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Authors: Nancy Kelly

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But back to Charlie and Serena. They were absolutely wrong for each other. It was all so painfully obvious to me and my friends that we concluded something must be done. I confess that I obsessed about breaking them up and having Charlie for myself. When I think back on how much energy this cost me it makes me feel weary, but at the time it was all that mattered. Lucky for me, none of my plans had to be put into action.
Believe it or not, Charlie was a football player. Don’t ask me what position because even if I knew I wouldn’t care. I know what a quarterback is, though why they’re called that still isn’t clear. They can pass the ball and somebody else catches it and everybody tries to push everybody out of the way and when someone breaks away and runs for the goal it creates mass cheering or booing. Football has never interested me, although at least I understand it better now. In high school, it was just an event to attend. I have always liked the uniforms, though.
Charlie was on the team by default; his father, who owned a string of Quickie Marts around town was a huge supporter of high school sports in general and football in particular. Charlie wasn’t the best player. He wasn’t even a good player. He treated football kind of like he treated school: with an utter lack of direction, attention, and determination. He likely wouldn’t have played at all, regardless of Daddy’s financial support, but Charlie was blessed with one enviable asset: speed. He could run down almost anyone. I learned later that he started out on defense, but he was so awful at actually tackling anyone that they moved him to offense. So, once in a while, when the second or third string was in, Charlie would play wide receiver—this is a term I’ve actually since learned and somewhat understand—which meant that he would race away from the pack, wait for the quarterback to throw him a pass, and leap into the air, reaching for this spiraling bullet. If Charlie had possessed any ability to catch the ball at all, he might have made it to first string, but hey, you can’t have everything.
I came to the Homecoming game dressed all in black because I thought it was moody and sexy. It was November in Oregon and I’d already lost all of my summer tan, such as it was. I’m sure the black looked just great with my lovely, pasty white skin. I certainly felt I was hot shit. My look, coupled with the fact that November is my middle name, made it seem as if I might actually get lucky that night. With romance in mind, I’d darkened my eyes with heavy liner and mascara—very 60’s which I thought was the height of cool—but then, when I looked over the playing field, my spirits sank. Charlie and Serena seemed as tight as ever, and when I glanced down at the cheerleading squad my depression grew. There she was, jumping and screaming and shaking her pompons with the best of them. I had a secret yearning to be a cheerleader, but it would have been a tough sell with my pseudo-intellectual crowd, so I contented myself with looking sulky and bored, all the while scouring the field for a glimpse of Charlie.
He was number eighty-eight. I spotted him on the sidelines, goofing off with another player. Watching him, then glancing at Serena, I finally began to doubt the wisdom of my plan. They were football people. They were meant to be together. And I was playing at personae, trying to figure out who the hell I was and devising schemes that were born to fail.
I probably would have left the game right there and gone home to soul-search and eat Snickers bars when two things happened, almost simultaneously. One: our team’s best wide receiver was jerked out of the sky by the opposing team, came down with broken ribs and Charlie ran in to replace him, and two: Serena got so excited she slipped, fell, and twisted her knee big time. Actually a third thing happened as well, which was really the kicker: Serena’s ex-boyfriend, who was a soccer player and disdained football, stepped up to help take Serena to the emergency room. She was last seen squeezing his hand as she was helped toward his car. Whether they actually made it to the hospital was a source of speculation for weeks to come, but the resulting aftermath was that against all odds Charlie scored the winning touchdown, Serena wasn’t around to congratulate him, he decided to celebrate by drinking about a hundred beers, and yes, he ended up with me.
Lucky for Charlie he didn’t attend the postgame dance or he would have been caught drunk and thrown off the team and suspended from school. I ran into him at the local hangout, Louie’s Burgers. His friends were as drunk as he was; the designated driver might be eschewing alcohol but it sure as hell looked as if his cigarette was the funny kind, if you know what I mean. I took this in at a glance.
“Hey,” I greeted Charlie. (My dialogue hasn’t improved with age.)
“Yo, there, Ginny Blue,” he said, wearing the biggest shit-eating grin in the state of Oregon. “Where’s the kooky makeup?”
I touched a hand to my face. I’d scrubbed off the 60’s-raccoon eyes in the stadium washroom in a fit of “I will never get laid” angst. “I’m changing my style.”
“Really? Cool.” He struggled to stand up unaided and light a cigarette at the same time. His friends had all straggled back to the car, tumbling inside in a heap. The designated driver stood about three feet away, aloof and smoking weed with a devil-may-care, I-don’t-give-a-shit attitude that I instantly admired.
