Post by Kathleen Conway on Jul 26, 2013 19:52:15 GMT
Katherine Lockheart is sat in her hotel room on the bed, on her laptop, typing up something, but we do not see what it is, and can only assume that it is something to do with official IWF business given her importance in the company and her running of the Diamonds Division. Suddenly there is a knock at the door. Katherine turns her head, a little surprised, she wasn't expecting anybody.
Katherine: Come in...
The door slowly opens and in walks Kathleen Conway, the styles of the two women whilst similar in monetary value were distinct in fashion. Katherine was much more corporate in her white blouse and grey pants combo, whilst Kathy wore an elegant and no doubt very expensive designer dress and heels. Behind her in a white shirt and black pants combination of his own, stood Jake Conway, and it was only after seeing him that the objection she was about to voice about being disturbed outside of her normal office hours never left her lips even as her mouth had opened. Instead, Katherine smiled.
Katherine closed the lid on her laptop as and set it aside as she stood up to greet Kathy, even extending her hand.
Katherine: Well, this is highly unexpected and unusual but I suppose I can make an exception in your case...what can I do for you Mrs. Conway?
Katherine put a deliberate effort on Kathy's marital title almost as if it was a conscious effort to keep reminding herself that this was the woman her ex-boyfriend had been duped into marrying.
Kathy looked down at the extended hand, and responded not with a handshake but by placing one hand on her hip and the other to remove her shades. Almost as if it were a power play between the two women, Katherine mirrored Kathy's actions by removing her black rimmed glasses and the two women looked at each other in the eye, the personal mistrust hung unspoken and unseen in the air between them.
Kathy: You can start by telling me where the hell my sister is? I've played that little psychopath's game. I accepted her challenge, I beat her and she said she'd let Tiffany go if I did, and now she's changed her mind. Tell me you're not just going to stand by and do nothing whilst my baby sister rots in some depraved Hell Hole in the middle of God knows where...
Katherine: As much as I would love to help you Mrs. Conway, and believe me I would...the fact of the matter is, whilst I sympathise completely with your dilemma, my hands are tied. I am just as helpless as you are in all of this, I had no idea that Eternity would do something like this...
Kathy: Save it. Tiffany is an IWF employee and you're trying to tell me the company has no responsibility in all of this? You let the rabid dog off her leash when you signed her, and now you expect me to believe you had no idea what a sicko like that is capable of? Bullshit! You knew exactly who you were hiring, ergo you knew exactly what she was capable of! In fact, how do I know that this isn't all part of some sick little scheme just to screw with me? Tiffany was coming to interview y -
Katherine: Let me stop you right there before you throw anymore wild and unfounded accusations you might later regret my way. First of all, I had nothing to do with any of this. IWF is not wiping its hands of anything, but there is not much we can do when we don't know exactly where Tiffany is being kept and second we cannot accept responsibility for a verbal agreement between two competitors prior to a match. Only a match was contracted and signed, and as far as the company is concerned, that match was delivered as advertised. The company has no legal recourse in what is essentially a personal dispute between two parties. You want me to do something about it, get me something in writing that says Eternity is legally obligated to release Tiffany or at the very least tell us where she is...
Kathy balls up her fists by her side and makes a very physical effort to constrain herself, not believing what she is hearing.
Kathy: And whilst you sit here and make a blindfold out of all that red tape, so you don't have to face the reality of how badly you screwed the pooch on this, my sister could be laying somewhere dying or even dead! But you don't really care about that, do you? No! Your sister died five years ago and you've already forgotten what its like to feel that helpless, to know there is nothing you can do to help...that really is tragic...
This time it is Katherine's turn to control herself and not let the emotions overwhelm her as the back and forth continues between the two headstrong women continues.
Katherine: Out of respect for your current situation and emotional state, I'm going to let that slide, but don't even think you can talk to me like that again!
Kathy just sighs and shakes her head.
Kathy: Amber was right, you are an idiot!
Kathy turns around and begins to walk away, she brushes past Jake, who seeing Katherine's eyes start to glisten with emotion, mouths "I'm Sorry" before shaking his head and following his wife out of the door.
So here we are. Another Pay Per View is in the books. Another title opportunity The Ace's significant other didn't win. Is this the part where I bawl my eyes out and tell all the fans watching at home that Amber Richards is right? Shall I just take my ball and go home? Maybe stick to being a receptacle for Jake's seed and pop out a third baby. Sound good? If you listen to Amber this week, it sounds damn good and is exactly what I should do. Who am I to dispute the sage advice of somebody who has been in this business for a cup of coffee and held her Ruby Championship for less than a week?
