Chapter Text
Chapter One
It all started the night Harley went up to Red’s office and passed another woman along the way. Her outfit looked really stylish and probably cost a thousand buckeroos, and she was wearing designer sunglasses, which Harley thought was weird considering they were indoors. At night.
She stopped and gave Harley the once-over, making her feel quite self-conscious, and then said something rather odd. “I don’t suppose you sing?”
Harley was beginning to think that this woman was the craziest person on that floor, which would be saying something. “Uh, yeah,” she said awkwardly. “On stage once, too.”
The woman sighed. “Ten years younger and maybe – “ Then she shrugged and kept walking.
Had she just called Harley old?
Harley scowled. Try saying shit like that about her in front of Red and then see what happens to you.
Speaking of which, why had she been meeting with Ivy anyway?
Suddenly filled with curiosity instead of discomfort, Harley scurried on toward Ivy’s office, the original reason she came upstairs totally forgotten. She didn’t even knock, barging in. “Who was that?”
Ivy was sitting at her desk, but instead of doing paperwork, she was leaning back in her chair, looking thoughtful. “Yes, Harley?” she asked, blinking.
“The lady in the Gucci glasses. Who was she?”
“Oh, her,” Ivy said, frowning. “I don’t think I got her name, but she left a business card. Let me see . . . “
Red was a lot better at talking to people than she was a couple years ago, but she still left a few things to be desired, and one of those things was people’s names. Ivy tended to give strangers less than her full attention unless they gave her a reason to listen to them, and by the time that happened, their names had been the first casualty.
Ivy snatched up what was apparently the strange woman’s business card. “Gertie Dickens,” she read dubiously. “Gaia, what a dreadful name. Don’t people in the entertainment industry change their names or something?”
“She’s an actress?” Harley asked, surprised. She followed all the gossip sites and she hadn’t recognized her.
“No, fortunately,” Ivy said. The number of actresses who had ended up on her shit list for endorsing some kind of product that killed plants outnumbered the ones who hadn’t. “She’s a Broadway producer.”
“Really?” That interested Harley. Ivy probably couldn’t name a theater on Broadway if you paid her, but Harley loved musicals. She’d seen Wicked eight times after all. Her and Kristin Chenoweth – twins!
Ivy nodded. “Yes, apparently I’ve officially made it. I’ve got people approaching me out of the blue, asking me to invest in their theatrical productions.”
Uh-oh.
“Please tell me you didn’t,” Harley said, sitting down.
“Of course not,” Ivy replied, waving a hand dismissively.
Whew. Everyone knew that investing in a Broadway show was a great way to lose money. Everyone, that is, except Poison Ivy, who had turned the Iceberg into the Rydbergii without giving any thought to how hard it would be, and who had made it a success solely through sheer stubbornness and luck, with a generous assist from Selina. “What was she trying to get you to invest in?”
Ivy hesitated, and Harley’s blood pressure started creeping up again. “Well, you see, apparently when a show closes and someone wants to reopen it, they call it a ‘revival’? This Dickens woman wants to revive Little Shop of Horrors. Which was funny, since I didn’t realize it was ever on Broadway to begin with.”
Of course she didn’t. “About ten years ago,” Harley said with forced casualness. “But it was an off-Broadway show even before it was a movie.”
“Yes, she mentioned that.” Ivy suddenly looked irritated. “She thought she knew me so well. She must have thought, Oh, I’ll tell her I’m producing a feminist reinterpretation of that musical about carnivorous plants, and she’ll have her checkbook out in two seconds flat. Honestly, Harley, you’re the only person who gets me at all.”
That was because “getting” Ivy made Harley’s life a lot easier. The notion that Poison Ivy was a “feminist”, for example, was a common misconception. Harley didn’t know what the modern definition of “feminism” was, but she was pretty sure that it boiled down to “Rights for women!”
