S3, E9 | When All Else Fails, Ask

\ Friday, August 17th, 2007 /
\ 10:37 pm est. - 7:37 pm pst. /

“Taylor, I’m not the one making the call here” Kaye responds, arguing her involvement to well below what’s assumed by her once friend, “does he care about me? Yes. Does that mean he’s willing to settle for two billion dollars less just because I ask him to for someone that never bothered to look at me as something other than a girl she roomed with in college and went different ways from? Probably not.”

“I’m not asking you to convince him, I’m just asking you to tell him to reconsider his options here” Taylor explains, the side of her hand resting against the table beside her flimsy, red fast food platter. “He’s going to sell to someone that’ll take this company- something he founded with ideals- to a guy that’s more than just someone I don’t like” she continues, watching her friend’s eyes veer toward the same street she’d recently looked at, “he’ll sell to someone that doesn’t.”

“Why would he even believe that Robin would be any better?” Kaye inquires, shaking her head and stiffening her shoulders, “she settled to take in twenty-one percent with the sole reason of wanting to own more of the company than he did. Where are the ideals and principles there?” Looking off into the distance, Taylor’s lack of ability in maintaining eye contact is called out by the woman on the other side of the table, the request she’s made being spoken ill of in light of their past.

“Why would I even want to entertain this? All of this, it’s just some plea for you to get me to do the bidding that Robin couldn’t. I don’t owe her anything, why would I owe you anything?” Kaye wonders aloud, genuinely curious in spite of lending evidence to support the asking of her own question, “you didn’t keep in touch. Our last conversation was two weeks after we moved out of the apartment. You practically existed as if I never existed, and I don’t blame you because I did the same.”

“People grow apart, I don’t understand why you’re talking to me like this as if I stabbed you in the back somehow” Taylor retorts, her question answered by the woman she’d asked to meet her. “I’m sorry, who asked who to meet up here and catch up? Exactly who is asking for a favour here?” Kaye queries back, “if I was the one coming here and asking you for a favour- after all these years of moving on from you- wouldn’t you have more than enough reason to wonder why you owed me it?”

“I’m not saying I don’t understand why you’d be hesitant to do me a favour, I’m asking why you’re so hostile about it” Taylor responds, “it’s not like I’m asking for a million bucks, I’m-”

“No, you’re asking for two billion!” Kaye replies, her whisper coming in the form of a near-hiss, “you’re asking me to talk my husband out of a two billion dollar profit from the profit he’d already make by selling the fifth for four.” Bowing her head, Taylor sits with herself in silence for a moment, both hands balled into a fist as her eyes widen, eyelids stiffening into an open position as she prepares to continue speaking, allowing her old friend to begin doing so whilst she does.

“If I seem hostile to you, then I’m sorry about how I’m approaching you. But this is a little ridiculous” Kaye remarks, “there is no right that you have to ask me for something like this.” Aware that she’s gotten nowhere and is likely not going to, Taylor lifts her head with a less-pleased visage, the friendly demeanour she’d entered the diner with having naturally eroded into a loose look of displeasure.

“I didn’t ask you about life because I don’t care. I’ll be honest, I don’t give a shit what you’ve done since we stopped talking. I don’t” Taylor remarks, no longer seeing the value in playing nice in lieu of its inability to progress the discourse favourably. “It’s not that I dislike you or anything, far from it. As a matter of fact, you were one of my favourite people to talk to, that’s why I agreed to move in with you after college” she continues, “it’s just a side-effect of growing apart.”

Appearing less like she’s on the defensive, Kaye settles further into her seat as her posture eases, no longer aggravated by the gall of her once friend to attempt to talk her into what she’d prefer to steer clear from. “The only reason I come to you is because, if anyone at LMC is scared- it’s me” Taylor confesses, not allowing any thought to hide behind a veil of mystery.

“You know what Barry did to me at that party, you know how I got in that anchor’s chair- I’m not gonna bother bringing up old news. The point is- the news is relevant again” Taylor remarks, “Robin will worry about losing leverage, Vickers may be less able to drink in the office, this doesn’t even affect Grant other than his connection to me- but Russo comes from the exact same place that the shit Barry took after fucking festers in.”

Looking away with her shoulders lowering slightly, Kaye turns her eyes toward the window, only able to pull her sights back amidst Taylor’s continuation. “When we moved out of that apartment, you were dating the guy you’re still married to now. Was it a conventional marriage? The age gap, the wealth disparity? No. But you moved out and moved onto your future” the primetime anchor continues, visibly struggling to speak of her own past, “I was at my lowest.”

