Documentary

by Sand, A. J.

  Dylan took a relaxing bath in the marble crater of a bathtub and popped some expired ibuprofen from the cabinet. She was pulling a shirt down over her head in the bedroom when a knock sounded on the door. Her heart squeezed. Kai. Please be Kai. She didn’t have much time left in L.A. before she had to be at the airport, and she wanted to see him before she left. Her jeans were already on, so Dylan sprinted to the bathroom and tugged her hair into presentable form in lieu of brushing it.

  “Dylan?” Her hopes crushed; it was Leko.

  “Come in,” she beckoned through clenched teeth as she walked back into the room. Where the hell was Kai? Or was this his thing? Dylan angrily stuffed last night’s clothes into her bag. Now she was really thankful she hadn’t slept with him because, most likely, she would have been in the same situation this morning. She had slept with a guy for just one night before, no strings attached, so she didn’t know why this one, which hadn’t even been a real hook up, bothered her so much. But, actually, she did know. She had started to like him.

  “Door’s locked.”

  Dylan opened the door and discovered that Leko was still in the clothes from the night before. He looked like he had survived a tornado, then fought his way through a combat zone. “Caroline is going to call you a cab whenever you’re ready. Kai’ll pay for it.” He was also wearing the same distressed look from last night. “I gotta take care of some things or I would take you myself.”

  Her instinct said he was talking about Kai. “Thanks for letting me know. And thanks for last night. It was a lot of fun.”

  Leko finally smiled and embraced her. “I’m serious about what I said. I was fucked up, but I knew what I was saying. If you need anything on the island, you let me know.” His tone was pleasant but he was incredibly sullen, and her irritation at Kai was dying down in favor of worry. If Leko was still unhappy, something was up.

  “Get your phone,” he said.

  Her phone. It was on the desk near the window, plugged into the charger. She wondered if Kai had called or sent a text, but when she reached it, all her texts turned out to be from Winslow, Taylor and Kate. She swallowed the lump filling her throat when she returned to Leko’s side. It was really stupid to have her feelings all mixed up in this. She just didn’t like being slighted. She, at least, thought they would maintain a friendship, regardless of what had happened last night. Had she read him wrong?

  Leko gave her his number, and she called him right away to make sure he had hers. Kai had sent Leko’s number to her via email but Leko had been waiting for her at the Ground Transportation area right outside of her flight’s baggage claim at LAX, so there had been no need to call him. “Do you want breakfast? There’s no food here, but we can walk to a restaurant. We’ll have tons of time to eat. You probably noticed how close the airport is.” Leko lifted her overnight bag to his shoulder.

  “Yeah, sure, breakfast is fine.”

  “Can you meet me at The Seahorse? It’s a short walk up the street.” Leko showed her the location on her phone. “I need to go get sexy,” he joked, and Dylan laughed. Grabbing her purse, she trailed him out the door and down to the trashed second floor. A sea of red cups, napkins and clothing littered the place, but professional house cleaners were already tidying up. There was no sign of Kai as she continued down the stairs. The first floor matched the second, but there was a huge hole in the wall near the front door. Caroline would be pissed. It was obvious that someone had made it with a fist.

  After Leko dropped her bag near the foyer, she went ahead to The Seahorse in downtown Manhattan Beach. He arrived half an hour later, looking more upbeat. Leko talked incessantly about life on Maui as they ate, and it was interesting, but she didn’t understand why he wasn’t mentioning Kai’s noticeable absence. Unable to handle her overwhelming curiosity and annoyance anymore, Dylan finally asked on the way back to the house.

  “Some shit went down last night, but he’s okay. He’ll definitely be in Lahaina by the time you get there.” Leko didn’t lift his head to meet her eyes. The answer only raised more bothersome questions.

  “He’s definitely okay though?” she asked. “Did it have to do with Erica? Is she okay?” Leko still wouldn’t focus on her.

  “I don’t think it’s my place to explain, Dylan.”

  She didn’t know what to make of that, but she decided not to pry, no matter what other thoughts bloomed, like Kai’s relationship to Erica, and why he hadn’t returned if things were okay. But she was also touched by how he had dropped everything for someone calling in the middle of the night. She checked it into the column of things she really liked about him. Leaving her at a party he had invited her to without any real explanation? Well, that was in another column.

  Leko opened the door of Caroline’s house for her, and Dylan followed an angry, echoing voice into the kitchen. It sounded a lot like Caroline, and Dylan wanted to make sure to thank her for the hospitality. Caroline was on the phone shouting at someone, and she snapped feral eyes in their direction when she saw Dylan and Leko come in. She was livid, sucking on her cigarette every other breath, and when Dylan waved, she didn’t return it.

  “How many times do I have to say it? Dad, he’s a lost cause! He… so what? Oh yeah? There’s a fucking hole in the wall that says he is! I’ve given him too many chances. Okay, I’m done. Goodbye!” Caroline slammed her cell phone down against the counter. That would never have the same effect as a landline, Dylan thought. Leko approached Caroline, already tensing preemptively from his anticipation of her fury. Her eyes flared like the end of her cigarette as she took in a long drag.

