JC was returning from one of his late night walks, just stepping into his dark apartment, when the phone rang. He took his time closing, then locking his front door, before gradually making his way to the black object that rested loudly on the floor.
“Hello?”
“JC, hello. You know who this is, don’t you?” the cheerful voice said on the other line.
“Yes Lou. What do you want?”
“Just to talk of business and things. How are you?”
“What do you want?”
Lou laughed without any humor. “Yes, well, I was just calling to inform you that I’ve scheduled that meeting I was talking with you about. Tomorrow afternoon at the studio. It’s at 2 o clock and I expect you and the boys to be there. You can inform them of the meeting yourself, since I’m sure they’d prefer to hear it from you instead of me.”
“I think we’re busy around that time,” he said seriously.
“Listen to me boy,” Lou said, his voice taking on his usual harshness. “You think this is funny.”
“No.”
“You’re damn right it isn’t. You’re getting the preliminary details finished for the record before the tour starts, understand? I don’t want to hear you or the others complaining or giving the producers a hard time. Just make the record JC, that’s all. I’m sure a smart young man like you can figure it out.”
“I’ve already told you,” JC said calmly, “I will not make your music anymore. Can’t you figure that out? Can’t you just let me do what I want to do? You’ll still get a record.”
“I want a record that will make money JC. You had better cooperate. You’ve been trouble since the beginning, and I’m sick of it. You’ll do as I say or else.”
“More threats Lou?”
“Goddamn you! Be there JC, tomorrow at 2. Don’t be late.”
There was a click and shortly after a dial tone. JC hung up the phone. He stood in place, staring into the darkness, so solid and rigid that he seemed to be a root that had spurt up from the soil of the carpet. Then he made a sharp movement to grab his jacket and walked out of the apartment.
~~
After Karen had left, Sita remained in her room. The next morning, however, as her father descended the stairs towards the parking garage where his car and driver waited for him, he saw his precious daughter waiting. She was fully dressed in her long, black skirt and white business shirt, with her briefcase in hand.
“I’m so glad,” Rama said as they rode in the car, “That you’ve decided to come back to work. The office has missed you terribly and needs your assistance. I’m sure everyone will be happy you’ve come back to work for them.”
“I’m going for the work father,” she said, “Not the office.”
She refused to speak of her reasoning behind her self-imposed house arrest or the change in her attitude. The quiet had spread like a disease through her. She worked without lifting her head to greet or address others. The piles on her desk that she had used as an excuse to get rid of J.J. were actually there now, and she attacked it without mercy. The grooming and training and hard work ethic that her classmates had watched with envy and amazement was being used and suddenly, in the period of one day, she had become the office’s most valued employee. She mastered the minor jobs she had handled before and even requested to take on more, learning jobs that had taken the regulars in the office years to get down.
J.J., who always had the uncanny ability to learn of any new developments occurring in the business world, came to visit her an hour before office hours were done for the day.
“Sita dear!” he exclaimed, taking large strides towards her desk. “What is this I heard about you returning back to work?”
“I’m quite busy,” she said without lifting her head or her pen.
“Yes, I see.” He planted his hands onto the table and leaned in closely, smiling as he examined her. “You’re very beautiful when you’re all flushed and muddled with these business matters.”
“Thank you, good-bye J.J.”
“Shall I call on you tomorrow? Maybe we can catch an early dinner?”
“If you must.” She stood, taking a stack of papers, and heading towards the copy machine room. She did not look back.
After she returned home, she stopped briefly to kiss her mother’s cheek and promise to eat dinner with the family that evening, and then climbed upstairs. She walked down the endless hallways, her arms swinging by her sides, and then stopped once she reached a set of double doors. She knocked and a quiet, feminine voice on the other side said, “Come in.”
Kalika lifted her head from her desk, surprised to see her sister enter. “Hello Sita. Did you have fun at the office today?”
Sita closed the door. “Yes, actually, I had a very good time. How are you Kal?”
Kalika shrugged, turning back to the work on her desk.
Sita sighed and took of her black heels, stretching her toes comfortably on the carpet. She approached her sister and took a seat on the floor by the older girl’s feet. “Kal, you’re upset with me?”
“No, of course not.”