“Wanna go somewhere?” I asked. At the time I was driving my mother’s car, a ten-year-old Ford sedan. She hadn’t yet moved up to the nearly new Mercedes she now sports. It bothered me, how uncool I must look, but Charlie was drunk enough not to notice.
“The football field,” he said. “Where that bitch missed my touchdown, Goddammit.”
Who was I to argue? My heart was all aflutter. Charlie sank into the passenger seat and I pulled away from Louie’s Burgers and headed back to the stadium. No one was there by now, not even the cleanup crew. The concession stands were locked up and only the faint scent of popcorn reminded anyone of the mad activity that had transpired mere hours before. The lights were out, and apart from a distant street lamp, which cast a bluish glow to the north, and a silvery moon competing with rapidly scudding clouds, the place was dark, dark, dark.
Charlie stumbled out onto the field, long-necked beer bottle in hand. He threw back his head and howled at the moon. I remember thinking how terribly romantic it all was. I had reality issues, for sure, but I was seventeen, okay? I followed him onto the field, wishing to high heaven that I could have scored some booze, too. I was freezing to death. It was damn near December after all, and we were just lucky Oregon’s infamous rain wasn’t beating down in torrents.
And then Charlie stripped, right down to his skin. He grinned at me. “Ah, fuck her,” he said. “You wanna do it?”
Now, here’s where it gets a little weird. Charlie was drunk, eager, and the object of my desire, sort of. You’d think I would have thrown myself into his arms and said, “Let’s go, baby,” but instead I got all rational and clinical. I guess I wanted to remember every aspect of the evening, so instead of stripping off my own clothes, I furrowed my brow and considered. As an opening salvo to lovemaking, I said, “I’ve been kind of planning this. I thought you should know.”
“Planning this?”
“I decided awhile ago that I wanted to have sex with you, if that’s all right.”
“Hell, yes! Why didn’t you speak up sooner?”
“Serena.”
“Oh, yeah, her. Well, she’s with Erickson, isn’t she? She left all hot and panting with him.” He stumbled and fell onto his clothes, spreadeagle, on the ground. I strolled forward and looked down at him.
“I just want to know,” I said. “You know ... about it ... ?”
“’Bout what?” He was struggling to pull on his beer without pouring it all over his face.
“Sex.”
“Well, c’mon over and let me show you.”
“I’ve been thinking it’s time for me. I don’t want to go off to college and not know anything. I don’t even want to go off to college.”
He patted the cold ground beside him.
“But I wanted it to be with someone I really care about. That’s why I want it to be you.”
“You care about ... me?” He squinted. Definitely having trouble with the concept.
Well, of course I did! I reminded myself. You can’t have sex unless you’re in love! I didn’t actually say this, luckily, deciding instead that I’d better get on with it if I were going to have any chance of getting back before curfew.
Sex without love ... are you kidding? That was not part of the “first time” mythology.
So, there I was on the fifty-yard line, struggling out of my draping black clothes, shivering, and hoping Charlie didn’t completely pass out before we had a chance to do the deed. He didn’t. Although he did right afterwards. Then he woke up and puked, but I’d fortunately redressed by that point, as I’d been turning bluer than the gleam off the streetlight.
I’ve got to say, it was really, really disappointing. One moment he was kind of fumbling with my clothes, the next I was lying in the pile of them, and the next he’d jumped on me and wasting no time with preliminaries. I remember trying to kiss him, but Charlie, for all his drunkeness, was an eager beaver, and apart from clutching my breasts and gasping, he pretty much got to it. Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. I tried to squeak out words of love, but they fell kind of flat, given the situation. It was cold outside and mostly painful inside, so to speak, and I’m sure my face was contorted into a deep wince throughout the whole lovely moment.
To give Charlie credit, he did try to have a relationship with me. Afterwards he would walk with me down the hall at school, and he even bought me a Christmas gift that year: a small bear—our mascot—dressed in a football jersey with number eighty-eight on its teensy little jersey. Very romantic. We had sex a couple more times, but those episodes were disappointing replays. At least I got the experience I craved and I didn’t end up pregnant, which, given we were into the
coitus interruptus
method, was a very real possibility. I was much, much smarter the second time I got involved sexually, and I’ve remained that way to this day—at least about birth control. My choice of partners is up for debate.
A footnote: Charlie and Serena got back together, got married, had a couple of kids, then split up. I heard Serena moved to Tucson and married a college football player. Don’t know what happened to Charlie.
Why had I brought him up last night? I asked myself as I began placing calls to set up the Waterstone Iced Tea shoot. Where had that come from? Had Kristl’s Jackson Wright sighting dredged up Charlie?
