She was a ballerina, this is probably the only thing I know about her personal life (funny, coz she knew everything about mine before we’d even met). Which explains why I am currently here, walking the corridors of the Los Angeles Institute of Dance.
To be honest, I really, really love watching people dance. Whenever I bring it up, Ryan will go on about free-expression without the persecution. Those that are the real bigots either don’t go or don’t get it. I think I like it because the dancers I’ve fucked have always been the best in bed. I love Ryan, but he isn’t the best sex I’ve ever had, he’s just the best everything else.
I’m wandering pretty aimlessly that day, the glass studio walls blurring from folk dancing to tango to break to ballet.
And this is where I see Susannah.
She’s pirouetting her way passed her stuck-up dancing whores, winking at me none-to-subtly through the glass. Mouthing a wait for me.
But I don’t today, I’m still wandering, without reason of objective, curving in and out, around bags and ballet slippers and studios, until I’m not the only one there.
There’s someone – a boy, I think, sitting on the floor in the furthermost corner of the corridor.
“Ryan?”
His head shoots up, and he throws me a quirked eyebrow, runs long fingers through his hair.
“Hi, Brendon.”
“Uh, how…what are you doing here?”
He’s staring back at me with the biggest eyes I’ve ever seen. He’s probably wondering the same about me.
“I always wanted to be a go-go dancer,” He says, “ but the pimps told me my boobs weren’t big enough.”
“Really?”
“No.”
“Ah.”
He’s packing up, throwing a sketchpad, a notebook, inky pens and mechanical pencils back into his black messenger bag. “I’m picking up my flatmates kid sister.”
“Ah.” I say, and by this point I’m feeling as eloquent as ever. We haven’t talked since the night in my bedroom (which still sounds way more suss than it was), and I haven’t had the motivation to see how he’s been going. How Scarlet and Jelena and Paul are going. This was two nights going on an eternity ago.
“I talked to your manager.”
“Loretta?”
“Yea.”
“Oh.” I say, and yeah, still eloquent clearly. Maybe my body still hasn’t recovered from Laura’s parasitic invasion earlier. Regardless, that’s my excuse.
“She doesn’t like me.”
“Don’t be offended.” I’m sitting next to him now, pushed into this little corner of a barren corridor. I can almost see the tumbleweed. “Loretta doesn’t like anyone.”
“She likes you.”
“Everyone likes me.”
And he’s staring at me again, wide eyes and a tiny, half-smile. “…yea.” My chest is constricting so violently and quickly, that I’m suffocating. Heart pounding so big and hard and fast that it’s attacking my throat and my head and my eyes, my eyes are watering and I have no fucking idea why.
“Yea.” I say, and he stops looking at me. This feels a little better.
“She really likes Build God though, so that’s good.”
“Aren’t…aren’t you curious as to why I’m here?”
“You’re fucking Susannah Warpole.”
My eyes must widen or something, because he lets loose a tiny chuckle/giggle/thing. “What?”
Ryan shrugs, “She recognised me from the tabloids, and came over. We talked for a little bit.”
“Oh…uh…right.”
The messenger bag is clutched so tightly to his chest, that I seriously contemplate trying to snatch it away. Open it, read that fucking notebook, the sketchpad. Try and…I dunno…get into his head a bit. Figure out what makes him tick, what makes him work, try to understand him at least a little.
“About the tabloids…” I start, but he finishes with a quick gesture.
“Doesn’t matter. It was stupid to meet so late anyway. I figured it’d be less press, but it kinda makes sense that there was more, y’know?”
“Yea…I guess.”
Ryan’s hunched now, messenger bag pressed between his chest and his tiny thighs. His fingers are dancing, painting invisible pictures and patterns and thoughts across the tiled canvas.
“Loretta wants me to have the script finished in less than a month. She wants to read it…she says that you won’t commit before you get to see the finished screenplay.”
“Well, she’s right.” I still don’t like the concept, still don’t really get it.
“Can you keep a secret?”
His words are breathed across the shell of my ear, whispers, barely audible. I don’t know when he moved, when he evolved from that hunched form pressed close to the floor. My heart is pounding again, and fuck I’m getting sick of this.
“Yea.”
The hairs on the back of my neck are on end, responding to every tiny, heated breath that he lets loose.“…I finished the screenplay three weeks ago.”
Ryan’s smiling, and Jesus fucking Christ, why the hell am I reacting to him like this?
Insert heaving sigh on my behalf here. “Do you ever talk about anything other than work?”
“The rest of me isn’t that interesting.”
I quirk a brow, “I find that exceptionally hard to believe.”