“Is it because I allowed Karen in and not you?”
Kalika paused then put her pencil down. Leaning back into her chair, she gazed down at the girl below. “Sita, why did you have to ignore me? I thought we were friends.”
“We are Kal. Everything’s very complicated right now and you haven’t been here, and Karen has. You understand, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Kalika said after a moment’s contemplation. “Yes, I understand. Will you tell me what was wrong?”
“Please, let’s not discuss it. It’s over. I’ve come up with a resolution in my mind and I’m putting everything else aside. Tell me how your day was?”
Everyday after work it went like that. Sita would come home and go straight to her sister’s room. At Sita’s request, Kalika did most of the talking while she just listened peacefully, as if the words refueled the energy she had exerted at the office during the coarse of the day. Kalika had called a classmate of hers to fax her the work that had been assigned in her classes and remained at the mansion.
One evening they sat in Lalita’s room, Kalika sitting on the bed, while Sita was sprawled out onto the floor, relaxed, like a young child. Lalita sat in front of them, her usual expression evident, her hand tightly holding the brush that touched the paper beneath it, leaving trails of soft, solid colors behind.
“If only everyone had her insight on life,” Sita mumbled with a sigh, speaking one of the sparse sentences uttered that night.
Kalika smiled. “Why Sita, what changes you’ve gone through recently.” It wasn’t an original comment, but instead of saying it with fear and worry like everyone else, she said it proudly and approvingly. “You’re growing up.”
She wasn’t sure if her sister had even heard the praise. Sita said nothing, her eyes moving with the movement of the brush.
~~
The two people, a young man and a young woman, entered the studio. The man looked around, his eyes relishing in the equipment he saw. The young woman watched him with a small smile.
The outboard was top of the line and huge. There was a 24-track recorder and a 16 track digital recorder, with 64-iput concole. A collection of expensive equipment, from TL Audio pre-amps and Yamaha monitors and top of the line microphones screamed quality recording. There was a control room, a drum room with an isolated drum booth, an enclosed, isolated vocal booth, and a piano room, with a black Yamaha baby grand piano sitting proudly, it’s keys white marbles that were waiting to be played. To complete the set were different guitars and other accessories from such companies as Yamaha, Gibson, Fender, Marshall, T.C. electronic, and Takamine.
It was the day after JC had received the call from Lou, at 2: 13 P.M. He was not at the RCA studio, but at the well-furbished Jive studios. With him were not his groupmates, who had all agreed to suddenly be occupied around this time, but Kalika.
“Father has a friend on the executive board of Jive,” she was saying, “And he’s very interested in your group. He told me to inform you that whenever you want, you can come to this or any other studio and do your work. They also are working up a very interesting pitch and proposal for you and your groupmates.”
He was looking at the outboard with awe, his fingers tentatively running over the buttons and knobs, twitching every now and then with pleasure. “They want to sign us?”
“Yes.”
“We have a contract.”
“Contracts are meant to be broken.”
He smiled but kept his eyes on the outboard. “This is going to be very hard.”
“You’ll have to convince the others to agree on the move and start talking to lawyers. Do you think they’ll agree?”
“They will,” he said. “They trust me.”
She walked towards him, putting a hand on his shoulder to get him to look at her. “Shall I give you the number for the lawyer now or later?”
~~
Lance Bass walked down the hallway to the white door with the gold numbers, 716. He opened the door with the key the landlord had just given him and stepped inside. The place was empty.
He had just purchased the apartment a week ago. It was located on the 7th floor of a white building, a nice area, besides the large freeway that stood next to it. His friends had opposed the place for that very reason, but he hadn’t listened to them. He rarely spent any time in Florida and already had plans for a house in Mississippi, his home state, so would have little need for the place and little need to spend so much money on it.
Tiredly, he took a small tour of his newly purchased property, already planning out in his mind what furniture would be placed where. He was debating whether or not to consult an interior decorator when his cell phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Lance,” JC said on the other line, “I’m downstairs.”
“All right, I’ll be right there.”
He took the elevator back down and walked out to greet his friend that waited for him outside, leaning patiently on the white fence that guarded the building. “Thanks for coming down. I honestly had no idea how I was going to move that huge sofa without help. Not like I need help lifting anything,” he added, “It’s just the maneuvering.”