“You were the anchor of the nine o’clock news” Kaye replies in a whisper, quickly corrected by the woman seated across from her. “I was learning how to be a newscaster in front of an entire nation that would heckle me at every turn and listen to not a damn thing I said, but instead looked at me as the young, blonde piece of ass the company was trying to keep viewers around to watch after they canned Barry” Taylor recalls, “all whilst still having to be asked about how it felt to fill his shoes.”

“I’m sure they couldn’t just come out and say he raped you without getting themselves in the most televised lawsuit since O.J” Kaye retorts, a rebuttal that her anchor friend has no care for. “It doesn’t matter why they fired him or how public it was. What mattered is that I had to sit there, being asked questions about how iconic my fucking rapist was, while I smiled and agreed with every last thing” Taylor explains, “sure, I had money and fame. What else did I have?”

Parting her lips, Kaye fails to speak as her pause ensues, her open mouth remaining as the time she’s afforded to respond finishing its final few seconds before elapsing. “It was money, it was fame, it was not happiness. I was boxed up without a way out, and I got so used to being in that place mentally that I didn’t even give a shit whether or not there was an exit” Taylor admits, a remark that prompts the woman across from her to return her lips together.

“I may have Grant now, and I may be in a better place, but I feel that box closing on me again” the anchor continues, spelling out her worry in a way her one-time roommate may understand, “there’s been accusation after accusation, payout after payout, settlement after settlement. Russo, Finley in general- a goddamn hivemind of sickos that have come out of the same company that fucking bastard oversees. For fuck’s sake, it’s where Barry worked before coming to LMC!”

“I didn’t know-” Kaye attempts to respond, only for her voice to be cut off by the woman’s continuation, the interruption not one she argues against, but rather sits in silence to allow. “Pardon me for being afraid of something like that- a storm cloud like that- coming over my fucking head again. Pardon me for wanting to do anything to keep it away” Taylor concludes, stepping out of her booth to leave, “and pardon me for hoping you’d at least understand why I’d look anywhere I could.”

Without so much as a ‘goodbye’, the primetime anchor ignores the calls from her former friend to come back, the understanding tone Kaye wields doing little to offer much promise in the departing woman’s eyes. Through the front door and with her hand held in the air, Taylor hails a cab that stops on the moment it finds her extended palm, a passing glance at the one expensive vehicle parked in the parking lot she steps through drawing her attention at the last second.

Assuming the vehicle to belong to the woman she leaves behind in the diner, Taylor approaches the white SUV and stares at the back window for a mere moment, paying no mind to anything other than the illustration plastered upon the back window. In the form of a rough sketch, a set of stickers on the lower left side of the transparent divider portrays a woman and a man, the set of adults stood beside a smaller stick figure intended to be a child standing just beside the female.

The white lines it’s composed of appear scratched and scraped, the child’s figure appears to be anything other than wanted, almost as if its inclusion to the family were no longer something welcomed by the two adult figures it stands beside. With a disappointed look, Taylor turns back for the cab and pays Kaye no mind, aware of what the illustration represents and offering it as little thought as the woman had paid to her.

= Tonight at 9 is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 1 onward =

\ Saturday, August 18th, 2007 /
\ 6:21 am est. - 3:21 am pst. /

Rolling onto his side with the pillow wrapped around his head, Aiden muffles the sound of roaring knocks coming from the other side of his door, calling for his attention. “If I come to open the door for you now, you’ll never remember to take your key with you when you leave!” the man trying to sleep replies from his futon, “what happens if you forget your key again!? Then I’ll have failed to teach you this valuable lesson! How can I sleep at night knowing that would make me a bad friend!?”

In spite of his question, the soul calling for his answer refuses to offer one of their own, returning to repeatedly meeting the outside of the apartment’s door with the fist they ball together. Rolling his eyes behind his lids, Aiden groans softly and lets the pillow unfold itself from atop his head, freeing his ears to hear the full force behind each strike the guest takes toward the flat’s entrance.

“For fuck’s sake, Shane! At least have the courtesy to stay at the gym until I’m awake!” Aiden exclaims, folding to the pressure applied by the visitor and hopping out from beneath the thin sheet he sleeps beneath, a set of plaid boxers accompanying his maroon t-shirt. “At least then you won’t actually be waking me u-” the eight o’clock producer shouts, wiping his eyes as he unlocks the deadbolt, opening the door before he can finish speaking, silence befalling him upon first sight.

