As We Know It
Chapter 6Zac looked Lilly over as she paced back and forth in front of him in the studio office - her new persona did almost nothing to hide the truth. She was dressed like a real professional, lifted straight from the definition itself: black pin skirt, with her hair tied up into a tight bun, giving her face a fierce, intense look about it. A figurative wolf in sheep's clothing.
"How do I look?" she said, in the sort of self assured tone that showed that she didn't care to hear the answer one way or another.
"Everything looks good - you know, you could smile a little if we're going to sell this on them."
Lilly smiled, a teeth baring grin that made Zac think more of a literal wolf in sheep's clothing.
"Uh, that's great," he said quickly. "But do you really think this is going to work?
They're going to get suspicious."
"Did I not mention that I've been in the music business for a long, long time?"
"Yeah, but you've never really mentioned what exactly that means."
"You know how Led Zeppelin got to be what they were? It wasn't with prayer, I'll tell you that much."
"But this is different," Zac insisted, trying to wash the image of Lilly as a Zeppelin groupie out of his mind.
"Zac, I'm like 6000 years old, I know what I'm doing here."
"I guess so."
"Try not to second guess me so much, it makes me feel all twitchy," Lilly said, adjusting her skirt, careful not to let a single hair fall out of place as she did so.
The door opened and Zac could hear the voices carrying into the room before he even saw his brothers move through it. Isaac noticed them first and paused in his tracks, his eyes following a path to Lilly, taking in her fully presence - to the outside observer, it looked an awful lot like he was checking her out. Taylor followed suit, but with more of a curious tweak of his eyebrows, and less looking at her boobs. Zac held his breath, not sure what he was expecting from their response, but nervous nonetheless.
"So, you're the new tour manager, huh?" Isaac glanced her over. "I hope Zac wasn't getting too fresh with you."
"He is something of a rascal, isn't he," Lilly said with a pleasant smile. She seemed to be enjoying herself far too much. "He was just showing me around, actually, but now that you're all here, we can start."
Taylor led the way for all three of them to follow into the adjacent room, Zac hanging back to take in the scene. Lilly managed, to him, to combine a perfect amount of professional quality with naïve interest. He followed them into something they considered their "meeting room" - it earned this reputation mainly because it was the only one without instruments lying around to clutter it, and they had most of their arguments in there. There was also a long table in there that they had salvaged from a garage sale once to give it that extra professional looking spark - and when they cleaned the place up a bit, it did look damn near professional.
"Here, sit down," Taylor offered a seat at the end of the table to her, which Lilly accepted. "Do you want any coffee or anything?"
"Oh, heavens no, it'll keep me up all night," Lilly tittered. She was staying so in character that even Zac was starting to believe that she was a 50 year old in the body of someone half that age, instead of a 6000 year old in the body... Well, he didn't feel like working out the math on that. "Let's just get down to business, shall we?"
"Sure," Taylor said, taking a seat himself with the rest of them. "We're thinking of aiming for a tour in the early fall, we want to try and hit as many places as possible on this leg."
For what it was worth, Lilly was able to hold her own in something like this. Zac watched her curiously as she breezed through the plans with Isaac and Taylor, and he said nothing himself. He didn't know why it surprised him; someone with that many years of experience, he should figure that she could easily pull one over on his brothers. She was so convincing, so good at being normal, being human, that when he looked at her, he could almost see it himself.
He allowed his mind to wander while they talked about their plans - he knew that none of it mattered in the end. All he was waiting for was for Lilly to set up the hook, the bait, and to reel them in completely. Zac's mind floated back into the conversation as he heard Taylor's voice coming through once again.
"Well, like we said, we want to try and get as many places as possible this time, and think about going more internationally..."
"Why try?" Lilly said with a smile.
"What do you mean?"
"Why try and reach everyone when you already can?" she continued, and Zac was reminded of the beginning of a bad infomercial. There was the hook, dangling in front of them. "What I'm proposing is that you set up a live broadcast or something - one concert that'll reach everyone. It'll satisfy your fans, they'll have something to bond over, I suppose, and you get to reach a larger audience at once."
Taylor sat back in his seat, taking in the information thoughtfully.
"You know, that's not such a bad idea. What do you think, Ike?"