She was also pretty sure that it did NOT boil down to “No rights for men!” That, however, came a lot closer to Ivy’s personal philosophy toward the battle of the sexes. Fighting discrimination against women didn’t have any particular meaning to her, except where it could conceivably lead to discriminating against men.
Now guessing that Poison Ivy liked Little Shop of Horrors was, on the surface, a no-brainer. Highly intelligent and dangerous plants from another world try to conquer Earth. Of course Ivy was the one person in the theater rooting against the humans. Over the years Harley had probably seen her watch the movie thirty times. Well, most of the movie, anyway. She always seemed to stop the DVD right when Seymour was about to electrocute the plant. Funny, right?
It wasn’t just the giant plant, though.
No one would ever suggest that Harley was the smart one in the relationship, least of all Harley. But come on, she wasn’t an idiot. Cute blonde, high-pitched voice, in a physically abusive relationship with a man who has a thing for LAUGHING GAS? Okay, maybe Harley had been a little slow to pick up on it. But eventually she was going to realize that Audrey was her, that the boyfriend was Mistah J, and that the boyfriend being consumed by the plant was totally a wish-fulfillment fantasy for Red.
Although Harley was sure Ivy had been more than willing to settle the way Puddin’ had actually died, the night . . . eh, she didn’t like to think about that night, it was still fuzzy.
Anyway, hoping Poison Ivy would invest in a revival of Little Shop wasn’t a crazy idea, but trying to play upon her “feminism” was the wrong way to go about it. And Harley said as much to Red. Ivy chuckled in response. “Well, she DID eventually circle back to the plant when she realized that a name like Gloria Steinem means little to me.”
“But you’re not interested, right?”
“Totally not interested,” Ivy agreed. “The kind of money she was looking for? There’s too much to be done in South America without spending it on something so frivolous.”
Ivy had set up a multitude of nonprofit organizations, most of which couldn’t even be traced back to her. They all had the same purpose, purchasing rainforest acreage in South America to protect it permanently from being slashed and burned. With Ozzie’s help Ivy had been funneling a colossal chunk of her black market profits into these organizations.
“Especially when the plant doesn’t even win in the end,” Ivy added darkly.
Harley hadn’t been able to help herself, which in retrospect was probably a mistake. “The musical ends differently,” she found herself saying out loud.
Ivy cocked her head. “What do you mean, Harl?”
“Um,” Harley said. She had really shoved her foot into her mouth this time. Still, Red had said that the rainforest came before everything else. “Everyone dies, and the plants win in the end.”
“Really?” Ivy asked hopefully. “She DID say something about how I should Google the stage production. Maybe that was why.”
“Yeah, but I mean Red, I don’t know what she was asking for, but you just said it yourself, it’s too much for a Broadway show.”
“Yes, of course you’re right,” Ivy murmured. “Although – “
Harley resisted the urge to slap her forehead.
“The money is in a bit of a logjam right now,” Ivy said. “Oswald says that there’s been a Bat-problem recently with our money launderer, he’s looking for an alternate avenue. I wonder if something like this might be an option.”
“Don’t you usually get the money BACK after you launder it?” Harley asked pointedly.
“What do you mean?”
“Red, come on, investing in a Broadway show is a great way to lose every penny. Some of these shows, they run for three years and they still don’t make enough money to turn a profit.”
Ivy frowned. “Are you saying I couldn’t do it?”
Harley groaned. Maybe she didn’t “get” Ivy. “It wouldn’t be up to you, Red. You’re just one of the people giving money. Every other investor has an equal say – “
“Well, what if I was the only investor? Then the producers would have to listen to me, wouldn’t they?”
Aghast, Harley shook her head vigorously. “No! I mean yeah, they would, but we don’t have that kind of money, Red!”
Ivy glowered at her. “I KNOW that, Harley. You think I don’t know that?”
Yes, yes she certainly did, but of course Harley wasn’t going to SAY that. “I know you know. I just don’t want you to forget it.”
“I haven’t forgotten. Like I said, I’m not going to do it. Happy?”