Clearly, she's better than me. I just outlasted everybody else in the Heiress To The Throne tournament to be one of the final two women to compete for the richest prize in our division and this business, but hey, what does that matter? I'm not Amber Richards, I'm not the brand spanking new, still wet behind the ears Ruby Champion, and neither is Jessica Reed, so we must suck by default. We just must. It's like some unwritten rule or something. Everybody who is not Amber Richards in the Diamonds Division sucks. Sorry girls, hate to break it to you all like this, but nothing we will ever do from here on out will ever rival that epic moment when Amber Richards pinned Ashley Mastrangelo and won her first Ruby Championship. I'm sure you know what happens now, right? We're all supposed to take a back seat and marvel at the meteoric rise of the Blood Diamond as she schools us all with an epic 287 day reign. If this was twitter, I'd totally be typing hashtag spoilers right now...
Kathy laughs.
Okay, okay, if I can be serious for a moment. You know what one of the greatest tragedies in this business is? How ten pounds of gold and five pounds of leather changes a respectful rookie who was just here to compete and test herself against the best female competitors in the industry into an arrogant bitch with a superiority complex, and for Amber Richards, this change, this metamorphosis happened apparently overnight. Who knew somebody could change so much so fast? It's like a weight loss commercial, you see the before and after, it's right there in front of your eyes but you still can't quite believe it.
It seems that I won't gain Amber's respect until I have some gold around my waist, and the irony is she lost mine as soon as she put some gold around hers, but you know what? I'm okay with it, I know neither of us are going to cry about not having the other's respect, its just tragic that Amber is so starved of professional and personal success in her life that even the slightest taste of it goes straight to her head and immediately dials her fragile ego right up to one hundred and fifty percent. I know some people say this business is like a drug to them, but damn girl.
So let me make it clear for you right now, Amber. I neither want nor need a sense of respect from you based on the sole notion of whether or not I have my name etched across the name plate of some shiny belt, and if that really is your idea of respecting somebody, you can keep it, because frankly I pity you. It's obvious that you have so much more left to learn about this business and whilst I may not be the best teacher, I am the one who will stand across the ring from you on Monday night waiting to slap the humility you've lost somewhere within the notches on that title belt right back into you. I will humble you, I will yank back the leash on this excitable little puppy who thinks she can just take a leak on me and not expect a rolled up newspaper across her stuck up little nose.
Thankfully for me however, you Amber are not the only one in this match, and I can only hope your partner Tara has a better understanding of the reality she faces at Sacrifice than you do. See Tara, I can commend your fighting spirit, I can respect your history-making position in this company as the first IWF Ruby Champion, and most of all I can admire the career you've had so far, in short I can do all those things your successor to that title cannot or will not out of some stubborn sense of pride and a loss of perspective. You're a veteran Tara, in your career you've even been one of the very few women who actually went toe to toe with my husband inside a wrestling ring, and I know there's so much I can learn from you, not least about how to keep Jake in line whenever he refuses to do the dishes...
Kathy laughs.
But seriously Tara, I do hope on some level you can respect me, even if you don't like who I married, or even the fact that I'm still married whilst you're going through a rough patch. I can't even imagine what you're going through, and truthfully I don't even want to, it would be my worst nightmare, especially with my little babies involved. See, I get a lot of criticism for loving my husband and working as hard as I do to keep my marriage going, to make it work, to beat the odds when sometimes it seems that damn near everything about this business is designed to tear us apart. The reality is as much as I respect you professionally Tara, I don't want to go through what you're going through personally. I don't want to be like pretty much every other woman on the roster either hopeless pining for a lost love or with failing or failed marriages behind them, and between my marriage and my career, I will never sacrifice one for the other. Why should I have to? Why can't I have both?
Maybe its just another impossible dream I have as far as your concerned, but its my dream. Maybe I'm still that naive little girl from Kansas who continues to dream big, but I've already achieved so many impossible dreams in my personal life as you well know Tara. You knew my husband in his more wild days and I never for one second thought I'd be the one to tame him, to settle and have him come back to me, but somehow I did. So I come into this match with a pocket full of realised dreams and a head full of unrealised ones, but more importantly I come into this match with a sense of confidence not arrogance that last week I stood on the edge of my grandest professional ambition and almost achieved the impossible yet again. You wouldn't believe how much better knowing how close I was has made me feel about myself and my ability in that ring.