"Definitely," Isaac said, matching Taylor's thoughtful expression. Zac raised a curious eyebrow - Lilly had told him to follow her lead, and he wasn't sure where this was going just yet.
"Yeah, that sounds awesome," he said dryly.
"I really think you boys have an important message to share with the world," Lilly continued, and shot Zac a look that he possibly was supposed to interpret as some kind of code. She was putting on the bait, just waiting for the two of them to take a bite.
"You know, I've always thought so," Isaac said.
"So why keep it confined to one place?"
There was a slight lull as they absorbed the information. Zac could practically see Lilly pulling in the reel. Once she was sure that the information had sunk in, she smiled the same pleasant smile.
"Actually, I think I will have that cup of coffee if you don't mind," she said. Taylor stood up first, nodding slightly, his expression still thoughtful.
"Sure, I'll go grab some."
Zac looked at Isaac meaningfully, feeling the need to have some space to speak with Lilly alone. Though he wasn't entirely used to being able to affect anyone this way, he cleared his throat slightly as soon as Taylor was out of the room.
"Why don't you give him a hand," he said, a little unsure of himself. Sure enough, Isaac stood up from the table and started to follow Taylor. As soon as they were out of sight, Lilly shot Zac a grin.
"Ah, the internet," Lilly said with content. "One of my better accomplishments, if I do say so. Brings out the absolute slime of humanity."
"And this is going to accomplish what for us?"
"Think about it, Zac. I don't think your band has some important message to share with the world, or whatever bullshit they were eating up. I think you do. A very important message, and once they hear it, it'll be in their heads as well. Music is one of the best mediums to do it with. It's like an infection."
"Has anyone ever mentioned how poetic you are?"
"I try," she said with a smile. "But this is the perfect stage - a literal stage. Reaching a mass of people, and getting them to do whatever you say."
"And what am I supposed to tell them?" Zac asked, a sinking feeling starting in his stomach. He had been practicing, sure, but it was mainly to get food delivered when he didn't feel like calling, and getting Isaac to shut the hell up. He'd also been propositioned by more girls named Lucy than he had ever known existed in the world.
"Hey, I did all the ground work here, you're the greative push behind the whole thing. Make me proud."
"Sure thing," he muttered to himself.
"I think I'm supposed to say something encouraging here, so I'll bite: you'll do a great job, I'm sure the world will be nothing but a smoldering crater when you're done with it," she looked at the grimace on Zac's face. "No, not helping? Fine. You'd better do this, because both of our asses depend on it. You've been working on it, right?"
"Yeah, I've been trying. It's not easy, you know," Zac said, and before he could continue he was cut off when Taylor and Isaac came back into the room, cups of coffee in hand. Taylor set one in front of Lilly, which she picked up delicately and sipped at. Taylor looked as though he was going to speak again, but before he could move, their attention was drawn to the door, where someone was standing.
The man standing in the door was striking to look at for several reasons - firstly being the general overwhelming presence he seemed to present. It wasn't just his height or his appearance, but the fact that he seemed to somehow fill the room. The second reason came in the form of the skinny jeans, white t-shirt, sunglasses, and red scarf draped perfectly around his neck. He looked like he dressed himself with clothes discarded onto Taylor's floor - which, for all Zac knew, could have very well been the case.
"Micah," Taylor said, seeming quite embarrassed by the whole situation. "What are you doing here?"
"I needed to talk to you about something," the man said, barely taking note of Lilly and Isaac, but taking care to stress his words as much as possible when he saw Zac sitting at the table.
"Oh, um, guys," Taylor said, finally thinking of the others as well. "This is Micah, a friend of mine. He was interested in helping out on tour as a, uh, roadie. Right."
Micah seemed confused by the comment, but nodded and did nothing to refute it.
"Hey, it's nice to meet you," Zac said, standing up and extending his hand, trying his hardest to be friendly. Micah seemed taken aback by the gesture and looked at Zac as though he was going to attack.
"Hello everyone," he said, a little urgency in his voice. "Can I please talk to you now, Taylor?"
"Sure," Taylor said, shooting the others another uncomfortable look as he did. "You guys can continue without me, this shouldn't take too long."
"That's fine, we probably don't have too much left to do anyway," Lilly said, her eyes following Taylor until he was completely out of sight. "Now," she said, rubbing her hands together, "Let's talk about merchandise."