Harley sighed. “Yes, Red.”
She was so going to do it.
_____________________________________________
Harley cursed several things the next afternoon. She cursed her own rotten luck in going upstairs to see Red just as Gertie Dickens was coming down the hall. If Harley hadn’t seen her, Ivy would probably have forgotten all about the proposition and that would have been that.
She cursed Gertie’s timing as well. If the producer had come during the day, Harley could likely have wiped any memory of the meeting from Red’s head with plenty of mind-blowing sex. That often did the trick when Ivy picked up a bad idea from somewhere. But instead she visited the Rydbergii at night, and Red didn’t like leaving earshot of the main floor until closing time.
Speaking of which, memory mind wipes, why did that ring a . . .
It wasn’t important. What was important was that most of all, Harley cursed her big blabbermouth for enlightening Ivy as to what only she would consider the “happier” ending of the stage show. Because now the two of them were in Gertie’s office, and Ivy was almost definitely going to write a check that she’d never make a cent off.
“I’m glad you reconsidered,” Gertie was saying to Ivy.
“Let’s say I . . . reconsidered the considering. I haven’t made up my mind yet,” Ivy replied. “I want to know more about what I’d be putting my money into.”
“Sure, sure, Ivy,” Gertie said. “Did you Google the musical like I suggested?”
“No, but Harley mentioned something about how the ending was different?”
Gertie’s eyes momentarily flicked over toward Harley before dismissing her and returning to Ivy. Probably because Harley wasn’t the one with the big wallet, she thought as she stewed silently.
“Yes, the ending is the biggest difference, what my assistant calls the ‘Plants rule, everybody dies’ ending,” Gertie said smoothly.
Harley couldn’t help rolling her eyes.
“But,” the producer continued, “there were a few other important changes. I suppose you know what I’m talking about, Ms. Quinn?”
Gertie was looking at her now. Harley sensed she was expecting her to say “No”, which sucked because that was exactly what she was going to say. “No,” she muttered. “I saw it years ago. I didn’t realize there was going to be a quiz.”
The woman behind the desk shrugged. “Well, there’s the way in which Mr. Mushnik dies, of course. Seymour plays a largely passive role in the movie. The worst he did was fail to warn Mushnik about the plant that was about to eat him. Mind you, the same man who was pointing a gun at him and trying to blackmail him. You could almost look at it as self-defense.”
“Yes, of course,” Ivy agreed. Love the movie as much as she did, there were certain elements Harley knew Ivy didn’t like beyond the plant dying. Elements such as Seymour being a “sniveling worm” who let good things fall into his lap and then pissed and moaned about the cost. Ivy might see Audrey and the dentist and think of Harley and Mistah J, but there was no way in Hell she’d ever see herself in Seymour.
“Well,” Gertie replied, “in the musical, Seymour takes a much more active role in Mushnik’s death. He intentionally deceives his employer by claiming the day’s receipts were stashed inside Audrey II, knowing that the greedy old fool wouldn’t be able to leave without retrieving them. And of course, he becomes the next meal instead. From that moment forward, he is equally complicit in Audrey II’s crime, a conspirator instead of a mere accessory, and that’s what later enables the audience to watch Seymour be eaten in turn and not shed many tears for him.”
“Hm,” Ivy only said.
Harley didn’t like that “Hm”. Ivy’s reaction to almost every scene in the movie was virtually opposite from everyone else on Earth, so she was probably reluctantly impressed by Seymour’s cleverness, not repulsed by it. And the more the play sounded like an improvement upon the movie, the more likely Ivy would invest in it.
“For all its differences, however, the movie and the musical are quite similar in one very disappointing aspect,” Gertie added. “Audrey never rises above being a damsel in distress. She might as well have the word VICTIM tattooed to her forehead.”
Harley flushed as a memory of Ivy’s voice crept into her head.
If you had a middle name, it would be WELCOME.
