Girl Act (22 page)

“I think so,” he added.

Laurel’s mother had left a lot of clothes hanging in a bedroom closet, like any smart woman who likes to travel lightly. I needed two outfits, one for the social worker role and one to wear when I met Cassidy for the first time.

Okay, so before you act in any role in any film or TV show, it has to get the green light, meaning the official ‘yes’, the project is happening. And for us with our real life rescue, we needed to be sure that Cassidy wanted to be rescued, and that she was indeed being abused. So I decided that a blonde girl, a friend of Aunt Helen’s would show up and talk person-to-person with her. Then, if it was ‘yes,’ I’d wear the brunette-bookish wig for the social worker with belly and breast padding to age me a bit and give me a more professional appearance. When Tristan pulled out a bright jacket and skirt, we both laughed.

“I can’t wear cherry red,” I said. Then he selected a dark, conservative blue suit with pants and a semi-matching jacket.

“Social worker?” he asked.

I put it on and walked around the room, imagining the padding.

“That’s her,” he said.

“I’ll need a fake ID,” I said, anxiously.

“No worries, I know a guy who makes ID’s, real ones, but he’ll make us fake ones.”

I couldn’t believe how focused Tristan was on getting our rescue job accomplished.

“Try this sweat suit on, with the blonde wig,” Tristan said, like he’d been in show business for years.

“I can’t believe Laurel’s mother wears that. So, have you ever wanted to be an actor?” I asked.

“God no, that’s a tough biz,” he said.

I tried on the brown velvet sweat suit. It had no logo on it, and was tight and clingy, not the kind I’d ever wear as my real self. For the blonde character, though, it was perfect.

The pen pal letters had been sent care of the high school, but on the second-to-last letter Cassidy had scribbled out her home address, another example of her cry for help. We practiced the way my conversation with her should play out; I would ask if she was being physically abused, and I would tell her what could happen, as in a cop and social worker arriving to take her away and having her mother sign a form that left her in the ‘legal’ care of her grandmother (who we were 99% sure lived in Florida). And that, if her grandmother agreed to care for her, we would buy her a one-way ticket, and the rest of her life would be up to her, and that my Aunt Helen had wanted to help her as her last dying wish. It was Tristan’s idea to mention her for sentimental value.

We ended the night watching the first
Hangover
movie, because Tristan had the DVD and thought we should watch something funny. I’ll admit it, I love to laugh, but the whole time I just kept thinking about Cassidy’s mother. Why was she allowing her daughter to be abused? Why didn’t she send her to her mother’s? Then I couldn’t sleep, but I didn’t want to wake Tristan, who had fallen asleep before the movie ended, so I got up and started ironing the red and white frilly cotton table cloths that Deeda was going to be using in less than a week for Laurel’s wedding.

Early in the morning, Tristan took off; he wanted to get a few things covered in case our rescue plan was a go. I walked Shadow and continued to prep things for Laurel; just to stop myself from thinking about my first meeting with Cassidy.

By one o’clock I took the Red Line to Park Street, and from there I caught the Green Line to Haymarket, all in less than thirty minutes. I’ll admit that I was nervous during the train ride, until some white-collar-type guy gave me a flirting look. Oh yeah, I was a blonde. They have to have more fun, because at least four other men smiled at me in that ‘hint-hint’ way. Everyone who’s a non-blonde woman should wear a blonde wig for a day, just to see what it’s like.

I jumped on the 111 bus and headed to Chelsea via the Tobin Bridge. I felt keyed up and energized. We decided that it was better if I tried to meet Cassidy on her way home from school. After arriving in Chelsea, I walked by her home, which I found through a map on my Smartphone. Actually I stared at it from across the street—it was a regular single-family house that looked unkempt, but not out of place on the block. No one was around, not that I would have looked suspicious. From there I headed over to Chelsea High School. I got there early, so I walked around for a few minutes. I knew what she looked like, thanks to Facebook, so I didn’t have to carry the ink self-portrait drawing. I figured she would walk out alone, because in her pen pal letters she had mentioned having difficulty maintaining friendships, and I knew the stepsisters went to a local middle school.

The high school doors flew open and a pack of students rushed out. I spotted her, in baggy pants and a large pink sweatshirt. Her hair was in her face, but I saw that she was wearing some makeup. Her left arm was in a cast and that spooked me. Still I followed her until we were two blocks away.

“Cassidy?” I asked. My heart pounding.

She just gave a blank stare.

“Your pen pal Helen sent me,” I said, with full conviction.

Cassidy’s eyes went wide.

“She says you’re being abused, that I have to rescue you, and send you to your grandmother’s home, ASAP,” I said, all in one breath.

That’s when her tears started—there wasn’t anything she had to say; her pain was all over her face. I pinched myself to stop myself from crying, we couldn’t both be seen crying, not with other teens ambling by.

