On the Verge

The room was silent. Sunlight was just beginning to stream through the narrow space between the dark curtains. She was sprawled out on the bed under a single sheet, which rested around her waist. Her tank top had ridden up in her sleep, her flat, tan stomach exposed. Her hair was everywhere and she was in a deep sleep. She hadn’t gotten in until late the night before, after being dragged to a number of night clubs by her childhood friend.

Before long, her alarm went off, blaring a loud obnoxious sound that she hated. She slept through the noise for nearly a minute before her eyes forced themselves open. She cursed, rolling toward the alarm clock. Blindly, she slammed her hand down end table and pressed her face into her pillow, hoping she just might hit the snooze button. After three or four tries, she finally hit the button and the noise stopped. She sighed, rolling onto her stomach and trying to drift back into her disturbed slumber.

She was seconds from sleep when her phone chimed from under her pillow. She cursed it in anyway possible and nearly threw it across the room when she realized that it was only the Urban Dictionary Word of the Day e-mail. She groaned, realizing then that there was minimal chance of getting anymore sleep. She dragged her hands down her face, slapping her cheeks lightly to wake herself up. She pushed herself into a sitting position and pulled the Post-It note off of her lampshade.

She was well aware that there were hundreds of apps available on her phone that would provide a very suitable to-do list, but her nightly ritual included writing a list of tasks to accomplish the next day. Today’s included: Sleep as late as possible, do something with hair, drink lots of coffee, go to studio, make fun of Jonah, listen to a new song, smile, don’t kill anyone. She read over the list two or three times before returning it to it’s place on the lampshade.

She left the bed, padding across the hardwood floor towards her bathroom. She shivered, catching a chill as she shut the door behind her. She set a towel out and turned on the shower head before stripping her clothes off. She showered slowly, taking her time. Later, towel around her, she headed into her closet, deciding on a skirt over pants. She hooked her bra behind her back, taking her selected top off of the hanger. She set it on the counter, wringing her hair out with the towel.

She returned to her bedroom in only her skirt and bra, grabbing her phone from her bed. She hit the 2 on speed dial and lifted the phone to her ear. As it rang, she walked toward her dresser, opening the top drawer and sifting through its contents for the pair of tights she had in mind.

“Good morning, Miss Claymour, how can I help you?” the concierge said on the other end of the line.

“Good morning to you as well, Henry. Can you have my car brought out? I feel like driving today,” she told him, her voice fading at the end. She had located her tights and shut the drawer.

“The BMW, miss?”

“Correct, thank you.”

“Have a nice day, Miss Claymour,” Henry said before hanging up.

Miss Claymour, Miss Claymour, Miss Claymour. That was all she ever heard. It was getting to the point that she almost wondered if her first name had changed from Micah to Miss. This was point A that being the daughter of a world renowned record producer and a former Oscar winner wasn’t as fabulous as it seemed.

Barely 21, Micah Claymour was an interesting piece of work. Her parents had divorced when she was seven and her mother remarried almost instantly. She had never had to want a day in her life, and she was grateful for that, yet it got a bit old. Her dad understood though. He, unlike her mother, hadn’t been born into money.

She worked at her father’s studio, doing odd jobs, or even just sitting around, after her classes at USC, but seeing as how she was on summer break, she was at the studio nearly every day. She had been raised around music, and forced into it at one point. She could sing decently well, and with a small amount of auto-tune, she had spent a year as a stereotypical teen pop star at age 15. After that, her mother had pulled some strings and gotten her a few parts on TV shows that didn’t last and in movies that were nothing substantial. It wasn’t until age 17 that she realized that she even had the option to be her own person, away from the limelight.

She was occasionally in the tabloids, but usually only by coincidence. She had her privacy, which she liked. She was studying broadcasting and journalism at USC and already had a job lined up at a tabloid for when she graduated in a year and a half.

Sticking to her to-do list, she actually did do something with her hair. She decided to straighten her relatively long, dirty blonde hair before pinning a few sections back. She did her makeup as well, putting on more than usual. She lined her hazel eyes with brown liner and used brown shadow over it.

She finished dressing and threw things into her bag as she sent out a text to a few people at the studio, telling them she was stopping at Starbucks on her way in and asked if they wanted anything. She stepped into her shoes, gaining two inches in height as she fastened her necklace. She left the apartments only bedroom, bag hanging from her forearm, as she wandered into the main living area, her heels clicking on the continuous hardwood. She grabbed her house keys and her sunglasses from the table by the door and was on her way after locking the door behind her.