“You shouldn’t.” And he’s not looking at me again, he’s staring impossibly hard at the floor, and for some reason, everything about him is really fucking intense, but so fucking gentle at the same time. That’s about as close as I come to defining him right now. Intense and gentle and probably more than a little fucked up.
“Tell me about you,” I’m trying again, because for one of the first times in my life, I genuinely want to know. This isn’t just a pick up line, or a hook for some poor sap to come work for me. This is me actually wanting to know.
“There’s nothing to tell.” And I can’t see if he’s shy, or nervous, or if he just doesn’t want me to know, or if maybe, he honestly believes this.
I don’t get the chance to ask again though, because the studio doors are flung open and a sea or a wave or some other ocean analogy worth of 11-year-old girls flood through the gateway.
There are tiny ballet slippers, leotards and tutus everywhere.
“Ryan!” A skinny, pretty, little girl, all red-brown hair and freckles that she’ll bitch about when she’s older, launches herself at the bony boy beside me. If I weren’t somewhat used to this, I’d have run for the hills…of course, I was more acquainted with being the target.
“Hi, Maggie.”
“I way, way, way prefer you picking me up, Spencer’s always late. He’s such an ass.”
“You really shouldn’t say stuff like that about your brother.”
Maggie’s flung herself off Ryan, and is currently ripping off her tutu, her tiny, porcelain-coloured slippers. She’s half-naked before Ryan nudges her towards the change room.
“I can’t stay, Brendon.” He says as he stands up, bones in his legs shifting and cracking as if they were caught by surprise at the gain of Ryan’s tiny frame. He gestures to the change-room door that Maggie’s just run through, and I just nod, sisters (regardless of whether they’re his or mine), sisters I get.
Well, I used to.
“I…” He’s hesitating, “I need to know if you’re interested.”
“Loretta said-“
“I don’t give a fuck what Loretta said, I want to know if you, Brendon Urie, are interested in being a lead role in Build God. ”
The look he’s giving me has trickled out of light-hearted-meeting-maggie-ness, and is back into that tender intensity, that small, unwitting frown which always seems to darken his pretty face.
My chest is hurting, not constricted like before, but genuinely aching.
“I…”
And the look he’s giving hurts me more, sends dull throbs up my spine, wrapping around my rib cage.
No is on the tip of my tongue, only I don’t say it, I say, “Yes.”
Only I wasn’t sure if I was saying yes to Build God or to Ryan.
When you really think about it, whoever created us really knew what they were doing.
Our bodies are complex things, full of organs and systems and networks that just have to fit from birth. That just has to be thrown together in nine months, a huge multi-dimensional, multi-cultural society full of characters that are pulled from nowhere, and then expected to work together without an orientation day or a three-month probation period. No time or tolerance for racism or sexism or homophobia. I mean, what if your small intestine suddenly formed a union and refused to work because the lungs had been making discriminating jokes?
There’s just no room for that.
Society could learn a lot from our bodies.
Or maybe not, coz seriously, thing about having both a large, complex brain and intricate vocal chords in separate parts of the body, yet in very close working proximities is that sometimes they don’t get along. It’s that every so often the brain is capable of screaming a big ‘fuck you’ to the vocal chords, a ‘get the fuck out of my life, and take you’re goddamn fake jewellery with you! I want a divorce!’ When this happens, the vocal chords, true to what anyone would do in this situation, proceeds to hurl abuse back, ‘well, fuck you too, honey, hope you have fun whoring yourself off to the fucking nervous system!’ Then gets on a train and goes to China, where they proceed to get it on with the reproductive system of some Asian prostitute.
Point of all this is, the day after I said ‘yes’ to Ryan – and for the record, I still don’t know what I said ‘yes’ to exactly – my brain and vocal chords would get into three consecutive domestic disputes.
But there’s more to it than that of course.
Gimme a minute.
*
On average, a film takes about ten months to make. Ten months for all the planning and prosecution and tweaking.
For the ten months in which an actor signs on for a project, films it, sits on stand by for the post-production, the producer owns his soul.
Thing about Build God was there wasn’t a producer yet.
Hell, there were only three people committed to this fucking thing, Ryan, me and some unknown director selected by Mr. Ross himself.
This simple fact, Loretta claimed, was the reason her hair was falling out.
Course her hair wasn’t really falling out, it was just-
“You think too much.”
“What makes you think I’m thinking?”
“Either that or you’ve got the hots for Ryan.”
I swivel around in my chair so fast that I almost fall off, nearly collapse to the newly carpeted floor, a pile of Brendon. Jon’s grinning like a maniac though, all stubble, cheap cologne and flip-flop sandals, as he throws himself down on the sofa beside me. His hands are behind his head, and his legs are crossed over my lap.
