==========
Off Camera
==========
It’s safe to
say that every bride wants the perfect wedding.
The groom, quite frankly, just wants it to be over with but the bride
wants everything to go off without a hitch; no problems, no issues, no
troubles. Unfortunately, things rarely
ever go off “without a hitch” in this crazy world we call reality. The truth is that Murphy’s Law all too often
proves accurate: if something can go wrong, it will go wrong. In a way, the groom has the right idea: just
get through the wedding and hope for the best.
But try telling that to all of the blushing brides who want perfection
and especially the mother of the brides, who at times, can be just as “bridezilla”
as the bride and want perfection for their little girl about to embark upon
this crazy journey of wedded bliss.
Angelica
Jones wanted perfection for her daughters, Marie Annabelle Jones and Corey
Jones. The two sisters had been engaged
to their respective boyfriends, Arthur Pond and Kyle Butler, at around the same
time and the matriarch of the Jones Family thought it would be spectacular to
host a joint wedding ceremony to celebrate both girls. Corey, who had always been close to her older
sister Marie, also thought it was a great idea.
Truthfully,
it was a great idea on paper. The next
generation of Jones women would be married to the loves of their lives. As for Angelica, she just hoped that this
ceremony would be the only marriage they would have. She didn’t want her children to go through the
relationship problems she had during her life, a tumultuous life that involved
multiple lovers and multiple marriages, none of which panned out for Angelica
Jones. Angelica once had a romantic
relationship with Sean Williams and after that a relationship with the man who
trained her to be a pro-wrestler. Later
on she married Andreas Lasiewicz, a fellow pro-wrestler. When that marriage failed she had a romantic
involvement and eventually married fellow pro-wrestler Sean McBride. After that she was romantically involved with
Brittany Lohan. Now she’s married to
Lindsey Carter and who is to know if that will actually last?
Kayla Jones
was just as ecstatic about this wedding as Angelica. Kayla Jones, like her sister, has not had a
sparkling record when it comes to relationships. Her first and thus far only marriage was to
Jason Redfield but that marriage didn’t last.
Kayla had a romantic involvement with none other than Andreas Lasiewicz,
Angelica’s old flame, but that, too, did not last. Now Kayla is romantically involved with GCW
superstar Trenton Snow.
Ultimately
she, like Angelica, wants Marie and Corey to have the one thing they never had:
a lasting relationship and a true fairy tale ending. Angelica wants it especially because they are
her children. Kayla, though, feels that
same kind of connection to Marie and Corey.
Kayla always wanted to be a mother and yet, for the longest time, she
never had any children. She had to live
her motherhood dreams vicariously through Angelica. Thus, she grew connected to Marie and Corey,
almost as if they were her children too.
And this wedding of Marie Jones to Arthur Pond and Corey Jones to Kyle
Butler was supposed to be perfect. It
was supposed to be a celebration of wedded bliss.
Murphy’s Law
came back to bite them in the ass. If
something can go wrong, it will go wrong, and it did go wrong in spades as the
eldest child and eldest bride, Marie Annabelle Jones, for reasons still unknown
to the family, freaked out during the wedding march and ran out of the church.
Marie tripped over her white wedding gown, fell down, and hit her head. She knocked herself unconscious as a result.
This is
definitely not how Angelica had planned for this wedding, the wedding of her
children, to go down. She had wanted
perfection and she wanted a grand spectacle because she felt her children
deserved it. Instead what the Jones
family got was chaos and insanity.
Kayla, for
her part, feels equally as bad, and not just for the children whose wedding day
was turned into an utter madhouse. Kayla
also feels bad for her own sister Angelica.
She knows how important this was to Kayla. She knows how badly Angelica wanted this to
work out. And she can tell, looking across
at her sister in the waiting room of the hospital, that Angelica is about to
snap.
That’s
right, no reception for the Jones Family.
It had to be canceled. All that
money wasted and all of those guests sent home.
All of the planning and preparation was pointless. And now Angelica and Kayla are here in the
waiting room of a hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.
At least the
waiting room is rather comfortable. The
floor has light carpeting , colored a thin brown mocha color. In the center of the waiting area are several
red cushioned chairs sitting back to back.
