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threedimensionsTimeline: February 2017
Title: Everything/Nothing
Summary: A journalist is ordered to try to get Mark to talk about the pictures; he succeeds, but isn't that happy about it.
~3k
Jakob narrowed his eyes at the editor. "Forget it."
Ted Neal raised his eyebrows. "You'll do it," he said. "They're actually in town tonight—playing two shows on two nights, so they're checked into hotel rooms, though sources say they're usually on their buses, so you luck out there. You're the best at making them talk without making them talk. You get Mark Allgeyer to admit his gay love affair in plain words for us, you understand what that's going to do for us? Yes, you'll get a percentage raise for it. Shut the fuck up and get going."
Jakob didn't move. "The guy's clearly depressed about all of it. Severely. What if I get him to say it, and it hits him so hard he decides to make it stop?"
"Ugh, Jesus. The precious rock stars are in love," Neal mocked. "And you're afraid he's going to cut his dainty little wrist? Tell you what," he continued, when Jakob, who was red-faced, tried to speak. "You get over there to his hotel room and make him say what everyone already knows anyway, or I can divvy up all the rest of your upcoming assignments."
After a final threatening look, Neal turned and stalked back toward his office. Jakob looked down at the folder in his hands and thought about money and integrity. It seemed only one could win out when it came to truth.
He was a journalist, after all.
.
When Mark Allgeyer opened his room door that night, red-eyed and squinty and smelling like whiskey, Jakob almost said he had the wrong room and left. He didn't know anything about this guy other than the basics (rock band, guitar and vocals, gay sex tape—or was it pictures?—scandal, might have been jonesing for the bandmate who was the other occupant of the X-rated show), but he didn't have to in order to see that this wasn't just a bad time or a bad day. He didn't even like No Name Band's music, but after those pictures had hit, everyone had been following them; every magazine had been clamoring for what he was about to try to get. He didn't think it was going to be that hard, either; this guy was just about the perfect level of drunk. Jakob grinned and held out his hand, stepping forward and seeing Mark take a compensatory step back and allowing him in. He asked if they could talk.
"Whatever," Mark muttered, eyes on the ground as he turned back to the hotel bed and sat down. Jakob saw half a dozen empty two-ounce liquor bottles on the top of the mini-fridge as he closed the door behind him.
.
Mark said, more than once, that he wanted Jakob to leave, but it was easy enough to distract him away from it and get him talking again, answering questions again. It was almost like he did want to talk about it, and Jakob started to feel really bad for this guy; he was depressed and clearly lonely. More than simply knowing about the situation—looking at him, hearing everything that started under his voice and began to come out after his second refill and at least his seventh drink, Jakob wished he hadn't come. True, what was being recorded was a certain goldmine for the magazine, but he thought again of truth and money. This guy had both—along with the alcohol to help bear the consequences of them.
.
He ended up closing the interview himself, which he knew Neal would rage about, but Jakob didn't care. He'd already gotten what he was supposed to—a confession, whereupon Mark definitely admitted that he was in love with his bandmate, the one who seemed to be over and done with him—and can hardly bring himself to look the guy in the face anymore. After he let himself out, he looked at his digital recorder and thought about what a shame it would be if he accidentally spilled coffee all over it. The guy might not even remember talking to him. Mark Allgeyer would probably spit coffee all over his phone when he scrolled past certain quotes of his that they would post, but that would hardly help him.
.
Arista was in the living room with a book and a pitcher of iced tea, a soft lamp on in the corner, when he came in. She looked up and smiled, always glad to see him, and he briefly considered not mentioning that day's interview subject. Sweet and sympathetic, his wife had already expressed feeling sorry for both of No Name Band's guitarists ("I really wish people would leave them alone," she'd said in the grocery checkout lane, pointing to a grainy tabloid featuring a cover splash of Mark Allgeyer and Brandon Hayes on stage, backs turned to each other), and she's never been into the idea that pain equals profit. When he sat next to her on the couch and poured tea into the glass she'd set out for him, she asked him what she always did: "Make a famous friend today?" And he doesn’t know which way to answer.
"No," he said finally, and she raised her eyebrow at both his hesitation and his answer. "I did talk to someone," he continued, "but I'm pretty sure the guy feels like he's just about out of friends."
"Mark Allgeyer?"
He blinked but wasn't too surprised, knowing her. "How'd you know?"
"I have my sources."
"Uh huh."
"And Neal called me with a message for you—said your phone was just going to voicemail every time he called."
Jakob rolled his eyes. "Like I can stop the interview he demanded I do to listen to more of his shit."
Arista nodded. "He wanted to remind you not to leave until you made Mark admit his 'gay love affair'."