Checking her phone, she walked down the hall, pressing the down button on the elevator panel. The elevator began it’s decent to the ground floor, stopping twice to pick up passengers. Micah’s apartment was was on the second highest floor of the Hotel Four Seasons Los Angeles at Beverly Hills. Her father had booked the Presidential Suite indefinitely, when she had agreed to work at the studio, while still attending classes at USC. The atmosphere was nice, and she had more room than she’d ever need, but she wasn’t complaining.

She stepped out of the elevator on the ground floor and made her way to the front door, her heels clicking on the stone floors. She squinted in the early morning light before taking the time to put on her sunglasses. Her BMW was waiting at the valet counter and she fished a ten dollar bill out of her wallet and handed it to the valet as he held the door open for her.

She inhaled deeply, the smell of new car and leather filling her nostrils. Her mother had gotten her the car for her 21st birthday, almost four months ago, but hadn’t gotten much use. Most days, she took a cab to work, but since a Starbucks trip was a must, she decided to drive that morning. The clock on her dash told her that it was 8:32 A.M. and she took off, hoping to make it to Starbucks, then the studio without hitting traffic.

Getting through Starbucks was surprisingly quick. She got every one's order, including her own, and a scone, her stomach already grumbling. She took the drink holder, holding it in one hand, taking her own drink in the other. She took a quick sip of her passion tea lemonade before making her way towards the door. To her luck, a middle-aged man opened the door for her upon her exit. She managed to open her car door and set the drinks on the seat without spilling anything.

She drove to the studio and arrived after a ten minutes traffic delay, which gave her time to eat her scone. She got to the studio and pursed her lips in irritation when she realized that there was a van parked in her usual parking space, and the one beside it.

“Double-parking morons,” she muttered under her breath, settling for a spot further away. She grabbed her bag, putting it on her shoulder as she balanced the drink holder in one hand. Stepping out of the car, she regretted her wardrobe choice. It wasn’t even 10:00 AM, but the temperature was already nearing eighty degrees.

Struggling, she opened the front door of the studio and stepped into the cool air. She nodded and smiled to the receptionist at the front desk before starting down the hall toward the back rooms. She paused at her father’s office door, knocking quickly before twisting the knob.

Her father, Ian Claymour, was sitting at his desk, his feet propped up on the desktop. He was on the phone, leaning back in his chair. His face lit up when he saw Micah enter his office. She waved quickly, moving towards his desk to set his coffee down. Speaking to the person on the other end of the phone line, he held up his index finger, signalling he’d just be a minute. She nodded, taking a seat in one of the arm chairs across the desk from him.

He finished up his conversation and put the handset down on the receiver. He sighed quietly, glancing at the cup on the edge of his desk. “Black?” he questioned, looking at his daughter then.

She nodded, taking a sip of her own drink. “I don’t know how you drink that stuff,” she said with a slight shudder. Her father only laughed, taking a long drink.

He didn’t look like he was nearly fifty. Most people thought he was barely forty. His hair was just starting to get a grey tint to it and the only wrinkles he had were around his eyes from smiling so much. Micah had gotten her hazel eyes from him, but their hair was extremely different. Ian’s was very dark and stick straight while hers was light and wavy.

“Any big shots recording today?” she asked him, crossing her legs at her ankles. She took her straw between her teeth, toying with it.

“Not really. We’ve got some new guys in though. They’re in with your brother right now.”

“Oh,” she said, raising her eyebrows quickly. “Who are they?”

Ian made a few clicks on the computer before looking back to her. “The Maine,” he told her with a shrug. She nodded simply.

“Well, I’m going to go around and deliver coffee before it gets cold, then I’ll chill with Jonah for a while,” Micah told him with a quite sigh as she got back on her feet.

“Alright, sweetie. I’ll see you later.” His attention had already turned back to his computer before she ever started walking for the door.

She shut the door behind her quietly. She delivered the rest of the coffees, her own drink only half gone. She tossed the drink holder in a trash can before entering the studio where her brother was working. She closed the door behind her, she heard laughing somewhere in the room.

“Jonah?” she asked into the near silence. She rolled her eyes, walking around the corner.

“Hey, sis! I was wondering when you’d get here!” he older brother said when he saw her.

She only nodded with a sigh, glancing around the room as she dropped her bag into a nearby chair. There were a lot of people in the studio; she counted seven others at first glance. It made her feel a tad claustrophobic and she shifted her shoulders. “New band?” she questioned, sifting through the contents of her bag for her phone.

“Yeah, here from Arizona. They’re called The Maine,” Jonah explained, nodding as he spun in his chair, turning his back to his computer to look at the room.

“So, what’s going on today?”

“We’re just gonna do some listening to their already released songs and go through some stuff they have written, just to get a feel of everything.” Micah let out her breath and dropped onto the empty sofa. It would be a long day, she knew already.