“How do you figure that?” I say, eyeing him slowly and deliberately.
“Wasn’t serious at first, but after seeing that reaction, well, now I’m not too sure.”
I flip him off, turn in my seat (which is hard due to the added wait of Jon’s legs) to watch Loretta and Ryan fight. They look like a pair of particularly violent kittens. Neither threatening upon first glance, both cute and small, only I know Loretta is terrifying, and maybe Ryan is too. Catherine always told me it was the quiet ones you had to watch out for.
“That and the fact that you’ve been staring at him none stop since he got here.”
“I have not.”
“You say that, yet you’re staring at him right now. ”
Jon’s still smirking when my head snaps back around to glare at him. “Whatever.”
He’s peering around me now, eyeing off Loretta and Ryan for himself.
“Are they still arguing?”
“Looks like.”
“Jesus Chris, filming’s gonna be a blast. ”
I smirked, and figured I was all sorts of weird for looking forward to it.
“What are they even arguing about?”
“Cast and crew. Loretta wants a well-known director as opposed to the no-name that Ryan already has attached.”
“Spencer Smith’s attached, right?” Jon asks, lacing his fingers in front of his face, pudgy little things dancing, playing make-believe instruments, trumpet, piano, flute. I file this into the back of my mind; ready to be whipped out next time he says I’m too easily distracted.
“Wh-Yeah…how do you know?”
“I met Ryan through Spence. Great kid. A lot of talent. Let him run wild with this, he’ll do a damn good job.”
“Yea?”
Jon nods, and seems to pull a kebab out of nowhere, then again, it might have been in his hand all along. Either that, or he’s pulled it out of his jean pocket, or the crease of the sofa – none of this would surprise me.
“Should I just be going along with everything Ryan says though? I mean, should I stand my ground?”
“On what?”
“I dunno. Something. I feel like I’m being a bit of a pussy about all this.”
“You’re not a pussy, Bren, you’re a tool, there’s a huge difference.”
There’s a bit of silence after that, as Jon takes a bite of the kebab, shifts a little, makes himself more comfortable as he’s sprawled across me.
“What do I even pay you for?”
“Bit of eye candy.” He says, stroking his stubble.
*
As a producer, director, script writer, actor you are becoming a parent.
You are giving birth, nursing, aging a character, an entirely unique personality. You are developing this alternate persona, fictional yet totally realistic and believable to public eye. You are building strengths and weaknesses, inner-demons, flaws, perfections, talents, emotions, appearances, you are building habits and romances and you are building a history that will never be outright heard.
Many people are incapable of doing this.
Ryan however, is very, very good at it.
And Loretta, Loretta is very good at finding people who are good at this.
Problem with this is that they both have incredibly different ideas on who exactly should be involved in the production.
Not surprising actually, it is a big issue with all films. Chose the wrong person and the film won’t play out, characters won’t be portrayed correctly, the images will be all wrong, disjointed even. Choose the right person, you’ve got the next Pirates of the fucking Carribean on your hands.
Ryan wants alternative actors, virtually unknowns, then again, that’s the way he seems to want most of this film. He wants to give people opportunities, build fame as opposed to using reputations that already exists.
Loretta wants to take mainstream actors and let them broaden their horizons. Take not just teen actors like me, but the older ones too, the ones with so much experience and so many Oscars under their belts that they bring cash and investors with them.
They’re at each others throats, only they’re not, because there are several paces between them. Their words are slicing and degrading though, they both have goals, objectives, points of view, neither of which are being openly heard by the other.
WWE ain’t got shit on this.
It’s an hour before they’ve calmed down enough to look at each other civilly (they still can’t hear each other), and Jon and I have just come back from playing Dance Dance Revolution in the neighbouring room.
Neither even looks at us when we enter.
Loretta’s almost purple (which will never, ever cease to be funny), and Ryan’s…Ryan’s Ryan, pale and small and too thin, but he’s standing his ground, watching Loretta heave and flush.
“Right now, Ryan Ross,” She starts, desperately trying to compose herself, “you need to piss off.”
Ryan’s eyes are suddenly reduced to slits, fingers clenched, muscles everywhere tense and poised for attack. “Excuse me?”
“You need to piss off, and finish this fucking thing for real.” Loretta says, she’s fisting the hem of her shirt; eyes are too many colours to count. “In two weeks, I want the finished screenplay. Live in solitude, don’t eat, don’t sleep, don’t bathe or shit, just come back with a script that gets rid of all my fucking anxiety and assures me that we’re gonna go down with the likes of Steven Spielberg and Tim fucking Burton.”