Against a wall is one single sofa, also colored that same red as the
chairs.
Kayla and
her older sibling Angelica find themselves on the sofa. Due to the fact that they had to rush over
here immediately after the chaos from the wedding, they had no time to change
and are still wearing their dresses. Angelica
is wearing a jacket dress that features three-fourth inch sleeve embroidered
lace jacket with an open front. The
dress gown itself is sleeveless and has a scalloped hem. The skirt falls to ankle length. Her feet are encased in high heeled sandals
which are the same color of pink as the jacket dress. Kayla is wearing a V-Neck A-Line silhouette empire
waist royal blue dress with a skirt that falls to just below the knee. Her feet are encased in black peep toe
high-heeled pumps.
The waiting
room is nearly empty with the exception of Angelica and Kayla and a few others
sitting in the opposite end of the room.
This is a good thing, Kayla realizes, for she stares at her older sister
and the look on her face tells the story that she is boiling over. And yet while Kayla stares at Angelica,
Angelica is not staring back. Angelica
is staring unblinkingly at the door where they expect the doctor to emerge
anytime now with news of Marie.
“Sis…are you ok?”
Kayla is
quiet and cautious as she tries to break the ice. Angelica has been silent ever since they sat
down several minutes ago and it’s becoming quite disconcerting, to be perfectly
frank. Kayla needs to know if Angelica
is fine.
“…”
“Huh?”
Angelica had
said something, she muttered something very quietly under her breath but Kayla
couldn’t make it out. Angelica repeats
herself, again very quietly…
“…”
Kayla sighs
and shakes her head.
“I can’t hear you, sis. You need to speak up.”
The elder
Jones turns to face Kayla and if looks could kill, the rage in Angelica’s eyes
would kill Kayla on the spot.
“WHAT ABOUT NOW?! CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?!”
The
receptionist at the front desk of the waiting room as well as the other guests
at the opposite end of the waiting room all turn and stare at Angelica and
Kayla. Obviously Angelica’s outburst was
enough to draw their attention. Kayla
slaps her forehead and shakes her head out of embarrassment. Angelica takes in a deep breath and sighs to
try and calm down. Kayla looks back up
at her sister and frowns.
“Angelica Jones…are you ok?”
Angelica
shakes her head.
“No, I’m not ok.”
Kayla is
thankful that Angelica is at least whispering now.
“We don’t need this, Kayla. We just do not need this right now.”
“I know, but…”
Angelica
shakes her head and interrupts her before she can get her thought out.
“…no, Kayla, you don’t know. We have been busting our collective asses for
how long now ever since Autumn Valentine and Gable Winchester took those tag
titles from us? How long has it been? And now finally we have our opportunity to
get the belts back at Taking Hold of the Flame.”
She points
to herself and then to Kayla.
“Hell, you or me could win the Taking Hold
of the Flame battle royal. We could go
on to Rise To Greatness and wrestle for the world title. But we need to be focused, we need to be
ready.”
She points
towards the door where soon the doctor will emerge.
“Instead of focusing and preparing for what
could be the biggest night of our lives, we are here, dealing with my daughter
who decided to freak out on her wedding day like a little child!”
Angelica
does speak some truth here. From a
wrestler’s perspective this could not have happened at a worse time. Angelica and Kayla, arguably due to their own
shenanigans, have had to jump through hoops and overcome obstacles in order to
earn their rematch for the SCW World Tag Team Championship. And yet finally they earned that opportunity
by defeating Winchester and Valentine on an edition of Breakdown. Now they would get the chance to win back the
SCW World Tag Team Championships at Taking Hold of the Flame.
It’s been a
goal of theirs ever since they lost the tag team titles back in November of
2015 at Final Level. It’s been a goal
that has eluded them due to distractions such as Angelica’s entrance in The
Shot of Adrenaline Tournament and Kayla Jones chasing the United States and Television
Championships. Now the opportunity to redeem
themselves and win back the gold they wanted so badly is finally here and
Angelica realizes that they have to make the most of it. She realizes that they may not get another
opportunity after this one.
Kayla knows
that her sister speaks the truth as well.