Twenty minutes later, the five guys that were actually in the band had taken chairs over to encircle Jonah and his computer to listen to their old album. Micah stayed on the sofa, watching the guys as Jonah started their first song.

They all looked like band guys, she noted. All tall and skinny. They all had dark hair, except for one who was ginger. They barely glanced at her as they walked by, not that she cared. They were all attractive, but hell, in Los Angeles, everyone was attractive to some extent. Two were wearing plaid button downs open over t-shirts. All five were wearing skinny jeans.

Micah stood up slowly, walking to the back of the studio to grab one of studio-owned Macbooks. She pulled the power cord off, tucking the laptop under her arm. She turned around to walk back to the sofa and slammed right into a guitar case. The impact made a significant noise and she whimpered, causing three of the guys to turn their heads. Her cheeks flushed and she bit down on her tongue in pain, touching her lower thigh gingerly. One of the guys was still watching her as she made her way back to the sofa, pretending that every step with her left leg didn’t cause her to wince.

She made it to the sofa and propped her feet up on the coffee table. Through the lace of her tights, she could see the red mark that was slowly turning purple as it bruised. The muscles in her leg tensed and she she let out a sigh.

Looking around the studio, she noticed a girl in the corner, sitting in an arm chair. She was pretty, with super curly red hair. She had a notebook open, resting on her thigh, a pen in the binding. She kept reaching for her phone, smiling every time it lit up.

Micah opened the Macbook Pro in her lap, pressing the power button and waiting for it to start up. She logged onto the studio network and headed right to the CNN website to check on the headlines. She prided herself around the fact that sure, she was a born and raised Beverly Hills girl and her primary interest wasn’t in fashion, socializing, or even being famous.

With nothing better to do, she went to Wikipedia and searched for the band. She read through their page and had to admit that she was rather surprised. They’d been playing together since 2007. Two full albums and five EPs in only four years was quite impressive. The members were still young, only twenty-one and twenty-two. They had toured with several bands that had been in the studio there before.

Their music was good. Not entirely her taste, but still good. It was easy going and she felt herself starting to like the five guys in the room with her, even though they hadn’t been introduced yet.

Some point later, she returned the laptop to it’s former place and left the control room, needing a breath of fresh air. She bought a water from the vending machine and took a long drink. As she took the drink, one of the band members came out of the control room. She pulled the bottle away from her mouth, managing to slosh some of the water down the front of her shirt. Embarrassed, she capped the bottle quickly, hoping he hadn’t seen. From his blank expression, she did suspect that he had seen what had just happened.

He was shorter than the rest of his band mates, yet still taller than she was by at least an inch in her heels. His hair was brown and a bit too long. It was tousled, sticking up in strange places. He was wearing a blue and black The Empire Strikes Back baseball shirt, the black sleeves pushed up to his elbows. She could see black ink on his skin. The shirt was loose, hanging slightly from his frame. The collar was stretched, exposing his collar bones. He was looking around a bit aimlessly and stopped a few feet from Micah.

“Are you looking for something?” she asked him, clearing her throat. He blinked, looking at her as if snapping out of a daze.

“Uhm, yeah,” he said, seeming confused. He watched her carefully and it made her uncomfortable. “Bathroom?”

“Keep going down this hall, take a left right before the reception desk,” she explained, pointing over her shoulder. She was horrible at giving directions, but she could manage telling someone how to get to the bathroom.

“Thanks,” he muttered, walking past her.

Micah rolled her eyes, used to that kind of treatment from clients in the studio.

The second he was a foot away, her phone in hand beeped twice, vibrating. She looked at the screen to find a new text from her best friend, Piper.

“Meet up for lunch?” the text read.

Micah weighed her options of going out with Piper, or making a lunch run that involved getting food for several other people in the studio. She texted her friend back, agreeing to meet somewhere for lunch. They agreed to meet at a restaurant two blocks away, so Micah could simply walk, rather than have to drive.

Lunch wasn’t for another hour and a half, so she took another drink of her water before returning to the control room, the band member who’d just returned from the bathroom right behind her. She held the door open just long enough for him to reach it.

Back in the control room, two of the other band members were tuning guitars, one adjusting the drums, and the forth, laying out on the sofa where Micah had been earlier. the one who had come in behind her quickly grabbed a guitar and began to strum a few chords before beginning to tune.

She spent the next forty-five minutes listening to the guys go through a few things they had written and awkwardly making eye contact with the guy in the Star Wars shirt. Micah had completely forgotten about the girl in the back of the room until she got up to leave.