I expect another outburst (no, that isn’t the right word. Ryan doesn’t raise his voice, he’s always soft about it, quiet and steady in his propaganda), but none is forthcoming. He just nods, and wait, that’s not right either, but his messenger bag is slung over his bony shoulder, and he’s hightailing to the door.
And I’m following him.
Wait, what?
Stop, feet, what the hell are you doing?! Of course, by this point I’m sorta freaked out by the fact I’m talking to my fucking feet.
Goddamnit.
Ryan’s out the door, into the corridor, the elevator is right fucking there.
“Wait up!”
He’s staring at me now, doe eyes…really nice doe eyes.
Hazel. Brown.
I was never good at art, not good with colour.
So here it is, the first domestic disturbance. My brain’s giving my vocal chords the silent treatment, not talking to you, bitch, “Do you want to come over…back…for dinner tonight? Before the isolation sets in?” And what the fuck did I just say?
My vocal chords are cackling at me, if I ain’t gettin’ any than I’ll hook you up for the night.
Brain thinks vocal chords are being utterly moronic, she rolls her eyes and reconnects, just so that I can apologise to Ryan, back-pedal as quickly as fucking possible. Only…
Shock is running races behind his pupils, irises, eyes.
“Sure.”
*
So there’s this tiny rat-a-tat-tat on the door, by which point I think my eyes have imploded in their sockets. Either that, or they’re watering a bit, which really doesn’t make any sense.
To be honest, a lot of things aren’t making sense at the moment. Like the way I’m sweating like I’ve just escaped a constricted room, a sauna in the heat of summer, my legs are unable to keep still and Jon thinks I’m twitching.
Which I’m not.
Or maybe I am.
The rat-a-tat-tat is there again, not so loud, it lacks in confidence, lacks in motivation and Jesus maybe it isn’t Ryan. Maybe it’s Loretta (no it isn’t), maybe it’s Pete or William or Audrey (no it isn’t).
Maybe Ryan isn’t going to come and maybe he actually doesn’t like me at all, maybe he’s just using me for my credibility in the acting industry or –
“Are you gonna get that?” Jon’s asking, though it’s kinda mumbled since his mouth is over-flowing with toothpaste foam and a sunshine-yellow brush-handle.
“Yea.” I say, and I will, just I need a few more minutes to panic and be sorta an idiot.
Jon’s just rolling his eyes, spitting out the froth into one of the houseplants. He answers the door with a big smile and an array of white teeth.
Maybe I should brush my teeth.
“Hi.” Says Jon.
“Hi.” Says Ryan.
“Ugh.” Says me, and yes, I think I really am an idiot. The second shunning of the vocal chords, the divorce papers are about ready to be signed, brain’s got her lawyers at her side.
Ryan shuffles in, all pinstripe pants and white dress-shirt. He looks really, really pretty, only he doesn’t because, y’know, I’m straight.
“So,” Jon says, after about five minutes of me trying-not-to-stare-and-failing and Ryan not saying anything. “So, Japanese for dinner. Sushi and Sashimi and all the delightful edible culture ofJapan that we can manage. Sound good?”
“Sounds great.” I say, and halle – fucking – lujah, my vocal chords and brain are talking, maybe permanent divorce was a tad of an overreaction, she says…vocal chords cackle again, and wait, that was me laughing like a moron.
Shit.
So I’m moving really quickly away, coz that’s what happens when I make an ass of myself, this is what happens when suddenly both Jon and Ryan are staring at me with wide, questioning eyes.
Kitchen’s the first stop, and dinners already been delivered, set up on the table in front of me.
I’m not gonna go over the details of that sit-down meal. All anyone needs to know is that it was fine, the food was great, the conversation was…not. But that’s ok, coz I talked a lot (about nothing) and Jon talked a lot (about…well, to be honest I wasn’t listening.)
“Well, can’t say this hasn’t been awesome, but I,” Jon says, running fingers through his hair and I must’ve tuned back in, “Have a date.”
“What sort of moron eats before going on a date?” I ask, smirking.
Jon stares, quirks a brow, “a hungry one.”
And before I know it, he’s gone, and it’s just me and Ryan and this doesn’t make me uncomfortable.
I am fine and stable and completely relaxed, apart from, you know, the fact that I’m not.
“I haven’t had the tour yet,” Ryan says, gentle smile on his face, “I feel gypped.”
“Not much to see.”
“I doubt that.” And this conversation sounds familiar. Seriously.
He’s grabbed my hand now, and Jesus Christ, why the hell did he do that? But he’s pulling me to my feet, dragging me out of the kitchen, through the living room.