But perhaps Angelica took things a bit too far? Kayla thinks so, at least, and she lets her
sister know with a hard slap across the face, which yet again, draws the stares
of the receptionist and the other visitors.
But by now, Kayla doesn’t really care.
“Do NOT talk about Marie like that.”
There is a
tense stare down between Angelica and Kayla.
Eventually, the matriarch of the Jones family realizes that her younger
sibling is right. Angelica she sighs and
nods her head.
“Ok…you’re right…I…”
Tears begin
to form in her eyes. Angelica reaches up
and starts to wipe them from her eyes.
“...I’m sorry.”
Kayla leans
forward and embraces her older sister in a tight hug. Angelica buries her face in Kayla’s dress and
cries. Kayla pats her gently on the back
in an attempt to comfort her.
“It’s ok, Angel. It’s ok…”
“No…”
She looks up
at Kayla, her eyes now red from the crying.
“…no, it’s not ok.”
“Angelica…”
Angelica
shakes her head as she again interrupts Kayla.
“No, it’s not ok. I mean, don’t you see? This is the curse.”
“What curse?”
“Jones women are just never meant to be
happy. How many different guys have you
and I been with and we still haven’t found Mr. Right?”
Kayla grins.
“I think Trenton is pretty right…”
She points
at Angelica.
“…and you seem happy with Lindsey.”
“Yeah, a marriage that was based upon
deceit, lies, and trickery. Sure, we may
have worked things out, but how long do you really expect a marriage based upon
lies to last?”
Kayla rolls
her eyes.
“For starters, there is no such thing as a
curse, Angelica. So quit being damned
foolish. Secondly, you’re right, you and
I haven’t had the best of luck with relationships, but guess what?”
“What?”
“Marie and Corey are NOT you and they are
not me. They are their own people. And to be honest with you, I think they’ve
grown up and matured into great, independent young women.”
Angelica
sighs as she reaches up and wipes some more tears from her eyes.
“I guess you’re right but…”
She shakes
her head.
“…I just want things to be different for
them, you know? And after what happened
today, with Marie freaking out, I am so worried now that…that…”
Kayla holds
up her right hand to silence Angelica.
“Hush.
I know you want them to have better than what we had and so do I. But Marie and Corey are grown women and it is
their time to make these decisions. And
if you ask me, I think they’ll do great.
“Do you…do you really think so?”
Kayla grins.
“I know so.”
Angelica now
is the one who leans forward and embraces Kayla in a tight hug.
“Thanks, Kayla…I don’t know what I would do
without you…”
Kayla
snickers after breaking the embrace.
“You’d be dead or locker up one.”
Angelica
frowns.
“Not funny…”
“It’s true.”
Angelica
sighs.
“Hey, on the bright side Corey didn’t have
any issues. It’s only Marie.”
“Speaking of Corey, why isn’t she here?”
“She was a little shaken up by the whole
thing, so she and Kyle went home.”
Kayla is
about to speak when, out of the corner of her eye, she spots the door
opening. A man in a white lab coat, a
Carolina blue button up shirt on underneath, and light brown khakis, emerge
from the door. He has a stoic expression
on his face as he walks over towards Angelica and Kayla. The two sisters, realizing that the time they’ve
been waiting for has come, stand up to meet him halfway.
“Angelica and Kayla Jones?”
Kayla nods
her head.
“Yeah, that’s us.”
“What’s wrong with my daughter? Where’s her husband?”
The doctor
motions back to the door.
“Mr. Pond is still back there with his wife.”
“And what about Marie?”
“Ms. Jones suffered no concussion. In fact, other than a few minor scratches and
bruises, she appears to be perfectly fine physically.”
Angelica
lets out a big sigh of relief.
“Thank God…”
While
Angelica seems to be relieved, Kayla doesn’t quite share in that sentiment just
yet.
“…uh, doctor, what do you mean by she seems
fine physically?”
“Physically there is no major damage. But I question whether something may be wrong…”
He taps
himself on the forehead.
“…mentally.”
“What do you mean?”
The doctor
sighs.
