#jankie

In another circumstance, Jackie might’ve laughed at the mini temper tantrum and found it oddly endearing. But she knew this was different; this was a touchy subject that required her to proceed with caution. Any attempt at conversation regarding how Jan compared herself to Marcia required the tact of navigating through a landmine – one wrong move and Jan’s defenses would go up while she shut down entirely. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

“Not especially.” There was a pause as she acknowledged that Jackie wasn’t going to let this go. “Maybe later… Not while we’re on the clock, okay?”

She sighed as she looked into the actress's eyes, as she was silently pleading for her to drop the subject. But she didn’t close the door on it, and she knew it was best to take what she could get. “Not while on the clock.”

The clock, however, seemed to move both faster than ever and at a snail’s pace simultaneously. Minutes felt like hours, hours felt like seconds – it left the cast and crew with increasingly severe cases of time blindness.

“Okay, guys, time to take a meal break,” Jackie announced as she, with Anetra’s help, carried in cardboard trays piled up with containers of food from a nearby Italian restaurant. “What meal? I have no idea, but you guys need to eat.”

There was a collective sigh of relief as the women abandoned their tasks and gathered around the fold-out tables, all helping unpack and set up the food before filling their plates and settling down to eat. 

Rosé sat down next to Denali, draping her free arm over the back of her chair. “How’re you holding up? I can only imagine how exhausted you must be, running through all the routines a million times.”

“I’ve been through more grueling endeavors,” Denali replied with a laugh. “That said, I wouldn’t say no if you wanted to give me a massage. You know, make sure I don’t get too sore… at least from dancing,” she winked.

She chuckled, her hand loosely wrapping around Denali’s braid and giving it a light tug. “I think that can be arranged, baby.”

Across the table and several seats down, Symone found herself unable to look away from the two of them flirting, her stomach knotted up too tightly for her to attempt to eat. 

“Girl, your eye is twitching,” Lexi remarked. “Are you okay? Do you need to go outside and smoke or something?” At this point, most of the cast and crew had backed off on asking Symone about her ex, but she didn’t seem to share that sense of self-preservation.

Symone let out an exasperated huff. “It’s not twitching, it’s just dust from a hundred-year-old building. Besides, it ain’t my business what they get up to… the pda is just doing a little too much.” She then remembered who she was talking to and added, “Don’t fucking say anything; the last thing I need is for them to think I’ve got a problem with them.”

She tilted her head, strumming her long acrylics against the table. “I mean… You kind of do, though, don’t you?” 

“I don’t.” The icy sharpness of her tone was enough to make even Lexi recoil. The silence that followed was just as tense and lasted for the longest minute. “I just wish I didn’t care. It’s annoying that I haven’t gotten the fuck over her already. She’s clearly doing just fine. When is it my turn?” 

“It’s not a fair comparison to make,” Lexi countered. “The person who got dumped is going to take longer to move on than the one who did the dumping. Besides, didn’t you say this blindsided you?”

Symone arched her brow. “Yes, but I didn’t say that to you.”

“Heard it through the grapevine. But my point remains. Do you want me to try to set you up with someone?”

She shook her head as she poked her fork around her plate. “I’ll take a rain check on that. I wanna attempt to meet someone on my own. You know, see if I still got it.” And maybe to start repairing her ego, but that was beside the point. 

—

“Okay, say your name and that this is you before opening night,” Kori directed as she held her phone up. 

Marcia stood upright with her hands on her hips and a thousand-watt smile. “I’m Marcia, and this is me before opening night.”

She nodded and stopped recording. “Perfect. On to the next victim.” It was a popular trend on the theatre side of social media – filming the actors before and after a big performance. It was a succinct and entertaining way to convey the immense physical and emotional energy invested in the show. Granted, Kori wasn’t particularly concerned with the nuance of it; it was going to trend, and that was what mattered. 

While Kori made her rounds, Lydia decided to make herself useful and help with last-minute finishing touches for the wigs and costumes. “Rumor has it that you and Daya might have somewhat of a dalliance developing,” she remarked as casually as she could.

Jasmine opened her mouth to defend herself, only to close it and furrow her brows. “What the fuck is a dalliance?” 

She bit back a laugh. “You know… an affair, a fling, something of the ‘redirecting the energy you spent hating each other into something more fun’ realm.” All she had heard was that the two of them were caught in a ‘compromising position’, and that was enough to pique her curiosity. 

She scoffed, though her reddening face was not helping her case. “It was nothing like that. We didn’t even, like, kiss.”

“You don’t need to kiss to have sex.”

“What, so you don’t kiss Kori before she goes down on you?”

Lydia laughed heartily this time. “I kiss her before and after, girl. But you’re not exactly in a position to compare whatever you’ve got going on with my relationship.” She paused her work on the dress she was re-hemming to hold up her left hand and wiggle her fingers, her ring sparkling under the bright lamp set up on the desk. 

“I mean, it truly isn’t that deep,” Jasmine insisted. “We were just goofing around. But since then… Well, she’s been nicer to me. And maybe we flirt here and there… But I don’t think she ever intends for anything to come out of it.” She hoped the explanation would be enough to satiate Lydia, but the way she was looking at her said otherwise.

“Kinda sounds like you want something to come out of it, though,” she accused with a smirk. “And hey, I love me a tall, femme bitch. So I can’t say I blame you.”

“Kind of the opposite ends of the ‘femme’ spectrum,” she mused, then finally relented. “Look, I don’t know… It’s complicated. And I have no idea how she feels.”

