CHAPTER 64 – Philomela

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Saturday ended with three more hours of recording in the afternoon. Mueller assured them that with every performance, he was squeezing more and more out of Eppie and Zara.

Eppie informed Mueller that, if he squeezed her any more, she would splinter into dust, like a banished Undead spirit.

And she was serious.
Eight sessions of [Songstress], [Vocality], [Charisma], [Perfect Pitch], [El duende] spent almost [12,000 Causality].

Between Mueller and William, she had about [145,936] left.

Considering her [32 Dasein] top-up was now four digits per additional token, she really needed another windfall if she wanted to pursue justice over forgiving William.

Mueller rolled his eyes and said, “Okay.”

Thankfully, nobody else objected.

Eppie then collapsed, not from fatigue, but from the stress of watching her [Causality] slip.

“Is Oto-san going to release When Doves Cry soon?” she probed the audio maestro.

“We haven’t found the singer for the version Curon has in mind,” Mueller informed her with a sigh, not even batting an eye at her slipped-in daddy dearest. “Have patience. It’s better to have no song than a terrible song.”

Spoken like a man with more than a month to live… Eppie rolled her eyes as well.

“Don’t do that. You look like you’re having a seizure…” Mueller shook himself out, then patted the SSL deck like a man praising an old dog. “I’ll comp the best parts of each take, but that was something.”

“Top-20?” Antonio stood by the side of the deck.

“Top-40,” Mueller looked at Eppie. Then at Zara. “I’ll be honest here. We’ll make more money once it’s licensed for TV and cinema. Umbrella, this is not.”

Her recording maestro levelled a hyper-critical gaze at her face.

“What?” Eppie checked her face, then checked her cardigan “Did I spill something?”

“You know the Director is having one of those arthouse MTVs made for the song, right? Full Ken Burns, PBS American documentary style, made with stock footage from the Appalachian epoch. They’re hiring a cinema verite specialist, I believe.”

“Alright…” Eppie looked at Zara, then at Mueller. “Is that… good? Is that industry standard?”

“No…” Mueller gave her one of those looks, then sighed. “You turned down Director Davis. Didn’t you?”

“Ah…” Eppie now knew why her father had to pay out of pocket and go the history route.

“Well, it’s not a bad thing.” Mueller pointed at her. “You’re fifteen. You don’t look fifteen.”

He pointed at Zara. “You’re seventeen. You have mature optics. But does Zara really want to… star in a video about In the Pines? Being Latino, that’s just asking for trouble.”

Eppie winced. Indeed, she wouldn’t want Zara playing the titular heroine either.

“We could probably do something with Dream a Little,” Mueller explained. “What do you suppose you’d like for Dream?”

Eppie looked at Zara. “Starring us?”

“Who else?” The German snickered. “You’re both gorgeous.”

Zara hid her face out of shame. Eppie, shameless, concurred that they were, indeed, gorgeous.

Then she gave the matter some thought. Her [Script Analysis] fired, and she had the perfect idea. “How about a home video? Super 8. VHS. Me and Zara, childhood friends. Growing up. Separating. One of us is big city. Another one has a family. We still think of each other. A lifetime spent apart, but thinking back to childhood. Girl-friends of the Halcyon days?”

The room grew silent.

“Let me grab a—” Mueller scrambled for something. He returned with a recorder. “Say that again.”

She repeated herself.
Beside her, Zara was already red as a Spanish Chorizo.

Mueller weighed the tape in his hand.
Antonio whistled.

“I think it’ll work,” the maestro closed his eyes for a moment and tried to imagine the result. “It will work.”

Well, it’s nothing to write home about. Eppie didn’t quite get the fuss either. But then again, in 2008, MTV was still kicking the same can down the road. Barring breakthroughs like Single Ladies, rock videos featured bands playing against moody lighting, while RnB entrenched itself in codified “car, cats and cool”, as Kellie Noah’s signature Umbrella video. Narrative music videos remained irregular. Well-shot, stylistic ones remained scarcer.

“What now?” she asked.

“Steak Dinner?” Mueller cracked a mischievous grin. “Director Curon’s buying.”

 

Sunday.
The laborious process of Dream a Little was next.

They did twelve takes. The seventh was the best. Mueller was satisfied, but not in the same way as Pines. Dwayne said it was lovely. Pete said it was very lovely. Certainly, the girls were lovely.

It was a simple, lovely recording, sweet enough to cause tooth decay in the unwary listener. Mueller told her to keep the MTV sequence in mind, for once Curon got a hold of the song, he would arrange for the film department to assign them a director and a crew. The shoot should take no more than a day or two, assuming locations were scouted, and the girls were available.

They had dinner together again—Eppie’s father had deep pockets. This time, instead of steak, they had wood-fired pizza.

After dinner, Antonio escorted the girls to their Prius because he was a true gentleman.

Standing a little way from them, he lit a cigarette.

Damn it, he looks so cool… Eppie fully appreciated why Antonio was the man when it came to Sony’s resident guitarists.

Antonio offered her the distinctly red packet after he caught her staring. “Marlboro?”

Eppie stared.
The musician laughed out loud.

They made some small talk, the Spaniard took a drag, then turned to Zara. “Mija, when you record a demo, you can send it to me.” He let the smoke out slowly. “Call it a professional interest.”

“You think Zara will do well?” Eppie shared her friend’s excitement at Antonio’s recognition.

