BACKSTAGE | BILL HADER

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐎

Otilia was not in a good mood when she landed in JFK on Saturday morning. An almost 9-hour flight whilst hungover, from a party she didn't even want to go to in the first place, didn't bode well with the shitty weather and deep grey skies she was greeted by when she stepped out into the crisp air of New York. The fact that she was describing the air in New York as crisp was a testament to how long she had spent in the stuffy flying steel tube and how desperate she was to escape the hawklike eyes of her fellow passengers who had spotted her as she attempted to speed through the gridlock in passport control. To top it all of she had been outside for all of 12 seconds when she heard the first shutter of a camera lens. As the man began to try to start a conversation with her, it was the usual 'how was your flight Otilia?' along with other bullshit niceties he spewed out in an attempt to butter her up, she instead shifted her focus onto finding the car her manager had ordered for her. As her eyes shifted between the various black vehicles she felt a familiar sensation of uncomfortable heat crawling its way up her back and prickling as it reached her neck. She jostled herself slightly trying to shake the building anxiety off of her, this was definitely not the time nor the place - not that that had ever stopped it before, and continued her eagle-eyed search until her eyes landed on the number plate she had been told by her team before she had boarded the plane hours before. She made brief eye contact with the driver standing by the passenger door, signaling that she needed him to make this quick and easy, and she strode across the street ignoring the irritating buzz of the camera lens going off twice every second. The man escorting her to her hotel was, thankfully, a rather large man who scooped up her baggage in either hand and placed them in the trunk with ease before wrenching the side door open for her to climb into the car. As the door snapped shut, the raucous noise emitted from JFK as well as the annoying man with the camera was reduced to nothing more than a hum of midmorning chaos, as sound to which she happily slid down in her seat and closed her eyes. As the car pulled away from the terminal and the Manhattan skyline drew closer, Otilia couldn't help but give herself something similar to a reverse pat on the back if that was even possible. Why did her anxiety always creep up at the most insignificant things? She could understand and justify the way she would feel before a show, most girls were practically shitting themselves, but to shut down the moment she encountered a singular pap with a camera? Her aunt had dealt with twenty of them shouting her face at once and she was a dentist, this was Otilia's job. This was what she was paid to do. Through the cloud of negativity, the words of her therapist Joanna wormed their way into her mind 'Remember O, our greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another. She knew this was true but still she struggled to pull herself out of the hole of misery she was slipping into. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them, her eyes landing on a large skyscraper that towered over the rest of the city around it. She let out a breath she had been subconsciously holding and imagined a newlywed pair and their baby living there and that the baby had just taken its first steps. And pushing back the thoughts from before she began to daydream about the ecstatic young family, not recognizing herself as the imaginary young mother clapping her hands in delight. 

Slowly the noise outside of the car increased as they drove over the bridge and into the magnetic hub that was Manhattan. The soft smell of pollution and something else wafted through the car and Otilia couldn't help but smile, she loved big cities and the smells they carried, even if they were disgusting they somehow calmed her. She pulled herself up and leaned against the window, her eyes glued on the chaotic scene of New York before lunchtime. Eventually, her silent tour was over as they pulled up in front of the Four Seasons hotel and she was forced to step out into the real world again. As the door opened she was greeted by a porter who offered to take her handbag, she waved him off as she stepped out onto the street and scurried into the lobby. her driver following close behind. She pushed her sunglasses onto her forehead as she looked around for the concierge before she spotted it in front of her and set off at an admirable pace for a person who hadn't slept properly for almost 48 hours.