Day Seven

 Nathan (Cont.)

The company had always been his baby, and I was not going to let him down. And if he said that he thought this little charade would be good for me and the company, then I'd do it. I'd curse Morgan down to the icy depths of her soul for bringing him into this, but I'd do it.

Come Monday, I was sitting in my office, wearing clothes way more casual than I was used to wearing in a business setting. It felt strange to be sitting behind my desk while not only tie-less, but also in jeans and an old band t-shirt from my college days. I was shifting in my seat, playing with the suddenly fascinating balls-on-string desk toy when Morgan came in. She gave a wolf-whistle when she saw me. "Ready for your brand-new learning experience?" she asked. "Ready to go?"

"I hate you and wish worms upon your ovaries," I said, darkly, watching the balls click back and forth.

"Aren't you cheery?" she said. I could hear sunshine dripping from her voice. "Come on, Andrew is waiting for you."

"You're on a first-name basis with him now?" I asked, reluctantly rising from my desk. "That's a little informal for a CFO, don't you think?"

"Says the man wearing a Sex Pistols shirt," Morgan said, waggling her eyebrows.

"Shut up," I said. "It was a punk phase. I grew out of it. Let's just go, okay?"

She just laughed at me and took me downstairs.

I'd never really been below the main floor before, except for some publicity photos early last year. It was a little odd, a foray into a strange world I'd often heard about but seldom seen. It got darker, less spacious, and a little bit creepy. The soundproofing covering the walls made everything seemed muffled, and the occasional bass thumps that escaped from the recording studios felt like the steps of giants. Morgan seemed perfectly at home, which honestly didn't surprise me. For someone whose actual job was more or less accountant for the company, she spent a lot of the time wandering around the premises. She said it was to gauge the actual need of the company. I was pretty sure that she simply wanted to hear the interpersonal scandals, so as to maintain a working knowledge of all juicy gossip in the building.

Despite the creepiness, it was still an unfortunately short walk to the new premises of Farthing Records. Morgan, with no regard for my own sensibilities, simply walked in, giving me no time to compose myself or find a way to get out of this. "Andrew, did you need a sherpa today?" she asked.

"I successfully got down here all by myself," called a guy's voice from the depths of the studio. "I barely needed to look at my map. I called it a win."

"Come out here and say hello to your new student," she said, pulling me inside the room after her. "The Oz act is not that impressive without the light show." Then, to me, she hissed, "If you give away the game, I'll tell Uncle on you."

"You're so mature," I whispered back.

"Coming!" came Farthing's voice again.

"How do you know him this well?" I asked, still sotto voice. "You met him all of once, as far as I know."

"We've been emailing back and forth since Thursday," she told me, normally, as Farthing emerged from the back. "I've been telling him your current qualifications and apologizing for dumping you on him  when he's still figuring out the ropes."

"Oh, it's all good," Farthing said, annoyingly cheerful. "With what you told me on the autonomy aspect, I'm pretty sure I've got everything down now. And having someone to help out with the simpler stuff will be nice."

"Of course. This is Nathan," she said, tugging me up towards her. "He really is almost completely new to everything, and you are doing me an amazing favor teaching him."

"It's fine," he said, smiling at her. The smile faltered slightly when he looked at me and extended a hand. "Nathan, I know we'll work well together."

"Of course," I lied, shaking hands. "It will be very instructive, I'm sure."

"I'll just leave you two boys to it," Morgan said, smiling sunshine, puppies and lollipops at Farthing, and adding just a touch of arsenic for me. "Have fun."

I restrained myself from muttering sarcastic comments under my breath, but only just. Instead, I turned to Farthing and said, "So what are going to do?"

"Well, I'm assuming that that you are really a rank beginner," he said with a smile pasted on his face. "So we'll begin at the beginning. How much do you know about music theory?"

"I took some music classes in high school, and played clarinet," I said.

"But what about actual music theory?" he pressed. "Do you know what a mode is?" I gave him a blank look. "Circle of fifths?" he asked. Nothing. "Could you point to middle C on a piano?"

More nothing.

It was a couple hours.

At lunch, I escaped, and furiously phoned Morgan from a nearby McDonald's. "This is not. Going. To work."

"You seem stressed," she said, calmly. "Is there a problem?"

