Chapter 39: (OLD) Chapter 29

Note: I am here and I'm sorry about last week. This whole skipping-a-week thing is NOT going to become a regular occurrence for updates. Life has been so hectic lately—I've just been so accustomed to living in California and New York over the years, and the adjustment to suddenly being in Tennessee, of all places, has been interesting, to say the least. Many new places and faces and things to figure out!

Anyway, I'm here today, and I'm so happy that you're here as well. Thank you to those of you who look forward to a new chapter on Fridays, and to those of you who correspond together in the comments with predictions and light anecdotes. I love reading them so much.

PREVIOUSLY ON THE CLASSIX: Emeray and Chapter sorta talked about Rebecca but ultimately didn't talk about Rebecca at all. What an elusive girl, Rebecca is. After all that, Emeray visited Gerald on his first modeling shoot and kinda sorta did the punk photoshoot with him, given they were both wearing black. So obviously, Foster rolled out of his grave and appeared backstage. At least, Emeray thinks she saw him. How can we know for sure?

This gif is an accurate representation of our five living Classix members featuring ghost Foster. Please cast Scooby, Shaggy, Freddy, Daphne, and Velma accordingly right now in the comments. I'm having a moment.

emeray

I know what I saw, but I don't know if I'm sure of it.

I play it back in my head on the ride back with Gerald. I only really had a sliver of his face to go off of, but the feelings that came with it were more than enough. The curl of his hair, the visible swagger in his posture, the sharp end of his jaw––they didn't make me feel the same way I do when looking back at pictures of Foster. He wasn't a frozen moment, a hallucination. The floors creaked beneath his feet. The knob turned with his hand. The door clicked shut behind him as he went. He was there . . . if not Foster, somebody.

But the lights were off inside the break room, and the whole place was empty. There were no adjoining doors for him to have gone out of. The lockers were too slim for him to squeeze into. Any hiding place was in plain sight.

But I know what I saw.

But do I?

I could've checked the room longer. The staff member who let me in didn't seem to object any when I peered at the lockers, but sifting through anybody's belongings felt inherently wrong after all the sifting I've done with Bree's belongings in the past. From the glances I took in haste, however, nothing stuck out to me as Foster's. No mementos that caught my eye.

That figure of Foster turning the doorknob is all I can think of the whole drive. His face, his actions, the details of everything. By the time the car pulls up to the Hideaway, I can't quite decipher what I really saw and what I've added in daydreams.

Walking through the massive front doors, I find Carstan and Norax stagnant in the hall. Considering the way they perk up and stop talking when I come in, it feels to me as if they were waiting for my return. I pause apprehensively, awaiting a confrontation.

"Evening, Emeray," Carstan greets, speaking first. The level of warmth in his voice is so foreign to me––an exclusivity for Famoux members that Emilee Parvenu never knew of. "It's always a pleasure to see you."

I look down at the floor, on instinct. "Hi."

Entering after me, Gerald waves wordlessly at our managers. They murmur hellos as he moves on, bounding up the staircase to his room. I watch him go with envy as Carstan continues his small talk.

"Any more plans for today?"

"Not really."

"Seeing Cartney?"

"Just going to my room."

"That's good."

"Yeah."

A lull follows. Carstan taps his foot on the marble floors, casting echoes of fake footfall all around us. If I blink slow enough I can see visions of our old school hallway––me running away, him running after me. It makes me so dizzy that I lean slightly against Angad, who's standing behind me, for support.

After thirty more seconds of this, Norax claps her hands together. "Well," she says, "I think we should get a move on those evening plans. Carstan, you go and continue working on what we were talking about."

"Sure, of course." He adjusts his posture like he's pressing reset on himself. With newly added pep, as if he's some kind of eternally joyful, spirited person, he starts down the hall toward the offices.

As he goes, I move toward the stairways to make my own ascent. Before I can even make it to the first step, I'm stopped.

"Emeray?"

Silently cursing to myself, I turn toward Norax, meeting her expressionless gaze with one of equal passivity. I notice her face, ever youthful, has a few new wrinkles I've never seen before. If it wasn't for the Fissarex assuring that my skin never age a day past its reformation, I'm sure my own face would've boasted some wrinkles too after everything we've been through.

"Yeah?" I ask.

She points in the general direction of her office, and my heart sinks.

"A word, please."

Reluctant, I follow her down the hallway. The Hideaway is so big that we don't encounter anyone else the whole way there, regardless of the fact that over eleven Famoux members are roaming around at any given moment. The silence mixed with my trepidation for our upcoming conversation ties my stomach in a million knots.

Norax's new office is distinctly indistinct. The wallpaper is a soft beige, and her desk is white and orderly. She has no pictures on the walls or in frames by her devices. The air gets still and stuffy the moment she closes the door.

"I see you too infrequently, lumerpa," Norax starts.

"I know," I say.