His hand falling from his face, Aiden’s eyes widen collectively as his chin lifts just slightly, his tired expression somehow falling all at once upon finding his ex-girlfriend stood in the hallway, her leather purse held in both hands at her waist. “What are you doing here?” the resident wonders aloud, staring into the face of the woman who appears hesitant, almost as if asking the same question, only to herself within her own head.

“I’m not really sure” Carly finally confesses, the time passing between her answer and the question it was offered to having only been a few seconds, though the time passed like molasses does churn for both involved. “You weren’t at work this week” Aiden remarks, equally as uncomfortable as his ex is, uncertain of what to say in order to keep the conversation moving whilst also unsure of whether or not he even wishes for it to.

“Yeah, I decided to take the week off” Carly responds, her awkward posture as out of place as her presence in the complex is, “I- I had to figure a couple things out.” With a subtle nod, Aiden lowers his chin and glances off to the side, his hand lifting to the back of his head, which he scratches with his index and middle fingers.

“The ratings took another hit” the anxious producer confesses, a squint in his eye as the social bashfulness he’d once assumedly kicked reclaims possession of him, towering over him like a high school bully and refusing to leave him the slightest room to breathe. “Apparently the audience has decided that a middle aged field correspondent isn’t for them” Aiden continues, speaking with a pause that allows him to hear the breathy chuckle his once significant other reacts with.

“Yeah, they’ve-” Carly begins to respond, feeling the wrath of the same timidity her one time lover’s entire existence had been comprised of consume her, refusing her the ability to speak with coherence, “-they’ve gotten a lot of that lately, huh?” Smiling more so in his cheeks than in the rest of his face, Aiden nods to himself and looks away again, yet another moment of sheepish quietude falling over the pair.

Holding her breath for far longer than she’d intended, Carly remembers to breathe and expends a gust of air from her lungs, using the break in absolute silence to garner enough confidence to speak. “Can I come in?” the woman wonders aloud, a hopeful look carried in her face as she waits for a reply, each moment that passes without one bringing her mental fortitude lower than the moment before.

“I-” Aiden begins, again falling silent for a moment as he searches for the words to say, eyebrows lowering as his face tenses at the cheek, “I think it’d be better if you didn’t.” Surprised, Carly’s look of disappointment immediately meets him, having assumed his answer would voice the opposite. “Oh” the woman replies, at first too baffled to speak, though her words soon find their way to her brain, “alright then.”

Yet again nodding through the discomforting silence, Aiden scratches the back of his head and looks away, unable to do much more than follow the same, three-step pattern he had relied upon to that point. “Is there a reason you chose to come here?” the man soon wonders aloud, the question being all that comes to his mind capable of potentially progressing the discourse toward more optimal means.

“Um... No, actually. I was just in the area and knew where you were staying, so-” Carly responds, again wearing the look of a woman uncertain about anything- even what stands in front of her, “-I just decided to stop by.” Finally half-snapped out of his subconscious haze, the remark prompts Aiden to ask a question in only one word, enough to provoke even the deepest thought from the mind of the wandering member of New York’s elite class.

“Why?” the man probes, unsure of what better inquiry can be made aside from that, his last encounter with the woman having ended with anything other than her uninvited visitation to be expected. “I mean, I don’t really know” Carly replies, looking to the ground as her left hand frees itself from the straps of her designed handbag, taking to swipe the hairs out of her face, “I guess it just didn’t feel right not to.”

With his head held in the air, Aiden stares at the ceiling and processes the remark, incapable of responding with much more than his first instinct. “Oh, alright then” the man answers, finally understanding what it’s like to have a conversation as his former self with his former self, “I guess you should probably head back then, huh?”

Puckering her lips and shrugging, Carly nods in agreement and smiles, “yeah, probably” she retorts, spending another few seconds aimlessly staring forward before turning to leave. As if finally stricken with common sense, the primetime anchor stops her departure three steps in and regains her regular composure, “hey, wait!” she exclaims, quickly turning back and hurrying to the door as it’s mid-close, the palm of her hand pressing against it to refuse it any further advancement.

“For fuck’s sake, I hate what we’re doing with each other right now!” Carly shouts, watching her ex glance down each end of the hallway apologetically, prompting her to lower her voice with respect to his neighbours. “I hate that we can’t talk to each other, I hate that we don’t see each other, and I hate that you’re falling apart with what’s happened” she continues, voice nearing a whisper, “I know I fucked up that night too, but I hate that we can’t even look each other in the eyes anymore.”

“Well it’s not like I was the one that chose to show up to sit behind a desk for an hour and fuck off the rest of the day!” Aiden retorts, her return to normality prompting the best out of him socially once more, “I mean, if there’s anyone that hasn’t been trying since that night, it’s been you!” Hanging her head and rolling her eyes out of self-frustration, Carly nods to the man in lieu of speaking agreement, a hand placed against the top of her head.