“I think she has some choices to make.” Antonio exhaled slowly. “I think there are three ways our chica can play it. Pure flamenco, to give legs to Paco’s soleares. That’s the traditional ethnic route, cult following. Or she can try her hand at pop songs—because she looks the part. That’s the sellout. Or, she can do as you do now: collaborations—there is very good work for a skilful guitarist. In our world, there’s art, and then there’s business. Find a compromise that works for you, Mija.”

Zara bowed her head in respect. The man’s tutelage was worth its weight in gold. Satisfied, Antonio flashed his yellowing teeth, bid the girls a safe journey, then disappeared into the dark—a man of pure mystique. Eppie mentally noted that Antonio did not actually disappear but appeared to because the parking garage was dimly lit and Antonio was wearing all black.

On the drive home, Zara sighed as they rolled through the 405.

“What’s wrong?” Eppie asked.

Zara looked at her briefly. Her partner looked… melancholic.

“I can’t believe it’s all over,” she moped. “We started doing this in September and now… It’s finished.”

“If you put it like that,” Eppie also felt the nostalgia coming on. Her friend was right. This really was all kinds of surreal. Unlike Vincent or Whatever Will Be, she had written, polished, practised, performed, and re-iterated both songs to death for almost four months.

“Eppie, aren’t you scared?” Zara exhaled. “Our music isn’t ours anymore… it’s out there now…”

“Well, mid-February for Pines, and I am guessing Dream will need a filming date in late February,” she assured her friend. “You’ve got more work, I am afraid. Weren’t you working on El Diablo? Your own piece?”

Zara’s expression shifted. Unlike Eppie, real songwriting took time. It took experience to digest.

“I don’t know what that song is yet,” she said.

“You will.” She patted Zara’s thigh. You could always write about William… that’s a whole ass El Diablo right there on our campus. Her [Songstress] trembled; there was something there, just out of sight, out of hearing, but Eppie’s skills weren’t acute enough to translate inspiration into song.

Zara sighed again.

Now what… her friend looked at Eppie.

Eppie said, “Please keep your eyes on the road.”

“I hate this,” Zara said, after a moment, her eyes on the road.

“You hate what, exactly?” she asked.

“How much I’ll miss our practice.”

“I am literally two buildings over,” Eppie assured her musician friend.

“But it won’t be practice…” Zara moped. “Not just us.”

“Oh yeah…” said Eppie. “I guess… That is sad…” But she had an idea. In fact, it was a brilliant idea. “You wanna keep hanging out?”

“YES?” Zara’s eyes moved between her and the road.

“Well.” Eppie made a scooping motion with her hand. “How do you feel about flipping cat shit?”

Their car pulled into LAPA.

“Umm…” the Basque girl relented, then timidly asked. “How much cat shit is there?”

More than you can imagine. Eppie patted her friend reassuringly. Mr Chin alone will blow your mind.

The girls parted at the dorm, in a departure presided by Josefina.

At the apartment, Eppie ducked into her room after a short tell-all to her roommates about her two days, then drafted her Titus homework. How does your chosen variant carry the play’s social commentary into the present; what is lost, what is gained? For fear of triggering Ran, she did not write “Feudal Japan”. She wrote about inheritance and the slow transfer of violence across Vatican Patricians, keeping it abstract enough to pass and specific enough to keep herself invested. [Script Analysis] hummed, approving of the idea, then she was done.

Tomorrow was the 14th.
Tuesday was the Cold Read.
As for Zara… Eppie had only one clue from her [Songstress].

If music be the food of love, play on.

Monday.
The courtyard was filled to the brim with practising theatre students from Sophomores to Seniors.

Eppie caught sight of William Chen, then realised there was karmic justice after all.

Her [Usurper] looked like a pair of Lims mugged him in a dark alley.
His right arm was bandaged from the neck down, and his hand was in a sling. He had a visible bruise running up the right side of his neck, and he walked with a weird gait.

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Presently, he was limping among peers, charismatic and laughing, joking about his injuries.

Their eyes met, and he gave her a dazzling smile.
She smiled back as well, confused as to why the man was so god damn happy all of a sudden.

Then she saw the answer.

Valorie walked behind William, both literally and metaphorically in his shadow.

The actresses’ paleness was vampiric beneath the burning auburn hair, the kind of pallor that makes a redhead look lit from inside rather than drained. Val had also chosen loose linen over her usual fitted lines, a large jacket swallowing her envy-inducing frame, its sleeves resting at the wrists, as if she loathed being touched by the fabric. A faint yellow-violet bruise sat across her knuckles. A slight cut on her lips looked recently healed. The overall effect read as Victorian porcelain, arresting, and more beautiful for its fragility.

Why aren’t you better?! Eppie felt her insides despair. So that’s what negative [Causality] was for? For Val, returning to the fold?

Whatever the case, retrieving Val must have cost a lot of [Causality].
Eppie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. If it were herself, she doubted she could take the abuse and smile about it. She’d probably just run William over with whatever car Daddy bought and call it an accidental femme fatale.

They passed without stopping.
Valorie glanced her way, and Eppie returned the gaze.

Senator Sanders’ daughter looked too exhausted to be antagonistic.

Yeah… I would be too. Eppie groaned internally, both for herself and for a potential friend turned into an opponent. If a god damned [Usurper] pounded my [Causality] for two god damn days…

That night, at the Stray Cat Society, she asked Lim if William had done a number on Valorie, or vice versa. Her gentle giant said William wasn’t home for two days, confirming Eppie’s worst suspicions that, yes indeed. Val was back in the fold.

They both sighed.
Then Eppie signed Zara into the roster.