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jerepars · 7 years

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The Con Extended Chapter Notes

Hyperlinks appear in blue (underlined on mobile). The story is posted here. Direct link to this chapter is here.

This chapter is entirely way too long. Perhaps the ‘smarter’ thing to do would have been to post the two scenes/sections separately. Both are certainly long enough for that. But I’ve always maintained that I don’t want to produce filler content. It’s like the title of Sum 41’s debut album (another thing I’ve maintained: in my heart of hearts I’m still just a dumb pop punk kid), All Killer, No Filler. The first section of the chapter, in my opinion, serves as smooth transition for the second part. But the first part just on its own? I don’t see the point. So no, it couldn’t be separate.

In the notes for previous chapters, I’ve mentioned that if I put something in the story early on, I put it there for a reason, to be called on later in the story. This chapter calls back to those little things in earlier chapters. It’s probably been a while since you actually read those little things, so I’ll point them out as I see necessary.

I nodded and began pressing the pads of my fingers against the pads of my thumbs on both hands. I glanced at the familiar cover of the book Jughead had been reading. “Hey, I read that in AP English.”

This nervous habit that Betty does throughout the first section of the chapter is first seen in Chapter 2, when Archie grills her about liking Jughead, before they hatch the plan for the con. As we go through this section of the chapter, throughout her conversation with Jughead, this nervous tick is evident (Jughead actually brings it up) but never destructive. I was thinking about the life Betty’s had in this AU. She got to move away from Riverdale as a teenager, and Alice’s influence on her life has been felt, but Betty hasn’t had to bottle up her feelings. In fact, she made great friends in Kevin and Veronica when she got to Chicago. She’s been in counseling since her apprentice year. I think not being in Riverdale is a big thing for this Betty, so I don’t think she would have had to turn to digging crescent marks into her palms in order to cope.

I wanted to draw attention to the difference between this ballet Betty and canon Betty, giving her a nervous habit that had to do with her hands but without it leading to self-harm.

“You read The Devil in the White City in your AP Lit class?” Jughead asked with disbelief.

“No.” I shook my head. “The other AP English class. The one in junior year.”

“Language and Composition?”

“Yeah,” I confirmed. “I always thought that was the better of the two AP classes for English. A lot more useful in instructing 16 year olds how to become better writers themselves and not just responding to a selection of literature through the ages written with ambitious punctuation.”

The full name of the book being referred to is The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America.

Fun fact: Leonardo DiCaprio (who gets another mention in this chapter, in the second section) bought film rights of the book in 2010. As of this year, the plan to turn it into a film is still active.

“Betty, please!” Jughead exclaimed with mock offense. “I keep my best friend charm bracelet in a very safe place and I am never giving it back. So he better not break up with me.”

Something I’d always admired about the friendship Chic and Jughead had was how matter-of-fact it was. They were two guys who loved each other platonically and were secure enough to not care if the relationship was characterized as romantic by others. They laughed endearingly about their ‘bromance’ rather than be offended by it. “Girlfriends may come and go,” Chic had once said, “but I’ll never break up with my best friend.” I thought that it took a special kind of friendship and special kind of people to be firm in that unwaveringly.

In the first chapter, Betty briefly mentioned the idea of Jughead and Chic having a bromance. I really wanted to include something in this chapter about how Jughead and Chic don’t associate that word with a negative connotation. Jughead and Archie’s friendship is portrayed so beautifully on Riverdale. As Cole Sprouse pointed out in his Teen Vogue interview, that’s not a portrayal we see very often between two guys on TV. In an alternate universe where Jughead’s best friend is Chic, I fully believe that the kind of friendship that Jughead has with his best friend is still the same.

And Betty, who has had a front row seat to this beautiful friendship, has nothing but admiration for it.

Regarding the best friend charm bracelet - it’s a bit of a reference to my favorite episode of Veronica Mars, 1x10, “An Echolls Family Christmas”. I can’t find a clip of it, but it’s something Logan says to Duncan at lunch time: “Are we breaking up now? Do you want your best friend charm back?”

“I don’t know yet…I picked it up mostly because it’s a true crime novel that’s set here, in Chicago,” he explained. “I’m leaning toward that genre for my own novel. Right now though I’m thinking that I need to give myself a better background on the Exposition.”

I hadn’t just read The Devil in the White City for my AP English class; I’d read it for my second semester paper, a long-form essay that thoroughly analyzed the devices the author used to tell the story. The story itself was an intertwining of two stories, of the architect who made an exposition of the city, and of a serial killer who used the events to lure people to their deaths at the Chicago World’s Fair (officially named The World’s Columbian Exposition) in 1893. To Jughead’s point, I felt like I was well-versed in the World’s Fair, though not necessarily because of the book.