“Yeah, I- I know that” the woman replies in defeat, her head concluding its nod by remaining hung, not a word of what Aiden said capable of being argued against. “I just want things to go back to normal between us, and I don’t know how to do that” Carly confesses, soon pulling her head up to look him in the eyes, “I came here because I fucking miss you. I miss being friends, I miss seeing you every day, I miss- I miss all of it! I just want this fighting to stop and to go back to how it was!”

“‘How it was’ in what way?” Aiden quickly retorts, tacking onto the end of her statement with a question that lingers at the top of his mind, “How it was when we were friends, or how it was when we were more?” Letting out a sigh as her expression lightens, Carly nearly sports a smile as her head leans slightly to one side, “how it was when we would get back to the apartment together, put on a movie and I’d fall asleep on the couch so you’d carry me to bed.”

Turning away from something other than discomfort for the first time since the door had been knocked at, Aiden listens to the woman continue with ears desperate not to have to hear what’s being said. “I wanna go back to you hounding me to get ready faster so we wouldn’t be late to an office we were always almost two hours too early getting to” Carly continues, “I want to go back to playing paper basketball with the bin in your office when there’s nothing to do between rundown and showtime.”

Growing more fond of the times she speaks of the longer she talks, Carly’s visceral pleasantries take a sharp turn back to reality when the man she’s a guest of interrupts, tearing apart those well wishes as soon as they were voiced. “It’s great that you do, but I don’t” Aiden responds, watching her pleasant smile fade the instant her interjects, “those times were nice to have, but they’re over now. They’re over now, it’s time to move on, and it’s what’s best for both of us to do.”

“You’re only saying that because you’re mad at me” Carly quickly rebukes, an accusation that her ex-boyfriend could not believe something more opposite than. “No, I’m saying that because I’m mad at myself” Aiden replies, watching the woman’s surprise take shape, his own admission of self-discontent prompting his face to sour, “I’m mad at who I was when I was with you. I’m mad at being the guy that walked up to a guy an hour away from midnight and drove his head through a car window.”

“In all fairness, he was starting to annoy me up until when you showed up” Carly intersperses, a finger raised as she speaks, “if you hadn’t done it, I’m pretty sure they would’ve gotten me on camera doing it instead.” Swiping his hair back with the palm of his hand, Aiden shakes his head and looks the woman in the eyes, the continuation of his former thought making clear his lack of amusement in her attempt at humour.

“I don’t even care that I had enough reason to doubt you, the fact of the matter is that I started to turn out like the exact same guy that walked into my office and started choking me against the wall” Aiden confesses, “I could barely hold a conversation for more than a few seconds before I was with you, and that ability to speak to people through more than just a few words is not, in the slightest, worth the person I was becoming before we broke up.”

“You are not Juno” Carly warns, her finger from before still raised, though with much different intention this time. “No, I’m not. Juno is a far better person than I am” Aiden responds, agreeing with her statement, though not as it was intended to be taken, “Juno moved on, left for Detroit, and realised he was someone he didn’t like. Juno had the balls to look me in the eyes and apologise. Juno figured out that he needed to be a better man. Now, so do I.”

“Wait, how do you know that?” Carly inquires, unaware of the conversations her ex-partner’s had taken part in. “Because he stopped me at the cafe a few blocks from the office a little while after I became your E.P” Aiden responds, looking at the floor with as much adamant rejection of the moments his former girlfriend had spoken so highly of, “it’s the same way I found out you left some doctor for him, and left him for me. It’s the only reason I saw that pic and immediately thought the worst.”

“Alright, and I was a different person than to who I am now” Carly counters, immediately called into question by the man she pays time out of her day to visit. “Are you really? Why the hell should I believe you now, and why should I have believed you that night we broke up?” Aiden questions, his inquiry bringing about aggravation from the woman, though they’re more than worthy of being asked, “if you walked up to either of them and told them that, why should they believe you?”

“Because I never loved them. I cared about them, yeah- I still do. But I never, never loved them” Carly responds, the way she confesses her feelings bringing a silence over the still-irritated resident. “I’d never felt special with them the way I felt when I was with you. I never felt like they actually cared about me as much as I cared about them” she continues, refusing to hold her tongue in a moment she’d prefer it to click for as long as it can.

