slow // joshua t bassett

TREINTA

Frankie honked as soon as he pulled into Josephine's driveway. Joey ran out of her house as fast as she could. She cradled her canvas close to her chest. He honked again when he saw her, "GET IN BITCH!"

"I'm coming!" she hurried. She hopped into his passenger seat with a sweet smile. "Hey, Frankie. How've you been?" She put the painting in between her legs and let it safely touch the floor.

"Great," he reached down to one of the cup holdings in between them, "here's your shit." She smiled ecstatically at him grabbing the cup as he pulled out of her driveway and onto the route to East High. They sang along to The Cheetah Girls soundtrack and danced sassily in their seats. When they reached the school they stayed in the car until the end of a song came.

"I love Cheetah Girls with a passion," Joey sighed.

Carlos led Jo to his shared trailer. Larry was in there with one of the background dancers Steph. They greeted each other and Carlos put on another Cheetah Girl's song. "Holy shit! We should make like a music video to this!"

Frankie jumped in excitement and Steph squealed, her curly hair bobbing about. Joey filmed them as they lip-synced and danced around the outside of the trailer. Halfway through, Josh appeared with a giant laugh erupting from him. Joey shushed him and continued to follow Larry around as he mouthed the words to the song.

Soon after, Julia stopped by to announce that Tim was looking for Josephine. She looked stunned, "me?"

Julia rolled her eyes, "what other Jo would he be looking for?" Josephine opened her mouth to respond but Julia stopped her, "I heard what I said and...I regret that. I can take you to him if you want." Joey nodded and got up from Frankie's side on the couch. Before she left the room she turned back to look at her friends, "I would like you all to say a few kind words at my funeral."

Frankie snorted, "don't count it." They all returned their attention to their phones and Jo finally stepped out of the trailer. She followed Julia to the gym. The whole gym was set up to look like some sort of prom. "Damn, this looks nice! We definitely don't do this much for our dances. You guys even have tables!"

"Oh well thank you," a deeper voice said from behind her. She was startled at the sudden man who appeared behind her. "Hello, Josephine. I've heard a lot about you. I'm Tim Federle," He sticks his hand out for Josephine to shake, and she took it and gave him her best handshake. She has practiced her handshake many times with her father and now it's coming in handy.

"Josephine Ortiz, but you can call me Jo," she let go of his hand and sent him a warm smile, "I heard you wanted to speak to me?"

The older man clapped his hands, "Yes, I do!" Julia took this as a sign to leave. "I've noticed that the whole cast has taken a great liking to you and I just wanted to make sure that you aren't spreading information about this project."

Her eyes widened. Although she was shocked, she was glad that he wasn't going to yell at her. She appreciates his calm approach to the situation and responded with a short chuckle, "no, of course not! I know how much this all means to them, I would never do anything to ruin this opportunity for them."

Tim smiled in delight, "I'm glad to hear that! I will, unfortunately, ask that you stand out for the musical numbers. We gotta give you something to look forward to watching when it's released." She smiled at his joking tone. This talk wasn't as stressful as she anticipated.

"Oh, of course! You just let me know when you need me out of here and I'll just go to the art room," she pulled out her keys from her pocket and picked out a very colorfully painted key, "I'm President of the Art Club so I get a key. Isn't it pretty?" Tim leaned in to take a closer look at the brightly colored key. He nodded, "Yeah, it is pretty cool. We're gonna go ahead and get started, would you mind calling in everyone?"