Life After That (11 page)

"Oh, don't worry, it's a good thing." Mr. Goodman had a smile on his face. Kirstin felt relieved. He continued. "Actually, not that good. Because you don't work for me anymore."

"What? But, sir, I can't…" Kirstin tried to say but was cut off by Mr. Goodman.

"Kirstin, relax. You don't work for me anymore because I got you something better. It's like a promotion."

"What?" she was surprised. She did not see that coming.

"Yeah, well, you've been working on filling for almost 2 years now, it was about time for you to move on. It wouldn't be fair to you for me to keep you here forever. So I put a good word on you for this man in charge of editing this show and he wants you to work for him now."

"Oh my God! Editing? Are you serious?"

"Of course I am. But, as you are still in college, he can only hire you as an assistant."

"That's not a problem. Not at all."

"Good. So here's his card. I don't know the details so you'll have to call him. You finish things here today and that's your last day filing."

"Oh Mr. Goodman, thank you so much, I don't even know how to thank you."

"Don't mention. You are a great girl, a hard worker and you'll be missed... But you deserve it."

"Oh thank you for your kindness, sir."

They shook hands and Kirstin left the office still thanking him while leaving. She was so hyped. Editing was big. At least for her, still a college student, editing was huge.

"So, you got the big news, I suppose." Marge said from behind her desk when she saw the big smile on Kirstin's face.

"You knew?"

"Of course I knew! I know everything that goes on around here. Congratulations, honey." Marge got out of her chair to give Kirstin a hug.

"Thank you. I am kinda sad I'm gonna have to leave you and Mr. Goodman though. You are great people."

"Oh, don't worry about us. We're gonna be just fine. And so are you. And we are gonna be just some floors away."

"Yeah, I guess. Thanks." Kirstin said giving Marge another hug "Well, let me get back to work so I can finish things here and go home to talk to his guy here." she said holding up the card she had in his hands.

"Ok dear. But come visit me every time you can alright?"

"I sure will. Thanks Marge. For everything. You're so sweet."

"Oh dear, you too."

"Well… bye then."

"Goodbye."

Kirstin rushed to finish things there. When she was done, she went straight to her house to call Andrew Jackson, the editing guy.

"Hello?"

"Hello. Andrew Jackson?"

"Yeah, who is it?"

"Hi, my name is Kirstin. I work, well, I used to work for Mr. Goodman at MTV. He told me you wanted me to work for you."

"Oh Kirstin. Of course. Hi! Yeah, I need someone to start working right away and Goodman told me good things about you and your work. Can you come meet me tomorrow so we can talk better about your job?"

"Yes, of course. Where should I meet you?" she said getting a piece of paper and a pen.

"Well, it can be here at MTV. I'm on the 10th floor. Is 3 o'clock good for you?"

"Yes."

"Good. So 3 it is. And when you get to the floor, just ask anybody for Andrew Jackson and someone will tell you where you can find me. You'll see things on the 10th floor are a bit different from where you used to work." he led out a little laughter. So did Kirstin.

"Well, that's fine with me."

"Great, so we'll meet tomorrow."

"Ok, thank you Mr. Jackson."

"Oh no! Please, call me Andy."

"Alright. Thank you Andy."

"No problem. Bye."

Kirstin was so happy she would scream. And she did. Things were starting to work for her. At least in the job department that was.

THE NEXT DAY

At 3 o'clock sharp, Kirstin got out of the elevator at the 10th floor. As Andrew said, things were different there. Completely different. There were people coming and going, people holding piles of tapes, papers, things were hectic there. She stopped a Japanese guy who was holding a cup of coffee and didn't seem in as much of a rush as the rest of the people there.

"Excuse me, can you tell me where I can find Andrew Jackson's office?"

"Yeah, it's right over… actually, I'm going that way. Follow me."

"Thank you."

Kirstin passed a corridor with a lot of rooms and those that had the doors opened, Kirstin tried to take a peak at them. She saw a lot of TV monitors, headphones, VCRs and tables with a lot of buttons on them. Kirstin was so excited. This was exactly the kind of job she wanted after graduating. To work behind the scenes and in a place with laid-back people, where you don't have to worry about what clothes to put on to go to work, where you don't have to wear suits and formal cloths ever.

The Japanese guy stopped and said:

"I'm staying here, but Andy's office is 2 doors away, right there." – he pointed this office that had its door closed.

"Thank you."

"No problem."

Kirstin knocked on Andrew's door. When she heard a 'Come on in' from inside, she opened the door.

"Andrew Jackson?" she asked from the door to a guy that had his hand covering the phone speaker.

"Yes. Are you Kirstin?" Kirstin nodded "Please, come in. Sit. This will only take a second." he pointed to the phone.

