over to kiss her, which Jade accepted, but only barely kissed back before Tori returned to the wheel.
Jade smiled for a moment, but it fell as soon as Tori was looking back at the road. I'm sorry, babe...she thought, feeling guilty already, but you've done a lot for me already. I don't want to add more to your plate as it is. She sat back and let out a quiet sigh as she tried to rest her eyes for the rest of the ride.
After everyone had left for the day, Tara returned to the green room, making sure to lock every door leading from the entrance first. She scooped up her music player and let herself fall on the couch. Laying in a more comfortable position, she put on her earphones and set her music to shuffle as she closed her eyes to sleep. The first song to come up surprised her, as if it were some divine prank. Surprised only for a while, she smiled and let herself drift off to her dreams, softly singing to herself and recalling a pleasant memory from that day.
Someday I'll let you in...treat you right...drive you out of your mind...
Until next chapter~