“Ever since she regained consciousness she’s
been ranting about this man she supposedly saw at the wedding, someone who
frightened her beyond imagination. A few
times she even claimed to see him in her hospital room.”
Both Kayla
and Angelica gasp in unison. The doctor
nods his head.
“And Mr. Pond indicated to me that his wife
has been acting this way for quite awhile now.”
Angelica
blinks furiously and pulls at her hair as she tries to contain herself.
“So what do we do?”
“My recommendation, Ms. Jones, is that your
daughter see a psychologist. I believe
that there is perhaps a deeper issue here, one that is beyond my area of
expertise.”
Angelica
wants to snap back but before she can say anything she is interrupted by the
ringing of Kayla’s cell phone. Angelica
turns to face Kayla who looks at the caller ID.
Her eyes grow wide.
“Sorry, I have to take this…this is the
police.”
“Huh?”
Kayla uses
her finger to silence Angelica as she puts the phone to her ear.
“Yes, this is Kayla Jones.”
Kayla
continues to listen. Angelica and the
doctor both watch. Kayla’s entire
features change. She begins to look frantic and shocked.
“No…it can’t be…”
She sighs
and nods her head.
“…I understand. Thank you.”
Kayla hangs
up the phone and puts it away. Angelica
looks stunned as now tears are welling up in Kayla’s eyes.
“What’s wrong, Kay?”
“It’s…it’s…”
Kayla just
shakes her head and takes off, running the opposite way towards the exit. Angelica sighs and takes off after her,
leaving the doctor behind. Angelica exits
the hospital and finds Kayla outside with her face buried in her hands crying. Angelica approaches and pats her gently on
the back.
“What’s wrong, sis? What was that call about?”
“That was…”
“Who was it?”
Kayla
finally looks up at Angelica. Her eyes
red from the crying.
“It was the police.”
“The police?!”
Kayla nods
her head.
“They found…found…”
“What…or who…did they find?”
Kayla’s face
contorts with grief.
“…daddy…”
“….what?”
“They found daddy’s body…he’s dead…”
Only now
does it begin to sink in for Angelica. She
hugs Kayla tightly. The two siblings
bury their faces in each other’s shoulders as they cry in grief over the sad
news of their father’s death.
==========
On Camera
==========
A bright,
warm sun blazes down upon the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on
this lovely day. The sky is a boyish
bright blue and a Canadian flag waves proudly in that blue sky in front of the
entrance to the Air Canada Centre. But
right now we have a zoomed out view of the famous arena, catching a glimpse of
a good piece of it. The camera now zooms
in closer towards the front entrance. As
we get closer we see Kayla Jones step into the scene from stage right. The redhead is wearing an elegant shift dress
with sheer peasant sleeves and latticework panels. Black stockings run all the
way up the dress and they blend in almost perfectly with the black dress itself
and the black high heeled pumps that comfortably encase her feet. It may be a bit colder up here in Toronto but
this Boston native is used to weather like this. She faces the camera. Her usual pleasant smile is not here. She is all business.
“I made my professional wrestling debut back
in January of 2001.”
She nods her
head and some slight laughter can even be heard escaping her lips.
“That’s right, for nearly fifteen and a half
years I have been a professional athlete.
And for nearly fifteen and a half years I have enjoyed what I have done,
I enjoyed the opportunities professional wrestling gave me, and yes, I enjoyed
entertaining the great fans who filled the arenas. It was truly an honor knowing that they paid
good money just to see me compete.”
She balls up
her right hand into a fist and smacks it against the palm of her left hand
several times.
“So I wanted to give and give and give, I
wanted to give as much as I could, not just to the fans who were responsible
for me being able to do this job, but also for professional wrestling itself,
for this great industry, that provided me with so many great
opportunities. And I did give a great
deal to the fans and to the industry.
Some would say that I gave too much.”
Kayla rubs
her neck with her right hand in a massaging manner.
“I suffered severe neck injuries during my
fifteen plus year career. Now a neck
injury is enough to end a normal person’s career but what you have to realize
about Jones women is that we are stubborn little bitches and I wasn’t about to
be stopped by a few neck injuries.”
Jones shakes
her head.