I take nothing away from Jessica, she beat me fair and square, on that night, the lovable nerd proved herself to be the better woman, but I know as well as she does, there will be another match, another night and another three count between us and when it comes, I will have earned every single second of it, just like I did last Sunday at Lineage and just like I will this Monday when I stand alongside the best female wrestler in IWF today and show her that I deserve my place in the business with a win over both the current and the former Ruby Champions in the same match. A win that quite frankly will put me right back in the hunt for the Diamond's World Championship and prove to the best woman in IWF today that...
Tomorrow she may not be so lucky.
Only after the hotel room door closes, does Katherine open her laptop only to be greeted by her wallpaper - a photo of her and her identical twin sister Claire. The sun is shining in their back garden and both girls are in identical summery dresses because their mother always thought it was "simply adorable." Both girls are six and recalling the memory of her sister brings a smile to her face. Katherine looks at her sister Claire, connected only to this one moment through the lens of time.
Katherine: Remind me again why you love this business so much?
Katherine finally allows herself to crumble, something she was too afraid to do in front of Jake and too proud to do in front of Kathy. Now, all alone, Katherine cries and cries unashamedly.
Kathy closes the door behind her, turning to her husband as they begin to walk away.
Kathy: Can you believe her?
Jake says nothing.
Kathy: You know, everybody talks about the backstage politicians in this business, somehow they always forget to mention the lawyers. It takes me right back to my days on the force when some arrogant asswipe with a law degree and an attitude would overturn a conviction on a dime. I will not be stone-walled by the likes of her! She wants to make this a legal matter, fine. I'll bring her Eternity's death warrant, even if I have to sign it in somebody else's blood!
Then suddenly as they enter the elevator to go back down to the lobby, Kathy crumbles without warning or explanation into her husband's arms. She weeps in his embrace, as he is the only man in the world besides her father who she had ever let see her cry.
Kathy: I don't know what to do Jake! How do I save my little sister?
Jake responds by keeping one arm securely around his wife's waist and using his other to fetch his cellphone from his pocket, he scrolls down and hits call on a name, bringing the phone to his ear. After a few moments, stepping out of the elevator, still holding his wife, Jake speaks up.
Jake: Hello, Bertie. Yeah, listen mate, I need you to do me a favour. I need you to talk to Hannah for me. My wife has a bit of a corporate legal problem...
Kathy looks up and smiles through her tears at her husband as he once again came through for her like he always seemed to do. She craned her neck up to peck him on the lips, only briefly interrupting his explanation to the Chief Operating Officer of IWF on the other end of the line.
Katherine: Come in...
The door slowly opens and in walks Kathleen Conway, the styles of the two women whilst similar in monetary value were distinct in fashion. Katherine was much more corporate in her white blouse and grey pants combo, whilst Kathy wore an elegant and no doubt very expensive designer dress and heels. Behind her in a white shirt and black pants combination of his own, stood Jake Conway, and it was only after seeing him that the objection she was about to voice about being disturbed outside of her normal office hours never left her lips even as her mouth had opened. Instead, Katherine smiled.
Katherine closed the lid on her laptop as and set it aside as she stood up to greet Kathy, even extending her hand.
Katherine: Well, this is highly unexpected and unusual but I suppose I can make an exception in your case...what can I do for you Mrs. Conway?
Katherine put a deliberate effort on Kathy's marital title almost as if it was a conscious effort to keep reminding herself that this was the woman her ex-boyfriend had been duped into marrying.
Kathy looked down at the extended hand, and responded not with a handshake but by placing one hand on her hip and the other to remove her shades. Almost as if it were a power play between the two women, Katherine mirrored Kathy's actions by removing her black rimmed glasses and the two women looked at each other in the eye, the personal mistrust hung unspoken and unseen in the air between them.
Kathy: You can start by telling me where the hell my sister is? I've played that little psychopath's game. I accepted her challenge, I beat her and she said she'd let Tiffany go if I did, and now she's changed her mind. Tell me you're not just going to stand by and do nothing whilst my baby sister rots in some depraved Hell Hole in the middle of God knows where...
Katherine: As much as I would love to help you Mrs. Conway, and believe me I would...the fact of the matter is, whilst I sympathise completely with your dilemma, my hands are tied. I am just as helpless as you are in all of this, I had no idea that Eternity would do something like this...