I thought about Charlie for a solid fifteen seconds. I don’t know why, but I suddenly felt the need to know more about him, so I went online and checked the listings for Portland, Oregon. There was only one Charlie Carruthers listed, and I dialed the number before I thought.
“Hullo?”
It was Charlie all right. Sounding kind of drunk.
“Charlie? It’s Ginny Bluebell. What’re you doing?”
“Hey, Ginny! God! Haven’t talked to you in ages. I’m hung over bad, what about yourself?”
“Oh, I’m working,” I said, the desire to get off the phone suddenly so intense that I had to scold myself severely to remain on the line. I’d been the one to reconnect. I’d done it to myself. No need to feel such distaste. So he hadn’t moved past high school. So what? I certainly could get drunk with the best of them.
“I’m on disability. Screwed up my back working at a brewery here. Those kegs are goddamn heavy. Hey, you in town?”
“No, no. No ... still in Los Angeles.”
“Well, get up here. Let’s have some fun.”
“Yeah, I was thinking about it,” I lied. “Maybe over Christmas.”
“Your mom still here?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe I’ll stop by and see her.”
“You do that, Charlie,” I said, glancing at the clock. I’d been on the phone less than five minutes. “I gotta go. I’ll be in touch.”
“You were the best!” he suddenly blurted out happily. “Weren’t we great?”
“Yeah ...”
“Hey, what’s your number? I could be comin’ down your way. Friend of mine’s takin’ a trip to Tijuana.”
“Wow.”
“Hey, maybe we can crash at your place? Wha’d’ya think?”
“Call me,” I said.
“What’s your number?”
I didn’t want to give it to him. I really didn’t. I wondered if I could get away with just hanging up. A true cheat. My finger hovered over the receiver, but then he said, “Hey, it’s on the caller ID!”
Fucking technology.
He promised to call me when he arrived in L.A. and I squeaked out a, “That’ll be great,” before gently cradling the phone. I took a step back, staring at the machine. Charlie Carruthers. Ex-File Number One.
Holy shit.
Chapter
4
A
s soon as I was dressed I made my way to Wyatt Productions, the company I mostly work for. Wyatt’s offices are a couple of blocks off Sunset on Robertson. My restless-night-hangover was still, well, hanging over, and I couldn’t shake that overall sense of badness that permeates everything whenever there are uncomfortable, unresolved issues floating around in your brain. I was feeling really bad about my breakup with Nate and trying to rationalize it at the same time. There is just no good way to end a relationship easily. It’s like that perma-goo used for do-it-yourself projects that you can purchase at Home Depot or Lowes: its sticky, its nagging, and only time really gets rid of it.
As soon as I stepped across the threshold, Holly, my producer, started barking orders at me. She glanced up mid-directive and did a classic double take. “Jesus, Ginny,” she said, eyeing me from head to toe, a hard line etched between her brows. “You look like death warmed over.”
“I guess that’s better than death served cold.”
Holly gave me a long-suffering look. She never finds me funny. She’s an emaciated forty-year-old who thrives on power and all the schmoozing of old-time Hollywood. I’m the workhorse. Generally uncomplaining, I definitely still have a problem with authority and so once in a while I just kind of blow up. So far, I’ve managed to hold things together around Holly, and therefore we have a grudging respect for one another. She, also, can look tough with a cigarette hanging from her mouth, although those sharp little incision-type lines radiating from her lips have deepened with age and should soon match the one between her eyes. I swear they etch a little bit further with each hard drag on the cigarette, and as she began to rant about the cost of the crane we were going to need for the shoot, I swear I saw them draw deeper yet. She calls me Ginny; I call her the Holy Terror—although not to her face. I do need to keep working, and I try to keep my forays into self-destruction to a minimum.
“God
damn
it. What the hell happened to it?” she demanded. “I thought you ordered the crane!”
“I did. Let me call the company and see—”
“Fuck! No! Just change everything.”
“Change everything?” I asked cautiously.
“Yes! Everything!”
“You mean, you don’t want the crane, now? I thought our guy was supposed to be flying, or something, above the ocean. Like iced tea had him soaring.”
“We’ll do it in front of a blue screen or something. Too expensive. And it’s a stupid commercial anyway.”
No argument there. Like any liquid short of 151 proof rum could really give you that flying feeling. (Please note that she said this solely to me, someone who does not matter, not in front of the advertising company—known simply as “Agency”—and/or the client, who would have taken offense.) I thought about asking Holly if she had run this new scenario past either of them. This was, after all, their commercial and therefore their concept. But noting the glower on her face, I decided I really didn’t need to know. Holly probably knew what she could get away with anyway, otherwise she never would have lasted this long as a producer.