“I kept coming, I kept giving back to the
industry and to the fans, and perhaps…”
She
sighs. She looks down at her feet almost
in shame of what she’s about to admit next.
“…perhaps I became a little
self-serving? Or selfish? Or egotistical? However you want to slice it, I began to
think that this industry owed me. When
me and Angelica defeated Simon and Donovan for the SCW World Tag Team
Championships, at that time the thought first entered my head that I didn’t
just deserve this because we won, but I was owed this. I began to believe that SCW owed this to me
for everything I had done for professional wrestling.”
Kayla looks
up and points at the camera with a long slender finger.
“Autumn Valentine and Gable Winchester, you
came along and you beat us for the tag team championships. You took those belts from The Sisterhood and
that should have been a wake-up call.
That should have been a reality check for me but was it?”
She shakes
her head.
“No, no it wasn’t. I still felt as if professional wrestling
owed me. I felt YOU two owed it to
Angelica and I to give us our tag team title rematch. I wasn’t prepared to do a damn to earn it. And why should I? I felt as if I had already earned everything
I needed to earn in my career. I felt my
career now owed me. And therein lies the
reason behind acting like a fool, therein lies the reason behind the stupid
Free Botswana campaign...”
Jones shrugs
her shoulders.
“…I felt Angelica and I didn’t need to do
anything to earn our tag title rematch.
I felt it should’ve just been handed to us on a silver platter. But…and someone had better be recording this
somewhere because I don’t say this often…”
She chuckles
lightly before getting serious again.
“…but I was wrong. I was wrong.
This sport owes me nothing. SCW
owes me nothing. The fans owe me
nothing. And quite frankly, if that’s
the kind of treatment I want, then I may as well quit because that’s just not
the way this sport works and that’s not the way life works. It just wasn’t right, but now things are
different. Now The Sisterhood have
turned over a new leaf, we have rediscovered who we are, and now that we earned
our tag team title shot the RIGHT WAY by defeating you once before on
Breakdown, now we’re going to go to Taking Hold of the Flame and win back the
SCW World Tag Team Championships the RIGHT WAY by defeating you for a second
straight time.”
Kayla pauses
momentarily and stands there with her arms folded over her chest. It isn’t long until she is joined on the
scene by her older sister, Angelica Jones, who steps into view from stage
left. Angelica is wearing a lavender
tank dress that features a pleated stretch lace bodice and a skirt that
flutters at the hem. Angelica is wearing
a matching lavender long sleeve jacket styles in a stretch lace with a
scattering of sequins. Her feet are
encased in strappy silver sandals. A
pair of sunglasses cover Angelica’s eyes.
“It’s time for a change of mood, champs,
because the fact of the matter is that my sister here does care about
morality. She does care about what’s
right and what’s wrong. But me?”
Angelica
laughs almost maniacally.
“You really don’t know what you’ll get when
that bell rings and you’re staring across the ring against me. There are three faces to Angelica Jones; The
Golden Goddess, Firestar, and The Dragon, and you had better pray to God or to
whatever deity you believe in, Gable and Autumn, pray that you don’t see The
Dragon, because if The Dragon comes out to play, you can kiss your stinking
asses goodbye.”
Kayla rolls
her eyes but says nothing as her older sibling continues.
“Point is that no matter which of me you
get, no matter which persona you face off against, not a one of us gives a damn
about the right thing and the wrong thing.
I don’t care about good and bad or evil or whatever you want to call it.”
She holds up
one finger.
“There is only ONE thing I care about,
Autumn and Gable. Do you know what that
one thing is?”
Jones now
uses that finger to point at the camera.
“What you currently carry around with you,
those tag team title belts, they represent the one thing I care about more than
anything else. Those tag belts symbolize
the one reason I got into this business in the first place, the reason I
continue to bust my ass day in and day out...”
She shakes
her head.
“…and unlike Kayla, for me it isn’t for the
fans, and I don’t do this for the sport.
However you could potentially take a look back at Standing Room Only,
take a look back at Donovan and Simon, the guys we originally beat for the
belts, and catch a hint from them as to why I do what I do each and every
week. So you tell me, champs, what did
they preach about near the tail end of their reign as tag champions? What did they try to instill back into the
tag division?”