After a while, she got bored of simply sitting there, so she went around to the other rooms of the studio, offering to run any quick errands for the other workers. She spent half an hour sending faxes, making copies, and addressing envelopes before she decided to walk to two blocks to the restaurant and put their name in for a table.

As she walked, she once again regretted her wardrobe choice for the day. Not only her clothes, but her shoes were making the walk difficult. She decided to get a cab after lunch, rather than walk back to the studio.

The restaurant wasn’t as busy as it usually was at that hour, so Micah was seated right away at their usual table under the awning outside the shop. She ordered a pomegranate lemonade and texted Piper quickly to inform her that she had already arrived at the restaurant.

“I’m here, I’m here!” Piper yelled from ten feet away, still on the sidewalk outside the gate of the restaurant. She was running towards the restaurant as quickly as her heels would allow her too. She rounded the edge of the gate, nearly hitting her hip, and rushed to the table. “Okay, I’m here,” she said breathlessly, sinking into the white wire chair across the table from her best friend. Micah couldn’t help but laugh at her friend’s disheveled appearance, her hair windblown, her lipstick a bit smudged.

Piper Jennings was the loud, insanely tall daughter of a celebrity lawyer and a former model, turned fashion designer. Her hair was naturally white blonde and perfectly curly, and she kept it the way despite her mother’s best efforts of trying to get her to go with a more mainstream color. Her eyes were a rich, chocolate brown that could melt even the iciest soul. She was tan from spending so much time at the beach and she was perpetually skinny. She often modeled for her mother’s designs and Micah had been roped into do so a few times as well.

The two of them had been best friends since they were four. Throughout grade school and on, they’d been close. Piper had been more into socializing and partying than studying, so the task of tutoring had often fallen onto Micah’s shoulders. They vacationed together every Christmas and spring break and they knew how to have a good time.

The waitress brought Micah’s lemonade and took Piper’s drink order. Micah gave her friend a look of disapproval when she ordered an apple martini, and it was barely after noon.

“It’s five o’clock somewhere,” Piper said with a nonchalant shrug as the waitress walked away. Micah only rolled her eyes, taking the end of her straw between her teeth before taking a drink. “Are you going out tonight?”

“No, why?”

“I’m going to come over and take advantage of the gym at the Four Seasons,” she explained, toying with the ends of her hair absentmindedly.

“Why? Your dad has a full gym and weight room in the loft.”

“I realize this, but it’d be just me working out there. If I go to the Four Seasons, I’ll have a bunch of rich, single guys checking me out as I’m working out. I need that,” Piper said. Micah rolled her eyes, once again, used to her best friend’s way of thinking.

After they ate and chatted for a while, the pair of them split up. They made arrangements for Piper to come over once Micah returned home from the studio in a few hours time. Piper decided on her own to just stay over at Micah’s that night.

Micah got a cab and paid the few dollars to get back to the studio. She regretted not stopping at the juice shop beside the restaurant to get something to drink, but instead made another stop at the vending machine for a water. She headed towards the control room. Jonah was alone in the room, packing a few things into his laptop bag.

“You done for the day?” she asked her brother. He jumped slightly, as he hadn’t heard her come in.

“Uhm, yeah,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at her. She dropped into his chair, spinning around once. “Today was just a listening day. We’ll probably record a demo or two tomorrow, then start tracking soon.”

Micah nodded. “Cool beans,” she replied, slightly monotone. She licked her lips before sighing.

“They’re a cool group of guys. I’ll actually introduce you to them tomorrow, I think you’ll really like them.”

“They seemed pretty nice. The one in the Star Wars shirt is the only one who really acknowledged me.” She shrugged, leaning back in the chair as she dug through her purse for her phone.

Jonah laughed quickly, smiling as he hoisted his bag onto his shoulder. “See you tomorrow, sis. I’ve got to head home and get ready. I’ve got a date with Hannabeth tonight.”

“Have fun with that,” she said under her breath, making a disgusted face.

Once Jonah left, she stayed in the chair for a few moments. Her phone chimed with a new message and she looked at the screen briefly, deleting the message without even opening it. Once the ‘message deleted!’ alert disappeared, she stood up from the chair, dropping her phone back into the black abyss of her purse. She left the control room, flipping the light off behind her. She stopped in her father’s office quickly, seeing if there were any odd jobs for her to do, and when there weren’t, her father sent her home.

Sliding into the driver’s seat of her car, she was itching to get out of her work clothes and to put on a pair of running shorts and an old t-shirt. She decided to take a nap at home before telling Piper that she got off early. Without a doubt, Piper would drag her along to the gym with her, so she’d need all the rest she could get before having to endure that.

She left the parking garage and squinted in the mid-afternoon LA sun as she began on her way home.