The reason I thought to reference The Devil in the White City at all is because I remembered it as one of book the choices for the long-form paper I wrote in my own AP Language & Composition class. It wasn’t the book that I did my paper on, but now, all these years later, I definitely wish it had been! When I started writing this story, I remembered the synopsis of the book and looked it up again. A true crime novel set in Chicago, the same city that Jughead moved to for his MFA, and the same genre that I imagine Jughead would be writing? Oh, I knew immediately that it had to get a mention in this story.

When I started doing research on the Joffrey Ballet’s ‘new’ version of The Nutcracker, it all came full circle, because both the book and the events of that ballet have the same setting. I was amazed and happy with the coincidence, because it worked out perfectly for my story, for Betty and Jughead to have a conversation about the two.

Except it turns out that it’s not quite coincidence after all. While writing these notes, I found an article that states Joffrey’s choreographer and artistic director have both read The Devil in the White City, and they even used it for inspiration in re-imagining The Nutcracker.

I really don’t know how I didn’t find this article during my initial research. But oddly I think that it’s actually more satisfying that I found out after I made the connection on my own.

“The version of The Nutcracker we did at Joffrey last year, and that we’ll be doing for years to come,” I spoke, “it’s set at the fair. Marie dreams about the White City and what she would see there.”

Jughead raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

I simply nodded.

The reason that Joffrey’s new take on The Nutcracker was so uniquely Chicago was because of its take on the classic story. It was set on Christmas Eve 1892, in the winter leading up to the opening of the World’s Fair, and paid some homage to the working-class heroes of those days—all while keeping Tchaikovsky’s original score. Marie, whose vivid dreams were the basis for the dances in the production, was the daughter of a Polish immigrant mother, a widowed sculptor who worked on the statue of The Republic for the Exposition.

In Chapter 4, while talking to Sabrina, Betty mentions that in the Joffrey Ballet’s Nutcracker, the little girl’s name is Marie rather than Clara.

I read several articles about Joffrey’s reimagining of The Nutcracker in order to understand the changes (compared to a 'traditional’ version). I found the one from NPR (complete with an audio clip!) quite helpful, along with this one that breaks down what has been taken out and what has been put in.

His statement was true, too. The fall season at Joffrey always felt busier than the spring season. It seemed to drag on for too long at the beginning in September, when every day at work was spent going to company class and being in different rehearsals. But October would culminate what we worked so hard for: the performance weeks. We were about two weeks out from opening night, which meant rehearsals had moved into the theater. No matter how much mastery had come through in the dance studios, in my opinion the theater stage always gave the dances a bit of a new feel, it made them feel brand new again for those first few attempts. Especially for someone like me, who hadn’t been singled out on stage since a gala during my apprentice year, it was something to get used to. The company studios on Randolph Street had floor to ceiling windows where natural light poured in, with the piano in the corner of the room. In the Auditorium Theatre, the stage lights were blinding, casting a sea of darkness from the orchestra pit to the rafters, and the music came from downstage. The turf of the rehearsal studio floors were supposed to be the same as that on the stage, but I’d sworn ever since the academy that it felt like the stage was less rigid and had more give. I always dipped my pointe shoes in more rosin than usual for stage rehearsals, feeling like they were slipping.

If you’re a close reader, the use of both “theater” and “Theatre” must be driving you crazy in this chapter. It is intentional though. Your opinion on the right way to spell “theater” probably depends on what part of the world you live in. For me, the decision of which way to spell certain words, in American or British/International English is dependent on the story. I have used both conventions (same for words like “color” vs. “colour”) in my writing in the past. In this story, we have Betty as our narrator, an American girl living in Chicago. Therefore, I stick to American English spelling of words throughout the story. However, The Auditorium Theatre in Chicago has that spelling, that is its proper name, I can’t do anything about that. So that’s why you see both.

The Nutcracker was a different kind of beast for ballet season. It was an entire month of daily (sometimes twice daily) performances, save for Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve. That meant that there were five different casts, so dancers were assigned to different roles on different nights. Worst case scenario, I’d get to understudy for a soloist and never get to dance it in the spotlight. But it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that if I had a good audition, and if I did well during my pas de deux with Trev in Giselle, that I could land myself in another solo role, because The Nutcracker was a big ballet with a lot of roles. So I had to be prepared. I needed to nail the Peasant pas de deux. And I needed to show something special at auditions, especially when I was up against established soloists and principals.

A quick peek at the Joffrey Ballet’s calendar for The Nutcracker reveals that Christmas and New Year’s Eve really are the only days without shows in December. The same article that told me about the connection between The Nutcracker and The Devil in the White City also told me that the huge number of shows is/was accomplished by having five casts.