“I like that painting.” He says, gestures to one above the sofa that, to be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. “Do you know who it’s by?”
I shrug, and he doesn’t seem surprised. His hand’s still around mine, still dragging me, and why is that all I can look at? I can’t focus on which room we’re in as he’s pulling me around, can’t see anything but him and his spidery fingers and his skinny-bird-like wrists.
Birds don’t have wrists, and it’s ridiculous that this is all I can think about.
“I like your bedroom a lot…it’s…it’s the only room in your apartment that’s…that’s, I dunno, homey. ”
He’s let go of my hand, is sitting on my bed, and suddenly, ok, yeah, we’re in my bedroom.
Right.
“This book is amazing.” And how the fuck has he managed to find that thing again?
“It’s not anything.”
“Yes it is. It’s someone’s heart and soul in here, written on these pages.”
“If you love it that much,” and this is strike three, this is the third dispute between head and throat and Jesus I wish I hadn’t said this, “take it.”
His eyes are wide, but then they’re not, they’re narrowed and his brow is furrowed.
“Are you sure?”
“Yea,” I say, shrugging, “Inspiration or whatever for…for your solitude-driven writing time.”
He’s smiling, but it’s hesitant and desperately unsure.
“Positive?”
“ Yes. ” I say, and that’s all that’s said about it. In fact, that’s all that’s said at all, in less than ten minutes he’s turning sleepy eyes on me, running those never-ending fingers through his hair, and declaring home.
And I definitely don’t think about Ryan for the rest of the night, don’t think about him as I shower, watch television, brush my teeth, go to bed.
But I do think about him when I roll over, and feel the sharp prickle of paper beneath my cheek.
A post-it note on my pillow and I have no fucking idea where it came from. Lamps on, and all I see is familiar chicken-scrawl, tiny, disjointed letters.
Maybe when I’m done with endings, this can begin.
Huh.
*
It was the sweats that had started it all.
I’d wake up in the middle of the night, wide-eyed and feverish and feeling half out of my mind. My fingers, arms, legs, body would be shaking, quivering and damn near convulsing. Head would be poundpoundpound like a little kid getting happy with a jackhammer. Break down these walls of bone; trash this skull, this head and home.
Everything ached and there was an underlying anxiety that I’d never felt before, just a nervousness and a twitchiness that even William noticed when we went to the premiere of Eragon. An anxiety that was completely unjustified, completely without purpose or source or direction. It was just a feeling - encouraged by the sweats and the headaches - that had taken up residence beneath every ounce of my skin.
But this wasn’t the worst of it. This was nothing compared to the obsession. The RyanRyanRyan of everything and everywhere and every fucking situation. All I could see was big eyes and skinny limbs and tiny voice. All I could see and hear and smell was Ryan. All I could taste was sushi.
Ryan had been in isolation (away from me) for eight days, thirteen hours and forty-four minutes.
This, this is withdrawal and Ryan is fucking cocaine.
*
There is no Ross, R. in the LA domestic directory.
There’s no Ross, G. either.
There are, however, fourteen Smith, S’s. After eleven phone calls and a Chinese take-out lunch, I have found the accommodation of one Spencer Smith and one Ryan Ross.
To be honest, there’s no reply on that eleventh number, just an overly enthusiastic answering voice telling me who lived there and that I ‘knew what to do.’
Beep.
I hate answering machines.
So, my hand shakes as I hang up. This doesn’t matter though, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, it’s just the heat, just the time, just the Chinese food repeating on me. I haven’t been well all week.
Right. I don’t think even I believed me.
Ryan lived in apartment 4 of some nameless building on 74th street. By nameless, I mean the sign outside had been so intensely lathered in graffiti that it’s impossible to tell what the hell it says.
There’s no security, and no receptionist behind the desk, so I self-consciously let myself upstairs. Christ, I wish I’d brought my bodyguard…
Or a gun.
The door to the apartment has the bottom of the number four on it, the top having been mutilated, ripped off with…with something strong enough to tear through fake gold.
Knockknockknock and there’s no answer, no mumbles, no murmurs, no yells or replies, just the door isn’t locked and I’ve never really understood the concept of privacy outside my own.
The apartment is a city of high-rise stacks of paper, biro-pen-street-lights, glue-stick people. There’s an origami crane on the bare-fraction-of-table pond.
RyanRyanRyan, he’s buried somewhere in here, fallen between the cracks of this city, this state, this country, and I want to pull him out, I want to see him, even if maybe he doesn’t want to be seen.
It’s hard to tell in this apartment, where one room ends and another begins, it’s easy though (and it always will be) to see where Ryan ends and Spencer begins. Even if I haven’t met Spencer officially yet.
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