Jakob sighed heavily but said nothing.
"I could just wait for the story..." she said slowly. "But that's not what I married a journalist for, right?"
"He talked," Jakob confirmed, and the words settled heavily into the silent room. It was quiet for a long moment, him not wanting to elaborate and her waiting patiently for him to. Finally he did, he told her everything. It didn't pass his notice that she stopped looking at him when he mentioned how much the guitarist had been drinking, before and throughout the entire interview. Arista looked out the window to the street as he talked, but then she glanced back at him quickly when he told her about how he felt towards the end of it, how the interview closed.
"You're going to submit it, then?" she asked, sipping her tea.
"Yeah, I guess." He shrugged. "That's why I went to talk to him."
When he looked back over at her, he saw that she was looking fully at him for the first time since he mentioned his interview subject's constant drinking. "Do you want to?"
"It's not my call."
"You have it." She gestured to his case, where the audio of the interview was locked until he went into his office to upload, transcribe, and send it to Neal. "You have it," she said again, softly. "And you haven't put it up for anyone else to hear yet."
"That's...true." It's also my job.
Arista held his eyes for a moment longer, then she quickly stood and collected the pitcher and her almost-empty glass. "Dinner's almost ready," she said. "I made roasted rosemary chicken."
"That sounds amazing."
As she went into the kitchen, he sat back on the couch and drank the rest of his tea while looking out the big window. He glanced at the moonlight reflecting off the chain link fence they had just put in (and still owed on—they were planning to start their family early next year), then down at his case with the digital recorder inside.
.
"Yeah, what?”
Jakob paused, but knows both the sound of the voice and the heaviness in it. "Hey, Mark?"
There was a rustle, and Jakob thought he had, unfortunately, caught the guy sleeping. "Yeah? Who's 'is?"
"This is Jakob Carper, from Bright Stars. Do you remember talking with me yesterday?"
"Oh. Uh..." There was almost silence for a moment, then Jakob heard the tail-end of a yawn. "Mmm...yeah. I think. Something about...uh..." Something Jakob couldn't understand, and then, "Greasy pizza."
"Oh yeah? Sorry about that." At least he'd eaten some of it. He paused, thinking that the best way to make this guy really listen to him was to just talk to him like a guy, not a journalist and a celebrity. "Listen man...do you remember what you told me yesterday, during our interview?"
"Nnnn...a little." Mark yawned again, and there was more than tiredness in his voice. "You want me to ask the dead soldiers?"
"Well, I kinda doubt they'll know." Jakob winced. It wasn't like he'd exactly pushed the liquor on the other man, but there was a such thing as enabling, especially for one's own purposes.
"Why not?" Mark's voice was stronger now. "They heard everything."
"Yeah, I guess they did." Jakob paused. "And everyone else is going to read it, possibly even hear it online, when our conversation is printed and posted. They might even release the audio."
Silence. Jakob pulled his cell away from his ear to check that he hadn't dropped the call, then replaced it. "So..." Mark said slowly. "You're...what? Calling to brag? Or...for a bribe? I gotta say, that's kind of old hat at this point.”
"No. Nothing like that." Jakob licked his lips. He hadn't felt this anxious when talking to someone in years, but it wasn't the current exchange that had him bouncing his leg up and down with nerves. "Mark, man. You don't really want the whole world to read or hear everything you said about Brandon do you?" He's had the interview on his computer, sitting on pause for the last twenty minutes.
So maybe you really were in love with him all this time? Maybe even almost the whole time you've been friends—since you were, what, sixteen or seventeen?
...I dunno.
And that...if you really look at it...is how you feel about him different than 'just friends'?
I guess.
More than 'just friends'?
...yeah.
So...you're in love with him?
...yeah.
Arista had been right, of course. Whether or not the guy had been willing enough to talk, it wouldn't be on the file right now if Jakob hadn't pressed him, hadn't gone for that tried-and-true talk-until-you-distract-them-back way. And he was the only one who had heard it...so far.
When he heard nothing from Mark for a slow count of five, he took the audio file off pause, and held the phone away from the side of his face so that Mark can hear himself clearly. When Jakob turned the phone back, he was almost sure he'd see the CALL ENDED text blinking, along with their total talk time. He didn't.
"I'm not calling to either say 'look what I've got on you' or 'give me a million dollars or I'll post it'," he said into the extending span of dead air. "I'm asking you if you want me to delete it."
It was still quiet for another long moment, perhaps as long as ten seconds. Jakob found it increasingly hard to wait, but he wanted his offer to seem sincere; it was sincere. "What do you mean?" Mark asked finally
"I mean," Jakob said gently, "I haven't sent it in to my editor yet. If you want me to accidentally spill coffee on it, or have my computer crash, or whatever...I'm thinking I can do that."