After her burst of fury things sort of settled down. Called away, Holly left the office for a while so the rest of the staff made phone calls and arrangements and ordered in lunch. We had a new PA working the job; one I’d never met before. His name was Sean and he was definitely a cutie. He looked about twenty-three, and he was obviously into bodybuilding. I was momentarily horrified to learn he was a wannabe actor, but he was clearly interested in the production side of the business so there was hope for him after all. I can’t stress how much I distrust actors. And it isn’t all Mr. Famous Actor’s fault, although he carries a lot of the burden. It’s because all the actors I’ve met are such a freaky combination of charm and pure neediness, the kind of neediness that reaches black-hole levels—reaching into your soul and twisting your guts, then turning you upside down and shaking you hard before dropping you on your head. I steer clear of the whole lot of them. I swear, getting involved with Mr. Famous Actor was like scuba diving and having my arm grabbed by a Moray eel just as the oxygen tank registers empty. Pretty much a death. Bad enough that I halfway wanted to drown. I’m just too much into self-preservation to give up without a fight, though cutting off one’s arm to get free is a particularly tough choice. Moray eels are right near the top of my “must avoid” list. I’ve seen them on the Discovery Channel. They live in holes in undersea rock formations and just lie in wait until you get too close. Then suddenly they dart out, grab an unsuspecting limb, retract into their cave-like holes and drag you back as far as they can get you. This horrific fate befell Jacqueline Bisset in the film
The Deep
. Luckily she was saved by a partner, but who counts on that? Mostly you’re trapped and you run out of air and suffocate. That’s how it felt with Mr. Famous Actor: John Langdon. (I’m sure I don’t have to add that I’ve never been scuba diving and I don’t intend to start.)
As these thoughts crossed my brain I regaled the production group with my feelings about the Moray eel, starting up a lively conversation about all of our particular fears. Tom, my favorite production coordinator, a man who loved rumors, hard liquor, and a good dirty story, said he suffered severe vertigo and could scarcely walk up a flight of stairs unless there were walls on either side. Sean literally scratched his head—not exactly inspiring me with confidence about his set of smarts, if you know what I mean—and mumbled, “Ummm ... I guess it’s those dolls, y’know? The kind that’re serious and they wink and blink when you pick them up or move them. I always think they’re gonna laugh.”
“I saw that episode of the
Twilight Zone,
too,” I said.
“Twilight Zone?” he repeated blankly.
“With Telly Savales. Where his wife trips over the doll and falls down the stairs and he picks up the doll and it opens its eyes and says something like, ‘I’m Talking Tina and you’d better be nice to me.’ ”
Sean stared at me, eyes wide. “Fuckin’ A,” he breathed.
“You’ve never seen that episode.”
He slowly shook his head from side to side, then headed out the door to go pick up lunch. Tom said, “Way to give the kid nightmares.”
“You’ve seen that episode.” It was a directive, not a question.
He nodded. “But Talking Tina’s got nothing on a stepladder.”
I decided not to point out that my Moray eel tale was merely a parable for how I felt about actors. It seemed kind of an unpopular phobia to have, especially in LA, where every third person has secret aspirations in that direction.
Half an hour later Sean brought in lunch. We’d ordered from In-N-Out Burger, a California franchise from the fifties that’s flat-out terrific. I’d ordered a protein burger—a hamburger patty in a lettuce cup, no bun—my nod to salad-crazed Californians. It was so good I wanted to lick the little paper wrapper it arrived in but I managed to keep myself reined in.
Sean said, “I could eat three more of these.”
I glanced over. He’d had a double-double—two patties of meat. He was so fit and hard-looking that I figured he probably could handle the mucho-thousand extra calories. Probably would just work it off. I said, “I’d like to take a half-dozen of these to the beach with a six-pack of Bud and a disc player with good 80’s music.”
Sean’s lips parted as he stared at me. I outwardly smiled, but inside I was a little annoyed at myself for popping that out. Sometimes I know just the right thing to say. It’s a gift, this ability to read people without them realizing I’m reading them, then giving them what they want. It’s a sort of odd flirting technique that makes me want to kick myself. I mean, why? Why do I do it? It’s like I think life’s a popularity contest and I can’t compete in the 5% bracket of perfect looks, brains, and body, so I reach for this strange attribute and toss it out.
I had hooked Sean in one heartbeat. He wheeled his office chair closer to mine, looked at my protein burger and asked, “Did you get fries?”
“Nah. I’m trying to keep my girlish figure.”
