Mainstream

Private Screening

"Mr. Park! Mr. Park! How do you feel about Jeremy Blaire's removal from the board at Murkoff?"

"Good riddance to bad rubbish," said Waylon, smiling.

"Won't this negatively affect your movie?" asked another reporter.

"You know what," said Waylon, pausing with two grocery bags in either hand. He stood outside of Helen's condo association and met the eyes of a herd of paparazzi with cameras upheld, "It better not. It better not affect it. That man abused his position--abused his actors. He wasn't the important part of this movie—not by a long shot.

"Dennis is a brilliant director, Eddie is a great actor, and I worked damn hard on this project. If the public rejects the movie now, it's like all that abuse was for nothing, they'll make it look like we really can't make a hit movie without an abusive producer like that asshat. Mainstream isn't about Jeremy Blaire, Mainstream is about beating the shit out of people like Jeremy Blaire. Go see Mainstream." 

Waylon smiled for the cameras and turned toward the door.

"Mr. Park! Waylon! Waylon! What about rumors that you and Eddie Gluskin are broken up?"

"Rumors that we're broken..." Waylon paused, adjusting the grocery bags in his hands, "I'm obviously not staying with him right now. These bags are full of ice cream and wine, does that sound like a broken up person to you?"

The paparazzi and reporters all turned to look back and forth between themselves for a moment.

"Y-yes, yes it does," said a brave woman holding a giant camera with a telephoto lens.

"There ya go," said Waylon, walking into the lobby of the building.

Helen waited on the other side of a pillar, playing on her phone. "Why do you keep stopping to talk to them?"

"Because I need Eddie to see me everywhere, talking about him, missing him."

"You're nervous, huh?" asked Helen, grinning up from her phone. "It's adorable."

"It's not adorable..."

"Oh, come on, after what happened with Jeremy, and Miles said he handled the other part. Eddie would be an idiot not to grovel at your feet after all that."

"You'd think that," said Waylon, sighing. The plastic bags creaked in his hands as he walked to the elevators. "The problem is I know Eddie. What's bothering him the most is feeling betrayed. Feeling like his pain benefited me, somehow. Feeling like I'm no better than the women that hurt him before. He's probably retreated back into himself, deciding that, whether I'm guilty of anything or not, he's better off without people in his life."

"Then he's an idiot," said Helen, forcing her slim phone into the impossibly tight back pockets of her jeans. "Anyone is lucky to have you, Way-bae."

She hugged him, swaying slightly causing the grocery bags to knock against their legs. The elevator dinged a moment later.

"Now, come on. That wine ain't' gonna drink itself."

——

"This article is brutal," said Billy, holding the glossy Time magazine as though afraid of smudging the pages. "I love it."

"Yeah, that Upshur guy is a colossal asshole, but he's a good writer, I'll give him that," said Aiden, staring down at his phone.

"He ain't bad to look at, either," said Chris, smirking at the raised eyebrows of his friends. "What? You guys saw his videos. Don't act like you weren't impressed."