16:58 "Graveyard Club"
Jasmin's Office
Graveyard Club
Jasmin sat behind her desk, an idle eye to a security monitor in her office as the clean-up crews continued to work. Her body was flush with anticipation of the coming evening, as it always was. She worked quietly herself, as she folded up cot, to move it inside the bottom portion of the liquor cabinet, closing the door and righting herself with a stretch.
Spring always did it, she remembered. It started the months, culminating in June, where the days always grew longer. It meant being creative: staying over at Graveyard during the day and renting out part of it to use for auditions, sometimes, or arriving somewhere before the first rays of sunlight pierced the heavens to show up in that building all day. So she had spent the better part of today asleep in her office, awakening a couple of times to make or take phone calls.
“And it's so easy when you're evil” her cell phone played, drawing her attention. “This is the life you see, the devil tips his hat to me I do it all because I'm evil....” she turned away from the monitor, back to the phone, looking at the number. Sighing to herself slightly, she reached across the mahogany desk to pick it up and answer.
“Hello, George,” she answered in an even and actually warm sounding voice. As much as she disliked the cretin, no reason to burn that bridge yet. “How are you do-”
“Don't you how are you me, you cunt!” Jasmin blinked back in surprise at the sudden outburst, his voice filled with vitriol. “I heard what you did to my woman.”
Admittedly, she thought this was the best part. The righteous anger, as though the human sense of self-entitlement truly did know no bounds. Maybe it was time to burn this bridge after all. “George, your woman failed rehab three times, then she called the judge an unreasonable hard-ass when he gave her a ninety day sentence for probation violation.”
A slow smile of sadistic pleasure crept to her face. Nobody to see, so she could enjoy this, even if it was true. The woman had destroyed herself; all she had to do was abide by a simple set of conditions, the most important of which was not getting caught drinking again. “You didn't have to fire her,” the other returned, sounding less than pleased.
“Opening day is July 4, and the run is through the end of August. I can't help fund a production of 1776 if Martha Jefferson is wearing an orange jump suit.”
“You dropped the lawyer.”
“Funding for her lawyer was conditional on her actually getting through the program, not washing out, especially multiple times. Maybe she should find a less stressful line of work.” Beep beep. She moved the phone around to see call ended on the screen. Jasmin closed her eyes and just enjoyed the pain for a few moments. That was almost as enjoyable as when she told the director that yes, they would need a new understudy.
With that taken care of, she put the phone down, moving her crystal ball paperweight to the side to get at the papers she was working on, and looking for her various bank statements. At least she could get something productive done while waiting for the sun to go down, she thought, before her cell phone rang again, leaving her to reflect that her time before she got to actually go out was going to be hellish indeed.