Kirstin closed the door and sat. It was a small office. Just a desk, a computer, some chairs and 2 filing cabinets. And Andrew was nothing like she expected him to be. By his voice, she expected to see someone in his late thirties, but Andrew looked like he was in his late twenties. He was pretty cute. Short blonde hair, green eyes, 'Really cute' she thought.

Andrew soon hung up the phone. And then, shook Kirstin's hand.

"So, you are Miss Kirstin Addams."

"Yes, that's me" she gave him a smile. She felt more comfortable around him than around Mr. Goodman because Andrew was closer to her age.

"Ok then. Let me tell you what you are gonna be doing here. We are starting this new show here at MTV in 3 weeks. We needed new people. We got a lot of people to work on it too but I noticed that I couldn't do the editing all by myself, so I had to have an assistant. And that's where you come in. How do you like it so far?" Andrew asked Kirstin. She sensed he was flirting with her so she decided to play the same game.

"So far, so good."

"Great. The editing will be all on you and me. It's a short show. A typical 30 minutes show, not so difficult to do. The only thing is that this show was on this other channel and MTV decided to buy the rights to it and it's now gonna be shown here and the group management would like the editing to be pretty similar as it was on the other channel, so we'll have to do a little research about that and we're already running a little behind schedule."

"I'm sorry. I'm not quite following you here. You said group management. What is this show about?"

"Oh, sorry! It's about this band, O-Town. We'll be working on 'Making the band'."

ORLANDO, FL

"1, 2, 3 and that's it." Dan was practicing, in fact, teaching Ashley some of the steps for the song 'Take me under' on the little rehearsal area they had at their house "I think you got it now Ash."

"Yeah, I think so too. Thanks Dan."

"No problem, bro."

They made their way into the kitchen to find the other 3 guys eating cereal at the kitchen table. They were being videotaped already because the show 'Making the Band' would be starting in less than a month and MTV needed a lot of material to work for the first episode.

"What do we have today? Anybody knows?" Trevor asked putting his bowl of cereal and spoon down in the sink.

"Hm, we got a meeting with the Mikes. They called about an hour ago saying they would be coming soon, so they should be here at any moment now. They said we'd have a meeting. I don't know what it is about though." Dan answered.

"Good. I wanna talk to them about the editing again." Jacob said "I didn't like the editing they did there at ABC. I wanna discuss that with them."

"Yeah, no one was really happy with that Jake. I think Mike and Mike will bring that up." Erik told him. The other 2 seasons, when the show was airing on ABC, the guys were not happy with the way the episodes were lead. Especially season 2. So they wanted to be as much part of the editing process as possible.

When the Mikes got to the O-Town house, they went straight to the dinning room to have their meeting. They discussed about the last dates of the tour (they were finishing a tour opening for Britney Spears) and some rehearsal schedule. Jacob, seeing that the MTV issue was not being brought up, decided to speak his mind:

"What about the show? Did you guys talk to someone at MTV about the editing problems we had at ABC?"

Mike Morin was the one who answered him:

"Not yet. I've talked to one of the producers and asked for the number of the responsible for editing and I still didn't get a call back. But I'm gonna rush things and call him later. I wanna talk directly to the one responsible for the editing part, maybe arrange a meeting. Do you guys wanna join the meeting or leave it to me and Mike?"

"I wanna be at the meeting." Jacob was the first to answer followed by a "Me too" that came from the other guys.

"Alright then. I don't know if it's gonna be possible for you guys to go to NY right now because of your schedule and the last 2 concerts with Britney are gonna be here in Florida, but maybe I can ask for the person in charge of editing to come here. How does that sound?"

"Great." Dan spoke and it looked like it was on behalf of the group.

"Good. So as soon as I have a date settle, I'll let you guys know. Anything else?" As no one answered, he carried on "Ok then. I think this meeting is over. We have to go now. You guys have the day off. Try to practice your routines a little bit." And then he and Cronin were off.

NEW YORK CITY – MTV Studios

"I'm sorry, what?" Kirstin couldn't believe her ears.

"What what? What didn't you get?" Andrew didn't understand her behavior.

"We'll be editing Making the Band?"

"Yeah, that's what I told you before."

"Making the Band is moving to MTV and we are gonna be responsible for editing it?"

"Yeah Kirstin. What's the matter? You seem weird. Is there a problem? With the show I mean?"

Yes, there was a problem. Now that Kirstin was finally forgetting about Ashley again, she would have to see his face every single day at work? Hell yeah, it was a problem! But she couldn't say that to Andrew. She needed that job too much. She couldn't afford to lose it because of some stupid love issue.

"No, of course not. Why would there be?"