Kathy: Save it. Tiffany is an IWF employee and you're trying to tell me the company has no responsibility in all of this? You let the rabid dog off her leash when you signed her, and now you expect me to believe you had no idea what a sicko like that is capable of? Bullshit! You knew exactly who you were hiring, ergo you knew exactly what she was capable of! In fact, how do I know that this isn't all part of some sick little scheme just to screw with me? Tiffany was coming to interview y -
Katherine: Let me stop you right there before you throw anymore wild and unfounded accusations you might later regret my way. First of all, I had nothing to do with any of this. IWF is not wiping its hands of anything, but there is not much we can do when we don't know exactly where Tiffany is being kept and second we cannot accept responsibility for a verbal agreement between two competitors prior to a match. Only a match was contracted and signed, and as far as the company is concerned, that match was delivered as advertised. The company has no legal recourse in what is essentially a personal dispute between two parties. You want me to do something about it, get me something in writing that says Eternity is legally obligated to release Tiffany or at the very least tell us where she is...
Kathy balls up her fists by her side and makes a very physical effort to constrain herself, not believing what she is hearing.
Kathy: And whilst you sit here and make a blindfold out of all that red tape, so you don't have to face the reality of how badly you screwed the pooch on this, my sister could be laying somewhere dying or even dead! But you don't really care about that, do you? No! Your sister died five years ago and you've already forgotten what its like to feel that helpless, to know there is nothing you can do to help...that really is tragic...
This time it is Katherine's turn to control herself and not let the emotions overwhelm her as the back and forth continues between the two headstrong women continues.
Katherine: Out of respect for your current situation and emotional state, I'm going to let that slide, but don't even think you can talk to me like that again!
Kathy just sighs and shakes her head.
Kathy: Amber was right, you are an idiot!
Kathy turns around and begins to walk away, she brushes past Jake, who seeing Katherine's eyes start to glisten with emotion, mouths "I'm Sorry" before shaking his head and following his wife out of the door.
So here we are. Another Pay Per View is in the books. Another title opportunity The Ace's significant other didn't win. Is this the part where I bawl my eyes out and tell all the fans watching at home that Amber Richards is right? Shall I just take my ball and go home? Maybe stick to being a receptacle for Jake's seed and pop out a third baby. Sound good? If you listen to Amber this week, it sounds damn good and is exactly what I should do. Who am I to dispute the sage advice of somebody who has been in this business for a cup of coffee and held her Ruby Championship for less than a week?
Clearly, she's better than me. I just outlasted everybody else in the Heiress To The Throne tournament to be one of the final two women to compete for the richest prize in our division and this business, but hey, what does that matter? I'm not Amber Richards, I'm not the brand spanking new, still wet behind the ears Ruby Champion, and neither is Jessica Reed, so we must suck by default. We just must. It's like some unwritten rule or something. Everybody who is not Amber Richards in the Diamonds Division sucks. Sorry girls, hate to break it to you all like this, but nothing we will ever do from here on out will ever rival that epic moment when Amber Richards pinned Ashley Mastrangelo and won her first Ruby Championship. I'm sure you know what happens now, right? We're all supposed to take a back seat and marvel at the meteoric rise of the Blood Diamond as she schools us all with an epic 287 day reign. If this was twitter, I'd totally be typing hashtag spoilers right now...
Kathy laughs.
Okay, okay, if I can be serious for a moment. You know what one of the greatest tragedies in this business is? How ten pounds of gold and five pounds of leather changes a respectful rookie who was just here to compete and test herself against the best female competitors in the industry into an arrogant bitch with a superiority complex, and for Amber Richards, this change, this metamorphosis happened apparently overnight. Who knew somebody could change so much so fast? It's like a weight loss commercial, you see the before and after, it's right there in front of your eyes but you still can't quite believe it.
It seems that I won't gain Amber's respect until I have some gold around my waist, and the irony is she lost mine as soon as she put some gold around hers, but you know what? I'm okay with it, I know neither of us are going to cry about not having the other's respect, its just tragic that Amber is so starved of professional and personal success in her life that even the slightest taste of it goes straight to her head and immediately dials her fragile ego right up to one hundred and fifty percent. I know some people say this business is like a drug to them, but damn girl.
So let me make it clear for you right now, Amber. I neither want nor need a sense of respect from you based on the sole notion of whether or not I have my name etched across the name plate of some shiny belt, and if that really is your idea of respecting somebody, you can keep it, because frankly I pity you. It's obvious that you have so much more left to learn about this business and whilst I may not be the best teacher, I am the one who will stand across the ring from you on Monday night waiting to slap the humility you've lost somewhere within the notches on that title belt right back into you. I will humble you, I will yank back the leash on this excitable little puppy who thinks she can just take a leak on me and not expect a rolled up newspaper across her stuck up little nose.