JC smiled. “Yea, the maneuvering. Sure Lance.”
They struggled for a half an hour, finding ways to twist and turn in order to squeeze the large couch into the elevator shaft and through the hallways. JC kept his typical stone face the entire time without breaking a sweat or, as far as Lance noticed, even breathing. Finally they managed to get it into the apartment and position it in what was to be the living room. They took a break and sat at the counter in the all black kitchen, drinking out of soda cans that Lance had brought in a small blue ice cooler.
“So have you heard from Lou?” Lance asked.
JC shook his head. “Not yet. I’m sure he must be furious though.”
“Yea, no kidding.”
“I’ve talked to a couple of Jive executives.”
“Jive? The record label?”
“Yes.”
“What are you thinking about JC?”
“You’re a business man Lance,” he said, looking at the drink. “Think about it. Jive is a major label with incredible resources. I went to the studio with Kalika and I was very impressed.”
“Kalika? Isn’t that Sita’s sister?”
“Yes.”
“You’re seeing her, right?”
“No. We’re just friends.”
“Oh.” Lance paused to take a sip of his drink. “So Jive huh? That’s the same label as Backstreet and Britney. That won’t look very good.”
“I’m not concerned about looking good, just making our music.”
“Have they presented you an offer?”
“They’ve talked with Johnny a couple of times in the past week.”
“And?”
JC shrugged. “It’s a really good offer, but we do have contracts with RCA and Lou.”
Lance grimaced at the mention of the name. He took a couple more gulps and then got up to throw the can away, but stopped, remembering there was no trash can in the apartment. He placed the can in the sink. “So you’re not seeing Kalika?”
“No.”
“Are you seeing anyone?”
JC hesitated, which Lance had never seen.
“JC?”
“Lance,” JC said, “Have you ever been in love?”
“I thought I was, but I was wrong. I figure if I ever do fall in love, the feeling wont fade away as abruptly as it has so many times in the past. Why, have you?”
“Yes.”
Lance was astonished. “Are you?”
JC looked at him. “Yes.”
If someone had informed him that the world was ending tomorrow, he wouldn’t have been as shocked as he was then. “With who?”
“Sita Perne.”
“What!”
“Don’t tell anyone though,” JC said as an afterthought.
Lance leaned on the counter for support. “JC, tell me you’re joking.”
“You know I’m not one to joke.”
Lance nodded. “Yes, I know.” He took a couple of breaths, trying to get his mind back on track and process the words he had just heard. “Sita? Joey’s Sita?”
“She isn’t Joey’s.”
“She is! When did this happen?”
“A while ago. Before she knew Joey.”
“How did you know her?”
“We met on the street. We never exchanged names though.”
“This is crazy.”
“I guess.”
“Do you know how pissed Joey will be if he finds out? He’ll kill you.”
“Maybe.”
“Are you going to tell him?”
“She doesn’t want to.”
“And you?”
“It doesn’t really matter. I just want to be with her.”
Lance pushed himself onto the counter. “Wow. I don’t know which one I’m more shocked about, that it’s Sita or that you’ve actually managed to feel emotions for a girl. No offense.”
“None taken.”
“It’s just, you’ve always been so cold to the girls you’ve gone out with. It seemed like you went out with most of them just because it was something to do. Then again, Sita is beautiful beyond exception.”
“I never really noticed her looks.”
Lance shot him a look. “Now I know you’re joking.”
JC didn’t respond, staring into space before him, getting lost in a thought. He leaned on the counter tensely, his body cut into two straight pieces, his legs and then the rest of him. His position seemed almost painful although his face looked entirely relaxed. Then his head slowly turned to Lance. “What time is it?”
He checked his wristwatch. “Almost four, why?”
JC was moving. “I’ve got to go.” He took his jacket and car keys and began heading towards the front door.
Lance jumped off of the counter to follow him. “Where are you going?”
“I’ll tell you later. You won’t tell Joey or anyone about Sita, right?”
“Yea, but what are you going to do about it?”
JC opened the door. “Later Lance. Good-bye.”
To Lance’s dismay, the door closed without another word.