Angelica
waits, as if waiting on a response that she knows will never come. Finally she nods her head.
“If you said anything about competition or
the spirit of competition then you’d be right.
That shouldn’t have been too difficult a quiz for you, because if you’ve
been paying attention to what I’ve had to say lately, competition has been
something I’ve been preaching rather frequently lately myself. But where me and Standing Room Only differ is
that I compete not just for the sake of competition, I compete because I have
to be the best.”
Angelica
snickers.
“And that’s where you come in, because you
Autumn and you Gable currently have the SCW World Tag Team Championship belts
in your possession and those belts symbolize not just greatness in tag team
wrestling but they are beautiful objects that quite honestly shout to anyone
and everyone who will listen, telling the world that the team who proudly wears
or carries those belts is truly the best tag team in professional wrestling.”
We cut back
to Kayla who motions to herself and then to Angelica.
“This is about competition not just for
Angelica but for me as well because I truly believe, as does Angelica, that we
are the best tag team in professional wrestling. We believe and we own it, right here…”
Kayla
touches her head, indicating her mind.
“…and right here.”
Kayla
touches her chest, indicating her heart.
“We believe that we are the best and
defeating you on Breakdown was the best thing that could have happened to
us. It doesn’t matter that it was
non-title. The fact is that we defeated
the champions and that proved to me and to Angelica what we had already
believed in our hearts and our souls; that we were the best.”
Angelica
nods her head in agreement.
“That’s right, Kayla. We were the best and a few weeks ago on
Breakdown we proved we were the best because we BEAT the best. But that’s not good enough, at least not for
me.”
Angelica
points at the camera again.
“Now I want those tag team belts and to get
them we have to beat you just one more time.”
Kayla Jones,
the younger sister, nods her head.
“Now let’s bear in mind a few important
facts. For starters, you Autumn and
Gable have never pinned The Sisterhood or made The Sisterhood submit. But we DID pin you…or rather I did…after I
kicked Gable’s teeth down his throat just as I promised I would.”
The younger
sibling turns and winks at her older sibling.
“Isn’t that right, Angelica?”
“I could’ve done it too.”
“Ah but you didn’t.”
Angelica
rolls her eyes.
“Whatever.
The point my sister is making is that you beat us in a four-way
clusterfuck. Fair play to you because you did beat us according to the rules of
that match. I’m not going to deny it and
I’ll give you all of the credit in the world for winning that chaotic
match. But when it came down to one team
against one team, matching wits, matching strategy, matching skill, which team
came out with their hands raised high?”
Angelica
motions to herself and to Kayla.
“It was us!
The Sisterhood won and oh had we not stupidly pissed off Mr. D, that would’ve been a championship match as
we had originally planned and we would be champions now.”
Kayla and
Angelica both shrug their shoulders in unison.
“But it’s like you said, Kayla, beating them
in a non-title match in order to EARN this championship match at Taking Hold of
the Flame is really the best thing that could have happened to us, because not
only did it bring The Sisterhood back into reality, not only did it help us to
realize that we needed to drop the gags and the jokes, but it also gave us even
more confidence and an even stronger belief in ourselves and what we
represent.”
Kayla nods
her head in agreement.
“We represent the best of tag team wrestling
and by that I don’t just mean in the sense that we are the best tag team in
professional wrestling, even though I do believe we are the best and that we
will prove it by defeating you two at Taking Hold of the Flame, but we also
represent the best of tag team wrestling in the sense of what it should be.”
Angelica
takes off her sunglasses and tucks them inside of her jacket.
“Autumn Valentine, Gable Winchester, come to
Taking Hold of the Flame prepared, because you had better believe that The
Sisterhood will be prepared. And shine
those belts up nicely and kiss them goodbye, because Kayla and I are taking
them home.”
Kayla
snickers.
“And get a good dentist this time…”
Angelica
furrows her brow.
“Dentist?”
Kayla nods
her head.
“Yeah, because we’re going to kick their
teeth right down their throat!”
Angelica
rolls her eyes.
“Oh…funny…”
The camera
fades to black.