Thankfully for me however, you Amber are not the only one in this match, and I can only hope your partner Tara has a better understanding of the reality she faces at Sacrifice than you do. See Tara, I can commend your fighting spirit, I can respect your history-making position in this company as the first IWF Ruby Champion, and most of all I can admire the career you've had so far, in short I can do all those things your successor to that title cannot or will not out of some stubborn sense of pride and a loss of perspective. You're a veteran Tara, in your career you've even been one of the very few women who actually went toe to toe with my husband inside a wrestling ring, and I know there's so much I can learn from you, not least about how to keep Jake in line whenever he refuses to do the dishes...
Kathy laughs.
But seriously Tara, I do hope on some level you can respect me, even if you don't like who I married, or even the fact that I'm still married whilst you're going through a rough patch. I can't even imagine what you're going through, and truthfully I don't even want to, it would be my worst nightmare, especially with my little babies involved. See, I get a lot of criticism for loving my husband and working as hard as I do to keep my marriage going, to make it work, to beat the odds when sometimes it seems that damn near everything about this business is designed to tear us apart. The reality is as much as I respect you professionally Tara, I don't want to go through what you're going through personally. I don't want to be like pretty much every other woman on the roster either hopeless pining for a lost love or with failing or failed marriages behind them, and between my marriage and my career, I will never sacrifice one for the other. Why should I have to? Why can't I have both?
Maybe its just another impossible dream I have as far as your concerned, but its my dream. Maybe I'm still that naive little girl from Kansas who continues to dream big, but I've already achieved so many impossible dreams in my personal life as you well know Tara. You knew my husband in his more wild days and I never for one second thought I'd be the one to tame him, to settle and have him come back to me, but somehow I did. So I come into this match with a pocket full of realised dreams and a head full of unrealised ones, but more importantly I come into this match with a sense of confidence not arrogance that last week I stood on the edge of my grandest professional ambition and almost achieved the impossible yet again. You wouldn't believe how much better knowing how close I was has made me feel about myself and my ability in that ring.
I take nothing away from Jessica, she beat me fair and square, on that night, the lovable nerd proved herself to be the better woman, but I know as well as she does, there will be another match, another night and another three count between us and when it comes, I will have earned every single second of it, just like I did last Sunday at Lineage and just like I will this Monday when I stand alongside the best female wrestler in IWF today and show her that I deserve my place in the business with a win over both the current and the former Ruby Champions in the same match. A win that quite frankly will put me right back in the hunt for the Diamond's World Championship and prove to the best woman in IWF today that...
Tomorrow she may not be so lucky.
Only after the hotel room door closes, does Katherine open her laptop only to be greeted by her wallpaper - a photo of her and her identical twin sister Claire. The sun is shining in their back garden and both girls are in identical summery dresses because their mother always thought it was "simply adorable." Both girls are six and recalling the memory of her sister brings a smile to her face. Katherine looks at her sister Claire, connected only to this one moment through the lens of time.
Katherine: Remind me again why you love this business so much?
Katherine finally allows herself to crumble, something she was too afraid to do in front of Jake and too proud to do in front of Kathy. Now, all alone, Katherine cries and cries unashamedly.
Kathy closes the door behind her, turning to her husband as they begin to walk away.
Kathy: Can you believe her?
Jake says nothing.
Kathy: You know, everybody talks about the backstage politicians in this business, somehow they always forget to mention the lawyers. It takes me right back to my days on the force when some arrogant asswipe with a law degree and an attitude would overturn a conviction on a dime. I will not be stone-walled by the likes of her! She wants to make this a legal matter, fine. I'll bring her Eternity's death warrant, even if I have to sign it in somebody else's blood!
Then suddenly as they enter the elevator to go back down to the lobby, Kathy crumbles without warning or explanation into her husband's arms. She weeps in his embrace, as he is the only man in the world besides her father who she had ever let see her cry.
Kathy: I don't know what to do Jake! How do I save my little sister?
Jake responds by keeping one arm securely around his wife's waist and using his other to fetch his cellphone from his pocket, he scrolls down and hits call on a name, bringing the phone to his ear. After a few moments, stepping out of the elevator, still holding his wife, Jake speaks up.
Jake: Hello, Bertie. Yeah, listen mate, I need you to do me a favour. I need you to talk to Hannah for me. My wife has a bit of a corporate legal problem...
Kathy looks up and smiles through her tears at her husband as he once again came through for her like he always seemed to do. She craned her neck up to peck him on the lips, only briefly interrupting his explanation to the Chief Operating Officer of IWF on the other end of the line.
Well howdy there pardner.