"Joey Drew Studios..." Evelyn thought standing at the door, "It's smaller than I pictured."
Crisp air emerged from the darkness of the morning, only being broken by a few lamp posts along the street that illuminated the buildings. Evelyn pushed the door in attempt to open it, but it refused. She tried to pull it open but yet again, to no avail. She cursed under her breath, rattling the handle as if it would do something.
She felt the handle twist under her hand and let go. The door swung open to reveal a man just a few inches taller than her with dirty blond hair under a beret cap. He had a wrench that appeared to have left a few coats of black grease on his hands and face. "Sorry, these doors get stuck a lot. I gotta say, if we don't get these things fixed, I'm outta here!" He said with a strong New Jersey dialect.
Evelyn stepped inside, shivering a bit at the immediate temperature change. "Don't worry about it. I wasn't outside for very long," she stopped to look at the name tag clipped around his suspenders, "Mr. Franks."
"Oh please! Don't try to be so proper! Call me Wally, I'm the janitor here." He replied. "Now let's not be strangers, you are...?"
"Evelyn, I'm also working maintenance." She reaches out to shake his hand, he hesitated.
"Not quite sure if handshaking is the best right now," Wally said, wiping his hands on a rag from his pocket, "but I think Mister Drew told me about you. You're working maintenance in the music department and art studios, right?"
"I guess so. I wasn't told if I was working in a specific area, just that I was working." Evelyn answered.
"Hmm, makes since. He's always skipping over the important things." He laughed, "Anyway, it's good that you're working in there. You see, our buddy, the music director, he ain't really the social type, you'll learn that pretty fast. On the rare occasion he might make eye contact with the lyric writer during a conversation, but like I said, rare occasion. If I can give you one piece of advice, try to avoid talking with him at every chance you get."
"I know people who are not big fans of socializing, but geez, he's that scary?" Evelyn commented, trying her best to figure out the proper responses. "Is there a certain place I need to start, or somewhere I need to get on the clock?"
"Just follow me! I'll show you where you need to check in and where you'll be working!"
Evelyn followed him down the halls of the studio and a few stairs, passing a strange desk with a little drawing of a character with a note on it reading "NO." Peculiar, but so were the black puddles and loose wooden boards all over the floors of the studio.
"Here we are!" Wally announced motioning to a little box to punch in her card. "Alright, so during the day, which would be from when you arrive to six, you'll be cleaning the halls, then after six, the offices. There's a storage closet with whatever you'll need beside the stairs. Two breaks, one at lunch and the other at four. If you have any questions, come talk to me!"
"Alright. Got it. I'll see you at lunch then."
~Time Skip brought to you by Boris just vibing to one of Sammy's doodle tracks~
While Evelyn was mopping up the dark puddles of what she later discovered to be ink, she heard the melody of a piano down the hall. It was hearty and upbeat, almost like it was meant for a dance, and it did make her tap her fingers against the wooden pole of the mop.
When the puddle was cleaned, she moved a little closer to the music, wanting to hear it a bit clearer. The door that hid the recording studio was opened just enough so that Evelyn could see inside the room.
Sitting at the piano in the corner, was a man with a small smile on his face. A small pause in the music, made Evelyn start praying he didn't notice her at the door as she remembered what Wally said, but felt relief wash over her, when it continued again. She still stood in the door frame with the mop, just listening. Despite being made out to be terrifying, she had to admit that he was still very talented. Evelyn was sure that she had heard it somewhere, but she couldn't recall it exactly, must have just been déjà vu.
Shortly after, whilst the piano was still singing, she returned to cleaning the front of the department. Wiping down shelves stacked with records and frames that protected and decorated pieces of sheet music. When all of the sudden, a loud bang interrupted the man's music in the recording studio.
Evelyn sat the broom she had been using against the wall and ran into the studio.
"Don't panic! Another plank just fell from the ceiling... again..." He explained.
"Again?" Evelyn asked the man who she could now see much better.
"Again." He said massaging his temples in aggregation. "How does he have all that money to install an ink machine, but not enough to secure a stable building?" The man mumbled not even loud enough for Evelyn to hear.
"I assume you're the new girl?"
"Yes. You're the music director, right?" She was practically stumbling over her words. He didn't look intimidating, a cascade of dark hair that was tied back, with tired purple rings around his russet eyes. And especially since that smile she saw earlier was genuinely happy, along with the tune he made.
He reached out his hand, "Sammy Lawrence."
She shook it, "Evelyn White. I'm working maintenance around the studio."
"Say a prayer you'll survive through the week. Joey Drew Studios isn't the ideal workplace."
Evelyn left the recording studio to resume cleaning. "Maybe that's what Wally meant." She thought to herself.
A/N: So... I have my regrets, but hopefully this won't be as bad as I thought it would be. I blame someone on YouTube for posting something on the video at the beginning of the chapter that gave me this idea. Normally if I just let ideas sit, they'll go away and I'll forget about them. But, of course I'm new in the fandom so the BATIM fanfiction gods were like: *slaps table* "THIS ONE!"
Anyway hopefully I can finish this now that I've started it. It looks like uploads are going to be early on every Saturday, then these author notes will come out a little later.
See you next chapter!