He said intensely, “Let’s do it. Let’s get some burgers and Buds and go to the beach. I’ve got the music.”
Somehow I knew he would. But I could feel Tom’s searing interest and that of several other production people, men and women closer to my own age of thirty-something, and I had to take a pass. “After the job’s over, let’s make it a production wrap party.”
“Bullshit,” Tom said. “We’re going somewhere that serves vodka.”
There was a general consensus that the beach idea wasn’t on. Sean was a little crushed but accepted defeat gracefully. I kept surreptitious surveillance of him the rest of the afternoon but by the time I’d finished my day’s work he was out on a production run and I left without seeing him again.
I placed three calls to Liam Engleston over the course of the day and he never got back to me. Jill has her own fledgling catering business since she quit the snooty catering company she was working for—the same catering company where she’d met Ian. But Ian went off to some equally snooty restaurant and dived into the purchasing and business end of the biz. Jill stuck with the food itself, which is weird, weird since she’s basically an anorexic and/or bulemic. She seems drawn to food—her enemy—and she can make the most delicious meals from the strangest assortment of items, but she rarely eats them. She shudders over my penchant for fast food, but I don’t really get why. Let’s face it: when it’s coming back up, it looks bad no matter what it is. I guess for Jill, choosing to be a caterer is a lot like a policeman swearing if he didn’t go into law enforcement, he would have become a criminal. The yin and yang of obsession. Whatever the case, I determined that Liam was out and Jill was in, and the rest of the production staff could just whine and moan.
Just before I took off for the day the phone rang and one of Liam Engleston’s assistants, who was equally as fussy as the man himself, said Mr. Engleston would be phoning me the next day as he was too busy to talk to me today. I rolled my eyes but murmured, “That’ll be fine,” then made retching noises as I dropped the phone into the receiver. I figured I’d kill the assignment directly with Liam. I’d tried every way I knew to make it clear that we would be eating SANDWICHES and SALAD if we were lucky, but the man still acted as if he were catering to the royal family.
Around three P.M. I let myself into my condo, suffering a slight headache, the kind that feels like it could work its way into a full-blown clanger if not properly taken care of. It’s sad to say, but I’m not as good at drinking into the night then getting up in the morning as I used to be.
Noticing the deep silence I thought of Nate and that bad feeling stole over me once more. Grinding my teeth, I refused to go down the “poor me” road. Instead I kicked off my shoes and threw myself into Nate’s chair—was that a ripping sound from the leather?—when my doorbell rang. Swearing softly beneath my breath, I pulled myself back out of the chair and silently asked the gods why they couldn’t make sure everyone left me the hell alone until I felt better. Peering through the peephole I viewed Daphne standing dejectedly on the porch. Shit. That’s right. She wanted to stop by and talk.
“Could this day get any better?” I muttered to myself as I threw open the door. “Hi,” I greeted her with a lot more enthusiasm than I felt.
“Hi,” she answered dully as she entered.
Uh oh
, I thought as I closed the door behind her. This looked like real depression. The most frightening thing of all was that Daphne’s arms were flat to her sides, the fingers of one hand lackadaisically holding an open bottle of Chardonnay by the neck. It didn’t appear she remembered the bottle. Before I could remind her, she hiccupped twice and stumbled into the kitchen, throwing open one of my cupboard doors until it banged hard against its neighbor. I cringed. She stared inside as if the interior held all life’s mysteries. I actually craned my neck to peer past her but all I could see was a box of Honey Nut Cheerios. I wondered about the pull date. Might’ve been before this millennium.
“Doesn’t appear that things improved at work,” I noted gingerly, checking my watch. Theoretically I was done for the day, but production work can be round the clock when a job gets going. I could certainly
pretend
I had somewhere to go.
“I can’t STAND it one more MINUTE! God DAMN it, Blue! Don’t you have any wine glasses?”
I reached across her and flipped open a different cupboard door than the one she’d opened and slammed shut five times. “Are you drunk?” I asked.
“Not near enough. I left work early because Leo just ignored me!
Ignored me!
I mean, scream and yell at me, okay. I can deal. And if you look my way a time or two, well, howdy-doody, I might be looking back. But
ignoring ...
!” She seemed to collapse on herself as she grabbed a fluted wine glass. One of my favorites. My hand fluttered forward protectively as she slammed it onto the counter so hard the fragile stem snapped off. She looked at me and burst into tears.
“Hey, hey,” I said, taking the wine bottle and remains of the glass from her unresisting fingers. “It’s okay. Leo’s not worth all this. You know that.”
“I’m sorry. Oh, God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ll pay for it. Don’t tell Nate, if it’s his. I’ll get another one.”

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