"I'm sure you've noticed how busy things have been lately. Managing eleven Famoux members at once . . ." She nods to the door as she takes a seat at her desk. "Even with Carstan's help, there are just so many new things to go through."

New things. "Like what?" I ask.

"Some future career plans. Bookings. But most of all, we've been going through endless measures in securing your privacy."

"How so?"

"Well, it's pretty evident now after a few magazine releases that the Fanatix's main job here is to be a vessel to the general public." Norax pulls up an article on the sleek device attached to her desk. Its headline proclaims, KAYTEE MCKARRINGTON WANTS A FAMILY SOMEDAY, FANATIX MEMBER LACEY DEAN REVEALS. She taps it gingerly. "These kind of articles add a lot of personal depth to the Classix. Small anecdotes, shared to the whole world like a rumor whispered in class. So far the Famoux's likability as a whole has gone up astronomically from where it was before we announced the Fanatix. But as you know, there are a lot of things that the Fanatix should not know or reveal."

I nod.

"That's why we moved to the Hideaway––to, quote on quote, hide away anything the Fanatix could find that would compromise your current identities. It was too crowded in the Metropolix, and we certainly weren't going to take the risk when we have the means to move into a much bigger area."

She stops, waiting for me to make a response.

"Uh, right," I say.

"Right," she parrots. "And you've probably noticed that you have an Analytix right in your bathroom instead of a room they could pursue. Isn't it wonderful?"

There are few things entirely wonderful about a personal room full of outside voices, but I nod again anyway.

"Furthermore, I've been working with our security team to develop extra measures, which has truly spread me thin. I apologize for neglecting my manager position for the past few weeks."

The way she speaks to me feels eerily like an essay practiced a few times through before I came in. She knows what to say, when to offer an example or refer to me. Perhaps I've just been separated from her for too long, but for a moment, I have trouble recalling a conversation I've had with her lately that felt actually candid.

The entire concept of Norax not focusing on managing us––not analyzing our every move and word––sets me off by default. For the past few weeks, Cartney and I have been properly ruining ourselves in front of everybody, and she's barely bat an eye about it. Usually, the suffocation from her is too much to bear. When my relationship with Cartney first started, she was briefing us before every walk on what key actions we should make for the best photographs. In the Fishbowl, the piece in my ear made it so I heard her voice constantly, continuously, nonstop.

And now, so swiftly, neglect. She disappeared on my birthday, emerging with the Fanatix before retreating right back into her office and leaving us to do whatever we please. How can it be that it takes weeks to protect our privacy, when the only example she can show for it is the Analytix that was in my bathroom the day we moved in?

"It's fine," I assure her. "I've been doing all right managing myself."

This makes Norax chuckle. "I'm going to disagree to that."

When I give her a look, she chuckles once more, as if to dismiss my nonsense. For some reason, it makes my jaw clench.

"What's the matter with what I've been doing?" I ask, even though I know. Making yourself hated without any background explanation of DEFED's threats isn't the best way to manage yourself. "The only thing you ever ask me to do is be seen with Cartney, and I'm being seen with Cartney."

"Yeah––but every second of everyday?"

Norax grabs another magazine, placing it beside a paper full of charts from the Analytix. I see pictures of Cartney and I, bolded quotations we've made on walks, graphs pointing every which way.

"You're all over the place, Emeray," she says, pointing to a tabloid that proudly displays one of my comments to the paparazzi. Something outrageous about the possibility of getting married in a month. "Are these misquotations? Because if there is someone spreading this big a volume of falsified quotes, I need to start investigating the possibility of another threat. I need to––"

She stops when she sees me shaking my head. At an instant, her lips purses together, becoming a flat line. It looks more to me like she's proving a hypothesis in her head instead of being taken by surprise.

"They aren't misquotations?" she asks, for confirmation.

"No," I say.

"They aren't misquotations," she murmurs to herself. Dragging in a breath, she raises her voice again. "Then why are you telling them that-–oh, never mind what you're saying yet. First, why are you speaking directly to the paparazzi?"

I think about how Till or Chapter would go about replying to this. They're so much more fearless when it comes to talking to Norax. "Well, they're asking me questions, so I thought I'd answer."

"Emeray."

"What?"

"You've been here long enough to know we never do that. Your security guards are supposed to assure that."

"Angad never says anything," I say, shrugging.

"He definitely should be." Norax looks down at my statistics. The dismay in her gaze becomes more and more visible the further she scans down the page. She looks up at me, defeated. "What's going on, lumerpa?"

"Nothing."

"That's obviously not true. I mean, what they're saying––" She sighs, putting a hand on her forehead. "Emeray, I'm evaluating your attitude since we moved into the Hideaway, and I have to say, I'm really disappointed in you."

My face scrunches up. Any hope I'd had of being stronger, more fearless in the face of her vanishes like air. Disappointed?

"What?"