Meanwhile Ivy was nodding vigorously. “Yes, a victim. She lets herself be pushed and pulled by whatever man happens to be nearby, and just because Seymour doesn’t beat her, she believes she’s happy following his lead.”
“Skipping off to a life of being smothered by her husband, letting him make the decisions. And it’s actually a little worse in the musical,” Gertie said. “Unlike in the movie, Seymour isn’t able to rescue Audrey from the plant until she sustains fatal injuries and dies a short time later. Her last wish is to be fed to the plant so they can be together forever.”
Both women then made identical gagging and hacking noises, startling Harley.
“So,” Ivy replied, collecting herself. “When you say ‘feminist reinterpretation’ then, I imagine you want to do something different with Audrey.”
“That and a few other things,” Gertie told her. “I find it absurd that a plant which clearly identifies itself as a ‘mother’ in one song is portrayed by a male singer. I would cast a woman to play Audrey II, someone in the mold of Jennifer Hudson, perhaps.”
Ivy glanced over at Harley, who would forever be relied upon as her pop culture expert.
“Think Mercedes from Glee,” Harley said, and Ivy nodded. Three seasons of being forced by Harley to watch it, and Ivy still unconvincingly claimed to hate it, but at least she knew who Amber Riley was.
“But yes,” Gertie continued. “We’re planning to make the climax Audrey’s victory, not Seymour’s. She’ll save herself from the plant, be the one to strike it dead, and then she’ll kick Seymour to the curb for killing her boyfriend. Not out of any special affection for the abusive jerk, but for presuming to fix her love life for her, and then lie about it.”
Harley had grown increasingly pessimistic as the conversation wore on, realizing that this investment was becoming a done deal, but at that moment she received a sudden burst of hope. Because she saw the way Ivy leaned back in her seat. Something Gertie said had turned Ivy off, and now she was almost radiating her disinterest. Not that Harley understood WHY. The script idea sounded exactly like something Ivy would appreciate. Audrey stealing her moment in the spotlight away from that “useless putz”, saving the world, killing the –
Oh. Of course. Ms. Dickens had gotten so carried away by the feminist angle that she had forgotten she was talking to the plant lady.
The producer was probably no slouch at reading the body language of potential investors, and she looked hesitant. “At least, that is, that’s what the writing team is looking at right now,” she said uncertainly. “They’re pretty busy, actually. We’re trying to fuse the events from the movie with those of the musical, you see, so nothing’s set in stone, and – “
“No, I don’t think so,” Ivy said indifferently. “I know how it goes. A plant that can think and speak and move as well as a human, it must be bad, let’s kill it!”
Harley smirked as Gertie began visibly scrambling. “Well, Ivy, don’t forget, Audrey II is just the vanguard of an alien invasion. The very end of the musical talks about other plants appearing in other cities and wreaking similar havoc. Just because Audrey II dies, it doesn’t mean humanity has to survive.”
“Right, right. Of course, it doesn’t mean humanity has to die either. You’ll just leave it ‘open to interpretation’,” Ivy said, making air quotes with her fingers, “and most everyone will leave the theater believing that those other plants met similar fates. Harley, we should probably – “
“As an investor, Ivy,” the producer said desperately, “we would of course be willing to entertain any ideas you might have.”
Ivy paused, and then looked briefly at Harley. All of her hopes vanished in an instant, because Harley caught a very familiar flash of completely ruthless cunning in Ivy’s eyes, something she hadn’t seen much of since they’d allegedly gone straight. This wasn’t rejection, this was negotiation.
“You want ideas?” Ivy asked idly.
“Whatever you’ve got,” Gertie answered immediately.
Ivy shrugged. “Step one? Turn Seymour into Sandra. Everything follows from there.”
Harley stared at Ivy. That had never occurred to her, but she could see Red had been waiting to say that for some time.
“Turn Seymour . . . into Sandra?” Gertie asked, uncomprehending.