“Whenever I was with them, I felt like I was just the piece of candy they put their arm around. Like I was just someone they could parade around when they were out in public like some status symbol” Carly explains, her palm pressing slightly further into the door’s exterior, “that’s all I ever hear about. No one ever talks about how hard I’ve worked all my career! No one ever talks about my degrees, or the stories I write, it’s always ‘look at how hot she is!’” 

“You say that as if it hadn’t been all I was talking about for the last three or four months” Aiden retorts, quickly correcting the assumption he’d come to. “There’s a difference between only being able to compliment me on my looks, and telling me to flaunt them because your job counts on it” Carly responds, her free hand taking a rest on her hip, “of all people, I’d really hope it’d be you that could understand that.”

Hanging his head, Aiden is kept from getting too introspective by the alluring voice of the woman ahead of him, each word she speaks lulling him closer to a comfort he’d been without for longer than he’d pleased. “The point isn’t why you did it, the point is that it’s all they ever did. I was just the girl they kept by their side, I was never a part of them” Carly continues, letting free from her conscience what she’d never allowed other ears to hear, “you made me feel like I belonged with you.”

“You’re just saying that to lure me back to you” Aiden responds, shaking his head and drifting his eyes toward the depths of the hallway, not wanting to give in despite the woman’s potent pull. “I’m saying that because it’s true. I’m saying that because everything felt natural when I was with you” Carly explains, her hip-bound hand now placing itself against the door whilst the other takes her ex-boyfriend’s hand, “you can deny it all you want, but I know you felt it too.”

Shaking his head with the inability to think straight, Aiden turns his eyes away against the desire shown from the woman for alternative direction. “Don’t stand here and tell me you didn’t come off as a social butterfly after we got together” Carly remarks, offering statements her desired partner doesn’t disagree with the truth behind, “you liked going out more, you liked opening up to people a little more. You were as happy as I was.”

“Sure, but now I’m not” Aiden retorts, cutting the woman off the moment she tries to argue in favour of offering a reason, “I’m not happy anymore, and it has everything to do with you.” Refusing with the shake of her head, Carly remains silent as the man continues to speak, maintaining his hold on the door he keeps only a foot and a half open.

“I care about you. I always will, but that doesn’t mean that I want to be with you anymore” Aiden explains, coming clean and standing firm in the assertions he’d presented, “I need to be on my own. I need to keep myself from becoming that person again, and I can’t do that whilst being with you.” 

Finally falling to the man’s defiance, Carly’s expressive head shake begins to slow, beginning to lessen just as her stubborn belief that their union can be rekindled through cooler heads prevailing. “If there’s any way we can co-exist, it needs to be as co-workers” Aiden continues, laying out the ground rules from the time that remains between them, “if these ratings don’t improve, it’s my ass they fire. If there’s anything that needs to be taking up my time, it’s that.”

Though she’s hurt by the man’s persistent refusal of her advances, Carly’s mind takes to the concerns he lays elsewhere, understanding their importance. “So, this is how things are going to work from now on. We’re going to come to work, try to stomach each other’s existence, and put on a show capable of dragging viewers in by the throats” Aiden explains, not missing a beat in his plot, “if you can do that- accepting that things between us can’t go back to the way they were- prove it.”

“How? How exactly do I prove that?” Carly questions back, eager to understand the reasoning behind his rationale. “By being willing to put work first, let me figure this shit out, and co-exist as people trying to do everything we can to get the ratings back in the green” Aiden replies, nodding to himself as his non-dominant hand slides behind the door, prepared to close it shut, “if you’re able to do that, then show up. Prove it by being there when the crew make their pitches Monday afternoon.”

Though she’s undeniably disheartened, Carly remains steadfast in her hope for something better to come out of this interaction on the other side, a nod returned to her ex-partner through the faintest of smiles. Without a word, Aiden returns to his morning alone, gently closing the door on his way back into the apartment without either person offering so much as a ‘goodbye’, their places at different sides of the door maintained behind the twist of a deadbolt lock.

Pressing his back to the door and hands behind himself, Aiden stares at the ceiling and squeezes his eyes tightly, letting a deep breath escape his lungs as he brings himself down from the anxiety that had built within him through the conversation’s duration. With a few seconds of peace to himself, the man turns his head to face the depths of the hallway just in front of him, staring at the window near the end of his shared bathroom and the sunlight that breaks through its blinds.

On the other side of the entrance, Carly stares at the ground and passes glances toward the bag in her hand and the way she’d come from. Unsure of how to react to the discussion now in her rear-view mirror, the woman lifts her bag up her arm and sits it upon her shoulder, a final look taken to the door she knows Aiden to occupy the other side of before venturing off, returning to New York without certainty over where to go next.

== Tonight at 9 ==