"I gave everyone in the Classix some space to figure things out for themselves and they've been flourishing." She references to the magazines again. "Your Fanatix members are meant to be doing half the job for me. Like I said, they're here to improve your images with their shared secrets and insights about the Famoux. Making it look natural instead of staged, like it would with me. And look at these articles––it's working! But Emeray, do you notice that the articles about you are the only ones that are continuously negative? Where are the little redemption stories from your members? You have two of them!"

"Well––" My breath catches in my throat, and I cough. The way she's speaking to me now, so accusatory and furious, makes me suddenly long for the monotonous, speech-like drawl she'd been giving before. "Well, it's complicated, okay? For one, Lex isn't the gentlest of members to have––"

"Lex?" Norax looks at me like I'm mad. "Lex isn't being gentle to you? I've been getting reports from Carstan that you're completely ignoring her."

"That makes me sound bad," I say. "It's actually more than that, Norax. I mean, on set for Onward Train––"

"She was acting on set, Emeray. I know she hurt you, but some people get a little more into it than others."

"She pushed me off a platform!"

"It doesn't give you sudden permission to fight fire with fire, especially when one of the flames is fake. You can't suddenly shut her out like this. It's really been taking a toll on her."

"I'm not meaning to be rude, I'm just––"

"Ignoring someone on purpose is rude, Emeray, any way you slice it. You understand that a large mass of people assume you betrayed Kaytee because of Cartney Kirk, right? Lex is an avid fan of yours who, as we heard on multiple occasions via Analytix, tries to convince anyone she can that you're not that blatantly hurtful person they think you are. And what are you showing her right now?"

I reach out my hands to stop her. "No, please––"

"You're showing her that person."

My head starts pattering so quick it aches. With each and every word from her mouth, I back further and further into a corner.

"But––but how could I have controlled that rumor in the first place?" I ask. "It's not my fault that I'm bound by contract into this relationship. You're the one who made me sign it! And now a lot of people are starting to hate it, and I can't just––"

"You are the one who's making people hate it, Emeray," Norax snaps. "Look at yourself right now: Putting blame on everything and everyone you can think of. If you weren't running around with Cartney like this––being overly showy with your love and breaching your rules by answering paparazzi questions––things would be in the same perfectly normal state they were in before. That was the whole point of this! A quiet, mysterious relationship is just what Cartney needs for his upcoming album, not a relationship that slaps everyone in the face with constant displays. But, of course you went and decided to shift everything the second I'm not looking."

I grip the edge of my chair. "'Of course' I did?" As if she knows why we're making people hate us in the first place––as if she knows the threats Cartney and I have been receiving since she's been gone. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I can't ignore the fact that you're still hanging onto your affections to Chapter. I know this looks like a good way to get out of your dating contract––"

"I'm not doing this to be with Chapter!" I exclaim.

But she ignores me. "I had hoped that you'd respect your contract when I was away instead of trying to rip it apart, but your ratings kept going down and down and down while the others excelled."

"But I'm not––"

"If you truly believe to yourself that this is a good idea––that getting people to hate you and Cartney like this is going to suddenly make you the ideal candidate for Chapter's public girlfriend––"

She stops herself from continuing, bringing her anger to a half. She swallows hard, shaking her head at me solemnly.

"You are neglecting your Fanatix members instead of caring for them," she says. "You are ruining your image day by day. You're flaring up at me like I haven't supplied you so many good, exciting things to live for. I don't know how or why you've gotten so reckless, lumerpa. You used to be so helpful."

Norax Geddes has given me a million reasons over time to resent her. She changed me completely after telling me I was special. She pushed me into a dating contract the moment I found someone to love. Her son is the boy who bullied me and hurt me my entire existence––her son who now walks these halls everyday like a constant, insistent reminder of the life I left. I could easily react to her like Till or Chapter does, snapping back and shrugging it off, if only it were easy for me. But it isn't. Deep down inside there's a part of me who's still bending over backwards to be that as alluring and wonderful as that person she told me I was the day she found me by the Fishbowl. And hearing her say this kind of thing to me––I can't handle it, no matter how true or how false it is. Looking every which way to avoid her face, I fight off the tears that threaten to spill down my cheeks.

"Then I'm sorry," I say, desperate. "I'm sorry, Norax. I can be better to Lex. I can tone it down. I can be helpful." It's a bit of a lie, since I can't tone anything down with Cartney and expect DEFED to revoke their threat to kill him, but in that moment, I completely and wholeheartedly mean it.

I expect her to forgive me. To pat my cheek affectionately. To tell me whatever new thing she was planning to redeem myself.

But she doesn't do any of that.

"Good," she says softly.

And she dismisses me from the room without another word.

xxx

All right there's that. More to come next week. Tell me your thoughts.

What are you up to this weekend? I'm going to order cookies to my dorm room and try to make my Netflix finally work. I just wanna watch The Last Five Years, really. That's all I ask of this weekend.

Have an amazing friday. Remember:

Sticks and Stones may break your bones, but haters make you famoux. Stay classy, stay classix.