"Um… Miss… McCutcheon?" She asked, blinking large blue-gray eyes at the woman. "M-my name is Jenny Schecter? Uhh, Kerrang sent me to speak with you today for… for our October issue?"

"Yeah. Right," Shane replied, bringing her cigarette to her lips for a puff, not looking at Jenny. "You wanna sit down?"

"Thank you," Jenny said, smiling and seeming not to mind that Shane didn’t look at her, didn’t smile. Holding her things on her lap for a moment, she fussed with them for a moment before picking up her microcassette recorder and holding it up. "Um, do you mind — if I use this?"

"Do whatever you want," Shane said with a disinterested shrug, tapping ashes into a nearby beer bottle, the ashes making a hiss as they hit the puddle of beer that was left at the very bottom of the bottle.

"Okay," Jenny said, smiling to herself as she checked the microcassette inside the recorder. Pressing the record button, she let it run for a few seconds before she set it aside, opening her notebook and crossing her legs, resting the notebook atop her knee. Pulling her pen out, she clicked it at the top and, right away, began writing. "So… you’ve been performing for four years, now. Has any part of the creative process changed for you, since then? You’ve only released two albums in that time, but they’ve been two of the most widely recognized and critically acclaimed works by an independent artist ever. Has it changed anything for you?"

Shane’s eyelids fluttered in a weak blink as she looked over at Jenny blearily. "What?" She asked. Her migraine was making it damn near impossible for her to focus on anything and Tim was expecting her to answer questions like that?

"Uhh," Jenny let out a huff of bashful laughter. "Has all the attention affected your work?" She asked, rephrasing the question.

"Oh," she said, her brain able to parse the simplified question far more easily. Licking her lips, she looked down. "It’s harder to get an album put out, now," she replied.

"Really? Would you — would you like to tell me a little bit more about that?" Jenny asked, nudging the tape recorder a bit closer to Shane where it sat on the edge of the vanity. "Why is it harder, now?"

"Everybody thinks the first two were a fluke," Shane murmured, her expression darkening. "It’s been too long. They don’t believe I can do it again. They think I’m burned out."

"Do you think you are?" Jenny asked softly, her expression openly sympathetic.

"Probably," she said quietly, tapping more ashes into the beer bottle.

("Happens" is by Tracy and the Plastics – it’s a beautiful and haunting song and the album, Culture for Pigeons is equally brilliant. I figured the song fit into the arc of Shane’s character for this story perfectly.)