Before Lydia could prod further, Kori let herself into the room and pressed a kiss to the top of her head and rested a hand on her shoulder. “Done with round one of filming all these bitches. How’s it going over here, babe?” 

She turned her head back to look up at her fianceé, beckoning her to come down to her seated level for a kiss. “Good, good. Jasmine has a crush on Daya.”

“Lydia!”

Kori didn’t have much of a reaction other than a shrug. “Okay? Fork found in kitchen.”

Jasmine hid her head in her hands. “Oh my god.” She took a deep breath, waiting for a moment before speaking. “Give me some time to sort out how I feel. I promise I’ll act accordingly when I do.”

“Thank god,” Kori replied. “We’ve already surpassed our quota of useless lesbians.”

After that, it wasn’t long until the five-minute warning went out, ending the chit-chat and sending everyone rushing to take their places. The next thing they knew, the curtains were up and the show had begun. While not completely flawless, it was easily deemed a successful opening night by the cast, crew, and audience alike. 

The women, along with some invited family and friends, relocated to a rented-out restaurant to celebrate their first official Broadway performance. There was a bright, vibrant energy buzzing throughout the building. Any exhaustion that might’ve been felt was replaced with warmth and pride, enough for the long night to keep going. 

“Did you guys like the show?” Jewels asked her parents, eyes wide and sparkling with hope. 

“Of course, mija, my baby girl is a star,” her dad gushed as he pulled her into a crushingly tight hug. 

She barely had time to soak in the praise before her mom chimed in. “And you looked so beautiful, you will have men lining up around the block for you. You know, we were sitting next to such a nice young man, I got his phone number so you can–”

“No, no, Mami, please don’t,” she waved her hands in front of her as she shut her down. But that left her parents waiting for an explanation. In a panic, she blurted out, “I’m seeing someone!” 

Her parents’ reaction was a mix of shock and excitement. “Well, why didn’t you say so?” Her mother asked. “What’s his name? What does he do?”

“It’s S- uh… S-Steve!” Her mind short-circuited as she now struggled to recall any occupation, preferably one that would explain his absence at such an important event. “He’s… He’s a pilot, so he’s traveling all the time, super busy.” 

While Jewels’ parents continued to ask a litany of questions about Steve the Pilot, Suzie and Lydia stood out of their field of vision, but well within earshot. “On the bright side, it seemed like she wanted to say your name,” Lydia offered in an attempt to lighten an otherwise bleak moment.

“That isn’t all that reassuring, Lydia.” Suzie’s voice was deadpan, but the hurt she felt read clearly across her face. The anger simmered beneath the surface; every ounce of her acting abilities poured into avoiding a reaction. 

She winced, looking down and away. “Sorry,” she mumbled before looking back up at her friend. “Are you gonna confront her about it?”

“Maybe, though I don’t see why I should bother.” She stirred her drink with her straw, looking into the glass as if the answer would appear in the liquid. “Is it even worth it?” It seemed fruitless to engage in confrontation – what was she going to gain from it? A fight? Confirmation that the girl she’d been pining after didn’t care about her? It seemed like it would be in her best interest to pretend she didn’t hear anything and see if Jewels would own up to it on her own. 

“Because bottling up your emotions has worked so well thus far?”

Suzie rolled her eyes. “As if that would’ve made any difference. At least I know who I am and what I’m about. She’s the one in denial.” She looked over, taking in Jewels’ visible discomfort as she dug herself deeper into a hole of lies. “If I wasn’t so damn pissed, I’d feel bad for her.”

Lydia gave a sympathetic nod as she placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’s not mutually exclusive. You can be mad at her and feel bad that she’s stuck in a shitty situation. It’s complicated, I get it.”

“Yeah,” she sighed, “it’d be a lot easier if I just hated her.”

—

Jewels woke up to a throbbing headache and pulled the covers up over her head to block out the morning (or afternoon, she hadn’t the slightest clue) sun. The night ended on a note she could only describe as ‘blurry’. She remembered her parents leaving. She remembered actively hiding from Suzie while grabbing a drink whenever she could, but then it started to fade to black. 

After taking pain medication, she put on her glasses and pushed herself to her feet. She shuffled into the common area, where she saw Lana sitting on the couch and eating leftover Chinese food. “Hey.”

“Oh, good, I thought I was gonna have to come in and check for signs of life,” Lana remarked as she looked her over. “The afterparty was rough, huh?” 

She winced and swallowed thickly. “Fuck, did I do something to make an ass of myself? Am I gonna be in trouble?”

She chuckled softly and shook her head, then patted the spot next to her on the couch, waiting for her roommate to join before answering. “It wasn’t that bad, though you were making it sound like Suzie was hunting you for sport; every time you saw her, you hid and went ‘she’s gonna kill me!’ until Jackie and I kept you still enough for you and I to get into an Uber, which by some act of divine intervention, you didn’t throw up in.” 

“So… She knows?”

Lana shrugged. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to her. I was busy chasing your drunk ass around. But if I had to guess… yeah, probably.” She set the now-empty container down and turned to face her friend. “This was not your finest hour, but you can’t undo it. The question is, where do you go from here? Are you gonna talk to Suzie?” 

Jewels looked down as she fidgeted with her hair. Deep down, she knew it wasn’t something she could avoid for long – they did still have to work together, after all. “I don’t know what I’d say? That I’m sorry for being a coward? That she deserves better?” 

“So do you, babe. You deserve better than the life you’re creating for yourself. We’ve all been trying to tell you how important it is to live for yourself instead of your family. But you have to be ready to take that leap, to do the scary thing.” She wrapped her arm around her and pulled her close. “Do you think you can do that?”