I was elated. I’d soaked up every second of the Peasant pas de deux with the blinding spotlight set on my partner and me as we danced in circles around the stage. I loved it. I’d almost forgotten the thrill of having a solo role. My dance with Trev in the first act was less than ten minutes long, but it was on opening night and it felt amazing. In the backstage hair and makeup room that I’d been assigned, after the performance, I could practically feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins. I sat in front of the mirror for a long time, just settling down, before I started wiping off my stage makeup. I’d spent a fair amount of my time in the corps de ballet telling myself that I didn’t want to be a principal dancer, that I wanted to get to soloist and nothing more. Well, ten minutes in a soloist’s role and I wanted more. I would need to take some serious time to reassess exactly what I wanted from ballet once the run of Giselle was over.

In the prologue, Betty states that she wants to be a soloist but doesn’t want to be a principal dancer. I really like that once she gets the experience of a soloist’s performance, she’s not so sure anymore. I’m a big fan of Betty’s drive and determination.

The performing arts survived on sponsors, donations, fundraising, and season ticket holders. Ballet was an old art and young people weren’t exactly dying to pay for an opera house ticket (even a subsidized one, if they were students) to see an adaptation of Othello or The Sleeping Beauty. As dancers, we in the company were ever so thankful for the support that allowed us to live our dreams. In fact, with opening night also being the opening of the season, the company was hosting a party. It would be a few hours of hors d’oeuvres and champagne for the dancers, families, friends, season ticket holders—anyone and everyone that supported our craft was extended an invitation—but mostly it was for the bigwig sponsors, so they had a chance to speak to anyone in the company in a relaxed setting, to see up close and personal where their money was going.

The good thing about taking 50 million years to write this chapter and 101 million years to edit it is that it pushed me past the real life opening of the Joffrey Ballet’s Giselle. In late September, the Joffrey posted a video to their official YouTube channel showing the dancers with the principal roles of Giselle and Albrecht rehearsing in the studio (you can see the floor to ceiling windows that Betty was talking about in the first section of the chapter!), with their voiceovers, talking about dance. A few days ago a video of the company rehearsing Giselle, with interviews, was also posted. I think it’s so cool to have real visuals of what Betty has been talking about.

On the official landing page for the production, the Joffrey has also posted the program guide for Giselle. That wasn’t there when I first started doing research for the story. The season sponsors are listed (page 14), and monetary supporters and donors are listed (page 24 to 31). I was glad to be able to see the program because it acknowledges not just the bigwigs, but even small contributions as well. In my mind, that made this party more feasible.

A couple of years had passed since my brother last attended one of my performances. I was pretty sure the only thing he liked about ballet was the flexibility of all the women. He would always show up to provide his older brother support when warranted, but I’d danced strictly in the corps de ballet the last two seasons. Those of us in the corps served as understudies to the soloists, and the soloists served as understudies to the principals because as the saying went, the show must go on. There were two kinds of programs that the company performed: mixed repertoires and full-lengths. Mixed repertoires were usually the newer, innovative, contemporary works that were only one act long. During the weeks that we performed mixed repertoires, three short individual ballets were performed each night.

So I’d learned a lot of soloist roles. But since joining the corps, just my luck, all of the dancers that I’d been an understudy for had been healthy and uninjured for performance nights in the past two years—not that I wished them any undue harm. It meant that Chic hadn’t had to sit in the Auditorium Theatre since the days of my apprenticeship.

There are, indeed, two kinds of programs that dance companies do during the course of a year. Giselle is a full-length ballet. To name a few others, The Sleeping Beauty, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, and Nijinsky are all full-length ballets. The Nutcracker is also a full-length ballet.

Chroma is a mixed repertoire ballet. It is actually three ballets. The version last done by The Royal Ballet is: Chroma, Multiverse, and Carbon Life. During the 2012 fall season, the Joffrey Ballet had a mixed repertoire program called Human Landscapes: Forgotten Land, Pretty Ballet, and The Green Table.

The point is that there are different kind of ballet performance nights. Some ballets are full-lengths, with only one story from beginning to end. Others are mixed repertoires, short individual ballets performed together (with intermissions in between, of course), but not necessarily with just one story. Because of this, Betty has learned a lot of roles that she’s never actually performed.