“You want to make the musical less about the economic hardship of Skid Row, and more about the oppression of a patriarchal society in the 1950s, that’s fine,” Ivy said casually. “But Seymour? He’s no oppressor. He’s a wimp. He couldn’t smother Audrey with an Ambien and a pillow. I know you said the theatrical version is more cutthroat, but frankly I don’t buy it from him.
“But you make Seymour a woman, and suddenly there are opportunities! Audrey could just have been born with a passive, weak personality. But her AND Sandra? That’s a pattern, a pattern created by the men they allow to control them. Absentee fathers, controlling bosses, abusive boyfriends.” Ivy’s eyes almost seemed to be alight. “And this plant comes along and says, ‘Hey, I’ll make all your dreams come true, and all you have to do is kill a few men and feed them to me’? Seymour might whine about reservations, but Sandra, she’d just see it as having no downside!”
Harley just went right on staring at Ivy. How long had she been thinking about this?
Gertie was tapping her fingers on the desk. “Audrey and Sandra, you said? So Audrey would still be a woman?”
“Oh, of course. And we’d keep the romantic angle. What’s more feminist than jettisoning men from every corner of your life?”
“That’s . . . true, in a very strange way,” Gertie admitted. “But even in today’s day and age, some audiences won’t want to see it if it’s about two lesbians.”
“This is Gotham, not Little Rock,” Ivy replied. “Besides, you’ll have an easier time picking up new investors, and you won’t lose any you currently have.”
“How do you know that?”
“What are they going to say? They want their money back because they don’t like gay people? Good luck being a part of the Gotham stage community ever again then!” Ivy said shrewdly.
Harley wouldn’t have guessed that Ivy knew the first thing about the “Gotham stage community”, but ever since they’d become an outwardly legit and openly gay couple, the civilian customer base at the Rydbergii had pinged Harley’s gaydar more than it had before. Ivy had become a minor local lesbian icon, and Harley supposed she’d picked up a thing or two since then.
“Yes,” Gertie said, “but all those other investors will have their own opinions, and they may not agree with yours.”
Ivy smiled at the producer. Harley thought it made her look like a crocodile (with perfect skin). “Broadway shows ARE quite expensive, aren’t they? And you said you’ll be fusing the musical and the movie. That means you’d need to buy the rights to both. That will increase the cost of your production, won’t it? And of course, there’s all the money you’ll need to spend on the plant itself. Something mechanical, I imagine?”
“Probably,” Gertie said slowly.
“Or,” Ivy replied, “you could just use a live one.”
She wouldn’t.
“The reason Little Shop of Horrors is a fantasy, Ivy, is that it involves giant plants from outer space,” Gertie pointed out. “There aren’t exactly any real, live Audrey II plants out there.”
Ivy shook a finger at her. “Don’t act like you don’t know who I am, what I’m capable of. You know I can create exactly what you need, and it will look completely real because it will be.”
She would.
The bewildered look on Gertie’s face was slowly being replaced by one of avid greed, something Harley normally only got from Ozzie. “You could grow something resembling an Audrey II,” she said.
“Honey, I’ve made bigger plants than that. I could make it touch the roof of the theater if I wanted to. I give you that, AND my money, and you give me final say on what story we’ll be telling.”
Gertie frowned. “I couldn’t give you sole authority for something like this. I’d need an equal voice.”
“Fine,” Ivy said, “but if we can’t both agree on something, then it doesn’t happen.”
Harley looked helplessly at the veteran Broadway producer. Didn’t she see? Wasn’t she paying attention? Gertie was giving Ivy free rein to take all the perceived flaws in the movie she knew better than any other, and “fix” them any way she saw fit. Hello?! This movie was already a long-time wish fulfillment fantasy for Ivy, and now she was asking Gertie for the magic lamp!
Gertie grinned. “You put a signed check in my hand, and we’ve got a deal.”
Maybe Ivy had been wrong. Maybe Harley didn’t get her AT ALL.
To be continued . . .