"And...not let it get out."
"Yeah. If you want."
"Why? You already got it. Won't it make you hot shit or something?"
"Probably," Jakob agreed. "But in my experience, hot shit fucking stinks."
"Hmm. Thought you were supposed to send it in as soon as you had it?"
His phone beeped, and he took it away from his ear again just long enough to see INCOMING CALL: T. NEAL before pressing IGNORE and sending the annoying fuck to voicemail. "Usually, yeah."
"But...you didn't."
"No."
"Why do you care?"
"Because..." Okay, go back to college...what was the journalistic way to say this? "It was a shit thing to do."
"That doesn't answer the question."
"Yeah, it does. Look, I never wanted the job in the first place. My editor—well, never mind. I've got the audio, but no one else does. Do you want it to stay that way? If you do...Mark, it's gone."
There was another long space of silence. Jakob waited.
"I don't fucking care," Mark said at last, and his voice was both hard and exhausted. "I'm tired of all this shit. People keep on me because they want to fucking know. Let them, if that's what's going to make 'em happy, and maybe they'll leave me the fuck alone."
Now it was silent because Jakob couldn't speak. He was completely surprised; he thought his offer would have been met with grateful acceptance. He sure as hell wouldn't have wanted that interview to be out. "They won't leave you alone," he said quietly. "This is just going to spur them on more, because they'll think they were right."
"No, they’ll know they were right."
"Yeah, but...man, that's not going to help you."
"But you're going to? By ditching the audio log?"
"If you want me to."
"What'll happen to you if you do?"
Jakob grimaced; he'd been trying not to think about that. "My editor will tear me a new asshole and demand I talk to you again. I'll tell him you'll decline. If he makes firing threats, I'll go out to try...but you'll still decline."
"What if he does fire you?"
"I have other shit on the table," Jakob lied.
"But you'll lose credibility and get the all-important interview loss on your track record," Mark mused.
Jakob could hardly believe it—the depressed guitar player is still thinking about him. "Don't worry about it," he said. "It's not important." He tried to harden his voice, to brush off the concerns as if they really weren't necessary, but when Mark said, "Uh huh," he knew he wasn't fooling anyone. "Do you want me to destroy it or not?" Jakob asked, trying for exasperation.
"I don't...fucking...care."
"Yes, you do."
"No, I really don't. Give the babies their bottles, and don't fuck up your own career. I remember everything I said, okay? I don't care."
"Mark—" Jakob tried, but heard the distinctive twiddle-beep of the phone, declaring the call had indeed been ended.
He looked between the phone in his hands and the interview on his computer for five minutes, and then he got up and went to the window in his study. Arista was outside, on her knees by the north side of the garage, a large hat obscuring her face from the bright sun and dirt on her arms well past the gardening gloves. She'd been doing the border along the paving stones of the walk for the past week, uprooting her carefully-tended flowers from the west side of the house and gently relocating them. He liked to watch her; the curve of her back, the loving way she handled every plant, every petal. Their back and side yards were almost as beautiful as she was, though he knew that no matter how long she worked on them, they'd never be close in his eyes.
His phone began to ring in his hand, but he continued looking at his wife for another moment. He knew who it was, and the asshole could wait a few more seconds. Finally, just before it went to voicemail, he answered. "Carper," he said distantly.
Neal wanted to know where the fuck he'd been, and how many times he'd had this thumb up his ass to not answer his phone or at least call in. Neal wanted to know if he had it.
Arista looked back at the house, saw him, waved. Jakob lifted a hand back to her and said yes.
.
He got his first check with the new raise the day before the newest issue of Bright Stars hit the shelves and the article would go live. His buddy in the graphic design department had shown him the cover splash—Mark Allgeyer looking hollow-eyed, with IN LOVE WITH HIM THE WHOLE TIME surrounding his head like gnats of thought that couldn't help buzzing out of his brain.
There might still have been time to stop it.
But he said nothing.
.
While they were in line at the home improvement store, Arista happily chatting away about where she planned to put the ornamental bird bath and when they could expect the beautiful, semi-rare flowers she'd chosen to begin blooming, they both saw a full rack of Bright Stars; or, what probably had been a full rack before more than half of them had been purchased. Arista became quiet, closing down about the garden as well. Jakob put an arm around her and she let him, but she looked at their full cart broodingly now. He knew the feeling, but he stayed quiet.
He was good at getting them to talk, and just as good at saying nothing himself.
WARNINGS