"The man dumped an entire textbook's worth of theory on me in a two hour period," I said, whispering despite the fact that Farthing was in his basement, eating lunch there and being unnervingly intense about strange harmonies. "He is insane. He cannot expect me to learn all this-"

"So you can't do it?" she said, cutting off my rant just when my flow was beginning to truly get going.

"What?" I asked, derailed.

"Can you not do what he's asking of you?" she asked. "Because if you can't, I'm more than willing to be the go-between and tell him you felt it was too difficult."

"Of course I can do it," I said, affronted. "I just think he's pushing -"

"Either you can do it, or you can't," she said, pleasantly. "If you can't, I think that we should just finish this now and let you get back to mergers."

"Wait a second," I said, "Why do think I want to leave?"

"Well, you're calling and complaining to me, so I assume you want out," she said.

"That's an assumption," I said, irritated. "Maybe I want to stay."

"That's wonderful," she said, brightly. "I'll see you at the end of the day. Your lunch period is nearly over, you might want to get back." And she hung up.

I looked at the phone, feeling momentarily victorious. Then I realized that she'd just completely snowed me. I thought about calling her back, but decided it honestly wasn't worth it. The challenge present in her words bugged me no end. I wanted to prove here wrong, even though I knew that was exactly what she wanted me to want. There were reasons why I disliked the woman sometimes.

The rest of the day, I acted as polite and paid as much attention as I could. It was an uphill struggle, but I don't think I offended him any worse than I already had.

Morgan shanghaied me on the way back to my car. "You're going on a scouting mission on Friday," she told me. "Just so you know."

"Can I get out of it in any way?" I asked, tiredly.

"No."

"Fine."

Andrew:

My first real day of work went relatively well, for the first hour or so. I didn't get lost, I didn't get in trouble, and the equipment loved me in the way only sound equipment can love its operator. I played a couple sound checks, and for the moment, all thoughts of Tammy and associated emotional issues were put on hold, in favor of my one and only true love. We were soul mates, destined from the beginning to find each other, this sound board. It was fate.

Our happiness together was interrupted, right on schedule, by Morgan the Scary Lady and my new apprentice. I met him for the first time and almost immediately wished I hadn't. He was wearing a Sex Pistols shirt and a sullen expression, and looked a little older than I was. There was nothing about him that gave me hope for a good working relationship. When I began asking him what he knew, I wanted to cry, a little. He didn't know anything. I hadn't thought he'd be a virtuoso, after Morgan's warning emails, but I'd thought that he would at least know the basics about music theory and I could build from there. Unfortunately, when I took him to a keyboard, when I asked him where middle C was, he hit E. There was nothing there off which for me to build.

I decided to start with the basics, and gave him a crash course in theory that morning. He was looking a little overloaded and was beginning to get unnecessarily sarcastic around noon, so I suggested he go and grab something to eat. I ate and texted Grace and worked with some of the tracks for Dresden's Dreams.

/You would not believe my apprentice,/ I sent.

/y not?/ she asked.

/He's a D and knows absolutely nothing/

/that sucks. its the bruise in your perfect apple of a job/

/He's annoying and wasting my time./

/i was thrown up on yesterday. dont talk about your bad job/

/You like your job./

/except that there r bratty kids whose parents scream at me and then the kid throws up on me/

/True/

Then Nathan came back and I embarked on the uphill journey of teaching him the basics of the computer side of things. It was easier than the music theory side that morning, for whatever reason. He was (slightly) less recalcitrant, and he actually had some idea how computers worked. I made a mental note to put him on the mixing side as often as could be excused. He did have a decent ear, although he took the song samples I gave him weird places. He emphasized guitar and drums over the keyboard in all cases, which sometimes didn't work and sometimes brought out some interesting rhythmic ideas between the drums and keys.

I felt better by the end of the day, or at least like this wasn't going to be a complete fiasco. Nathan went home with visible relief, something which I definitely understood. Then I got an email from Morgan, suggesting I show him what scouting was like. I sat looking at the screen for a couple minutes after I got that, mind racing, trying to think of how I could break it to her that her golden boy was absolutely not going to be able to scout well. If he acted with potential talent anything like the way he acted with me, we'd lose any chance we had with them.

Then another email came through which made me wonder, just for a second, whether Morgan was psychic, telling me that of course I should do the talking during any actual meetings. I gave up and replied that sure, that very Friday I was hitting a concert and of course he could come. Then I ran away home and crashed, hard, pausing only to tell Grace that we, unfortunately, had an extra person to get tickets for on Friday.