  “I’m not interested in any excuses, Meleko!” Carolina barked. Dylan tried again with a wave, but Caroline was completely unmoved.

  Leko raised his hands in surrender, and he spoke softly and seriously. “Caroline. He’ll pay for it. I’m really sorry, and he is, too. Kai’s just going through something.” Dylan gasped quietly and flattened her mouth into a line. Kai punched the hole in the wall? So much for that not fighting thing.

  Caroline scoffed impatiently and folded her cigarette into an overflowing ashtray. “His whole existence is about him ‘going through something.’ He’s been through a lot, and I get it, but the bad boy image was cute when he was sixteen and seventeen. But it’s time Kai White grew up, Lek. He’s running out of allies and people who actually still give a shit.”

  Leko shook his head and seemed to be trying to disagree with her as tactfully as possible. “I know, but it’s different this time. Doesn’t he seem different to you? And I don’t even know what it is, but I trust him, and I know it has to be something really bad. He just needs some time.”

  “You and my dad, blindly following Kai White down this path of his self-destruction.” Caroline let out another dubious scoff. “If he keeps this up, the only thing he’ll be left with is the one thing he can’t destroy. A whole lot of nothing.”

  Finals provided enough distraction for Dylan to not focus on how Kai wasn’t contacting her, but being ignored still hurt a lot, especially after she tried to be gracious by thanking him for inviting her to L.A. The whole thing was starting to put a damper on her excitement for the project. Her friends must have noticed her sour mood because they decided against the celebratory night out Winslow had suggested (not that Dylan had wanted to go get wasted at Frenchie’s, anyway), and instead, they spent their last few nights together helping her pack. Her only small consolation for not talking to him was the fact that there was more drama in his personal life than she was probably interested in dealing with anyway. She needed to shift her focus to work and put the night at Caroline’s house behind her.

  He certainly had.

  Bullet, consider yourself dodged, she thought the morning before her trip as she rode the Caltrain to her meeting with Nina. When she reached her stop, Dylan made the short walk from the station to the two-story building where Nina was renting office space for the week. Once on the second floor, she knocked on the door of the office and was summoned inside af
ter a pause. Nina was standing when Dylan entered. She was taller than average height, thin and aging beautifully. There was not a scintilla of makeup on her face from what Dylan could tell, and she had fashioned her shock of white-gray locks into a chignon at the nape of her neck. She delayed shaking Dylan’s hand until after she returned to the desk from shutting the door.

  “Welcome, Dylan. For the last few months I’ve been back and forth between here, and the L.A. and New York offices. I’m in the process of shopping for permanent office space here, so I’m glad we were able to find the time for us to meet,” Nina said.

  “Thank you. I’m really excited about the project,” Dylan said, making a bold effort to control her nerves. She fingered an unraveled strand poking out of her bun. She felt like Nina could somehow sense what had happened between her and Kai. “I’m just glad the job worked out so I could participate.” She regretted the statement right away when the memory of not being the first choice was triggered.

  “Hmm,” was Nina’s only response. From what Dylan could glean about her from her emails and some articles about her, Nina Sanchez didn’t coddle and she had high expectations. Nina pulled a few papers out of her desk with highlights drawn over the places Dylan needed to fill in. “These are the tax forms, and for your emergency contacts and our standard copyright agreement. I have all the other paperwork we did over email filed.” She rolled a pen across the desk. “This is a work for hire, meaning that although you will create the web series and articles, they will remain the property of Kai White, LLP, but you will be listed as the writer and director. You are, obviously, free to list the series on your résumé in the future.”

  Dylan nodded. She was familiar with work for hire situations from the few legal electives she had taken over the summer to complement her major. Part of her wished that the work would be hers for real, but it was routine for companies to retain ownership of the intellectual property created and developed on their behalf. Her main concern, anyway, was just getting to be in control of the project and seeing her name on it, so with eagerness, she scribbled her signature on each of the required lines.

  Nina handed her another sheet. “Here is your email and login information for KaiWhite.com. It places you under our professional umbrella and people have a way to contact you through this email account. The contact information for the Lava video editor, Norm, who you will be working very closely with, is also on there, as well as Lava’s media team. They are great to brainstorm with as you develop each episode.” Nina paused as Dylan wrote.

  “I just want to reiterate some of the things we’ve discussed. You’ll have a lot of creative control and leeway, and I expect professional caliber and a thoughtful effort, both of which Lizabeth has assured me you are capable of. I want a video up every week, but the first week will be your only grace period. You can post the first video from week one during the second week, and so on. You can budget your shooting time how you want over the course of several days, but it’s going to be tight, and as you edit, keep in mind that the videos must be between twelve and fifteen minutes. Norm will need a full day or two to smooth out your edits, and then it will be sent to me for approval before he posts it.” She ended with a protracted silence as Dylan jotted on the small notepad she’d brought. When she looked up, Nina continued. “Don’t hesitate to ask us questions as you work. This is better than having me reject it wholly when you’ve put so much work into it. You can edit and upload your own writings, but they must be run by me first. Meleko will deliver the equipment to you, a laptop with editing software and a camcorder, once you’re in Lahaina.”