It was too sweet, along with his actions, for someone who wasn’t my boyfriend, or at least dating me, to say. He said it with so much conviction that I actually believed him. His smile had enough confidence in it for the both of us and I felt beautiful even then, offstage, standing in front of him. After the stage makeup—pancake face, we dancers liked to call it—was removed, I’d re-moisturized and prepared for the party. I redid my makeup in more neutral tones: brown eyeliner just on the top lids, a hint of my favorite pink blush, and coral lips. My dress was structured and form-fitting, a nice shade of copper that complimented my golden locks falling in soft waves around my face.

There’s this video of NYCB principal dancer Sara Mearns talking about her stage makeup, including pancake (1:50 to 2:03).

Archie was right. Jughead wasn’t just ‘some guy’ to me. There was more at stake if I ever became one of those girls that he had to let down easy. Alternatively though, based on what he’d done in dumping Sabrina and what he’d already done for me on opening night, maybe things were looking up. I leaned toward the notion that the things he’d done were because our destiny was different. Still, I kept my crystal vision to myself.

I was listening to Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours a ton in the midst of writing this chapter. No matter what, “Dreams” is my staple. This is not the first time I’ve referenced it in a story. If that makes me cliché and unoriginal, well, so be it. More than likely you already know this, but just in case you don’t, the line in the song goes Now here I go again, I see my crystal vision. I keep my visions to myself.

Corps members liked to talk, and rumor had it that Jason’s girlfriend was pregnant. I wondered how Cheryl would deal with that, potentially losing her brother not just to another woman but a child as well. I saw Jason across the room with the supposed charlatan. She had blonde hair parted straight down the middle and was wearing a flowly dress that neither confirmed nor denied the rumors of the corps. Not that I thought about Jason Blossom a lot, but I’d always imagined that any girlfriend of his would look a little bit like his sister since they had a freaky close relationship. If anything though, the girl he was with looked like she could pass for my sister. She and Jason looked totally in love, sneaking glances at each other as they talked to Trev.

I’ve gotten a few questions about Polly’s existence in this story. I guess this was my roundabout way of including her, even if she’s not really Polly anymore.

Archie sighed. “Maybe I should take her home?”

“Okay, seriously.” I wasn’t far from stomping my foot to get my point across. “You both see me standing here, right?”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Veronica answered Archie’s question and totally ignored mine. “You deal with Kat Stratford here, I’m going to go talk to Cheryl.”

I saw an opportunity to make a 10 Things I Hate About You reference and you already know I was all over that.

Archie hauled me into an Uber soon after, before I could make an ass of myself in front of my friends and my colleagues. He’d been drinking with me, too. The last glass that I slid toward him had been the first one he’d refused. But he also outweighed me by at least a hundred pounds, so the alcohol didn’t have the same effect on him as it did on me. He was supposed to be a 21-year-old frat boy college football player, but true to his true character, he acted as the hovering, concerned puppy dog that I knew him to be. Instead of getting plastered on the dime of the Joffrey Ballet and its major sponsors, he took care of me. I was a touchy feely kind of drunk. But Archie didn’t even complain when I clung to him for the entire ten-minute ride from the Auditorium Theatre to his apartment (his place was closer than mine), listening to the radio recap of the Cubs’ sole win against the Dodgers—both battling for the NLCS title—and the Cubs trying to make it back to defend their World Series title.

The Cubs did play the Dodgers on Giselle opening night, and they did win. Unfortunately, that was the only game of the series they won, and they did not make a two-years-in-a-row repeat appearance in the World Series to defend their 2016 championship. Bummer. For the sake of their fans, I hope it’s not another 108-year drought.

The other thing I wanted to say is that after seeing Riverdale 2x03, and seeing how Archie went to find Ethel and how he comforted her, I feel very strongly that Archie in this AU would attempt to take care of drunk Betty and not just join in. Even when his methods are preposterous, the boy always tries, doesn’t he?

Babe. I liked the way it sounded rolling off his tongue, directed at me casually. I liked the way he flashed his crooked smile at me sincerely and the way he looked in his boxers and t-shirt. With the champagne dancing away down my veins, I was pretty sure he was exactly who I should be beside to end the night, my knight in shining sleep armor.

There’s a song called “Champagne” by Sugarcult. I think it should be the theme song for this chapter, specifically this line: All I can taste is champagne, dancing away down my veins.

His warning sounded right. I knew there was a reason why I wasn’t supposed to just kiss him as I pleased, but foggy thoughts clouded my mind like skyscrapers, so I couldn’t figure out why. I also knew that I’d already kissed him on several occasions before. My mind was blank on champagne. I didn’t care. I only cared that he was so cute and so close to me and that he was a good guy.

The first line in Title Fight’s “Western Haikus” goes thoughts cloud my mind like skyscrapers staring back at me. This is one of those songs I’ve been trying to figure out how to work into a story for so long. I’m so glad it worked here.

#je repars notes

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