  “Thank you. Got it.” Dylan gave her a grateful smile, and when Nina returned a much more reserved one, she could sense an undercurrent of worry.

  “Your work speaks for itself, especially for someone so young. You’re a talented young woman with so much potential and that’s why I need to be frank.” Nina leaned toward her with her hands folded on the desk. “Kai was raving about you.” Her flat intonation indicated that it wasn’t a compliment. “He started writing again. I should be thrilled about this, especially after trying to get him to focus on new material to show the label that he’s serious, but I’m not. He hadn’t written a word in months, he’s been avoiding any visits to the studio, and now all of a sudden, he’s writing again and he wants to spend time in the studio. You are the only thing that’s different, and that’s why I didn’t want to hire you.” Nina flattened the curve of her mouth into a straight line. “I had a feeling he wanted more. Now that I’ve met you, I know for sure that he does. I’ve worked with him long enough that I could go blind tomorrow and still know exactly the look he gets when other parts of him are in control.” She sighed and frowned. Dylan shifted in her chair and tried to remain composed, but her eyes did widen.

  “Take your pick, his dick or his temper, one of them will be the death of him.” Dylan took mild offense, especially given that Kai had admitted to not watching her films, but a wave of discomfort also swept through her before cinching painfully around her waist. A guilty flashback of the Lava Surf party pressed into her mind, but she hadn’t come here to get fired before the official first day.

  “Ma’am, I can assure you that my role here is a professional one, only.” Her assertive voice held steady, and her gaze never wavered from Nina’s face.

  “Great and that’s what I expect.” But she didn’t look completely convinced. “I want you to make a good web series. It has to be so good that it saves Kai’s career because he isn’t willing to do it himself the way I want him to. He has lost two major endorsements since August, and another company is on the fence. The label is considering just paying what they would owe him for terminating the contract and walking away. Jeremy sells more units and he’s far less trouble. He got a huge advance with this deal, and I don’t know if Kai’s in the position to get another lucrative deal on a major label. And he deserves one because he’s really talented. Before, the drinking and the partying weren’t bad, really. Nothing like it was when he was in Evernight. It all fit into the mystique of the rock star lifestyle. People ate it up,” she said, showing far more tolerance for Kai’s behavior than Caroline had, but her voice suddenly turned icy and stiff. “But this thing with Jeremy. It needs to get buried under the movie, the web series and the tour. These have to be good. People need to see Kai, not Kai’s antics. The focus has to get back to the music, him as an artist, and not the sensationalism. You need to figure out what’s going on and what happened, so I can find a way to spin it into something less damaging. Someone who gets too close to him may not want to divulge what really happened because it’s just too bad, but the public often really likes redemption.”

  Her rigid exterior softened as she took a sigh. “He won’t talk to me about Jeremy, but I know it certainly goes beyond competition and music royalties. No one is buying that. Meleko says he doesn’t know what happened in the alley, and I’m surprised he wasn’t out there with him. He’s always looking out for Kai. And Kai and Jeremy were friends. Even after the Evernight fall out, they worked it out. They went to Thailand together earlier this year. They are different but they were friends.” She sounded desperate and frustrated.

  From what Dylan had read, Jeremy wasn’t squeaky clean, but he stayed out of trouble. No excessive drinking stories or ones about him getting into fights. Everyone in the industry generally spoke well of his modest and charitable nature. He ran a charity basketball league in Orlando and gave millions to saving arts programs in schools, and he often talked about those things alongside his music. The only blot on his reputation was his admission about trying cocaine in his teens in the early days of Evernight. After rehab, he spoke considerably about the lure of drugs and how to keep young entertainers, who often had a ton of money and no real guidance, clean.

  “Your job is to control the story not create it for someone else to use to their benefit. You cannot become involved with him personally,” Nina said. Dylan tried not to flinch. “He can be charming, but I
need you clearheaded and focused because I’ll fire you if I even get the hint of impropriety. If Kai won’t work with someone else, I’ll find another way to get him out of this mess.”

  “I understand,” Dylan choked out. The office felt like it had been set ablaze with the two of them inside, and that she was nailed to the floor.

  “Do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “He can have his choice of girls, but you need to be off-limits. I saw another smart and talented young lady get wrapped up in him because she was so caught up in the heat of the situation, and she ended up throwing her entire career away.”

  Dylan nodded. “I understand.”

  “If you find out what really led to the fight with Jeremy, I’ll give you more than a reference. I’ll transfer the web series to you legally. We’ve agreed to license it to Lava for the coming several months as they promote their new flavors and their short films. You work hard and do everything I’ve asked, and I’ll send you a contract the very last day you’re here about ownership transfer. Irrevocable, unconditional transfer.”

  Dylan gulped down several times to moisten her parched mouth. A professionally produced web series that she owned would be an essential addition to her film portfolio. She would be able to show it publicly and license it to others. She would be able to control the use of it.

  “Really, you’d do that?” She leaned in closer.