“Walk near me, I’m going to go over everything that is about to happen.”

She nodded, and then I told her. She repeatedly asked about Aunt Helen, but I didn’t tell her that she had passed away. I couldn’t. We were about a block from her house.

“Are your stepsisters being abused?”

“No, because they’re his kids. He doesn’t like me.”

“Does he beat you with a belt?” I asked. I felt guilty asking, but I had promised Tristan that I would, and that promise I had to keep.

“Yeah, all the time. He blames me for everything,” she said.

“And your arm?” I asked, deciding that I needed to know.

“Yeah, he broke it, but I didn’t tell anyone. I said I fell.”

Then I asked the hardest question of all, “Does your mother know?” and she nodded.

“Say it out loud, when you say it out loud you own the truth,” I said. Those words basically flew out of my mouth unrehearsed.

“Yeah, she does know he hits me,” she finally said.

“Okay, I need your grandmother’s phone number. Then you’ll need to keep your head up, because tomorrow morning it will happen,” I said. She gave me her grandmother’s info and I walked away.

After that I jumped back on the 111 bus. And the whole ride back into Boston, I found myself thinking about the movie
Mommie
Dearest
, and how much courage it must have taken Christina Crawford, (the adopted daughter) of famed actress Joan Crawford to go public by writing a tell-all book about the abuse she experienced. Who would want to believe that ‘The’ Joan Crawford abused her kid? Wow, would I have told if I had been her daughter? I don’t know, I really don’t know.

Forty minutes later I reported everything to Tristan. I was shaking when I told him, I felt frightened and so out of my comfort zone. We talked about calling child protective services, but in the end we decided to stick with our rescue plan. I quickly rattled off her grandmother’s number that I had memorized, since I didn’t want to be seen writing something down. He had scored his friend’s dark blue; four door Ford that would be our ‘unmarked’ cop car, since so many Massachusetts cops drive them. I glanced at the outdoor wedding bar—it was done. Tristan winked; he knew his woodworking was beyond just good, it was the highest-quality.

“Come on, we need to get our ID’s made,” he said, so I raced upstairs and changed into my social worker outfit, with the padded belly and breasts and brunette wig—in full character to the max. Okay, so I’m going to brag: I really looked like a ‘social worker’. Wow, how could I ever give up acting? I dashed downstairs, but when I heard the doorbell ring, I scurried into the living room, while Tristan intervened in perfect timing. More wedding packages for Laurel—we laughed after the UPS guy drove off. Tristan’s Land Rover was in the driveway and I hopped into the back seat. Okay, so we were acting like a cast in a spy film.

Tristan drove us to Marblehead to his friend Mark’s home, his Boston accent (no R’s) was what Tristan was copying for his cop role. FYI, the easiest way to practice the Boston accent is to say, “Pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd (translation: “park the car in Harvard Yard”). Try it!

I took my ‘social worker’ pose in front of an off-white poster board. It was so professional, the set-up. Mark had the real name of a social worker who had passed away that he put on the ID.

Tristan had disappeared into the bathroom, only to reemerge with a shaved head. He was going to play a bald headed cop. I couldn’t believe it. It was smart, he wouldn’t have looked real in a wig and with the shaved head—he seemed completely authentic. On the cute ‘cop’ side too, in my opinion, which I didn’t share. We all laughed as Tristan practiced his cop walk and flat footed stance.

After that I needed to call the Grandmother pretending to be the social worker to find out if she could take care of Cassidy. It was Tristan who wanted me to double-check. Mark gave me a throwaway phone, and I felt like I was in a James Bond film, minus the sexy outfit and sensuous name. Note to self, audition for action films. Tristan and Mark went into the kitchen to make something to eat, because I was worried about getting nervous and we didn’t want Mark to know everything. He just knew a teenager was in trouble and that was enough for him. So I altered my voice because I love changing into different characters. I looked at the ID, and then I dialed Cassidy’s grandmother in Saint Augustine, Florida. A sweet old woman named Rena-Jo answered, and when I introduced myself to her, she sounded suddenly shaky.

“If we send your granddaughter to Florida tomorrow, can she live with you?” I asked in my best social worker voice.

“She sure can; I’ve been praying for her to come down here,” she said with a slight southern accent.

“We want her to be removed from the house, because the stepfather’s beating her,” I said, sounding even more like a social worker.

“Get her here and I promise I’ll raise her right,” she said, and I felt a lump in my throat. There really was a loving person waiting for Cassidy. I hung up after getting her address and making sure she’d be home to greet her.

I raced into Mark’s kitchen. “It’s all set,” I said. The guys were munching on grilled cheese sandwiches with chips and dip. I felt too excited to eat. I knew right there and then, a hundred percent sure—that this was why Aunt Helen had gotten Cassidy as her pen pal.

We left Mark’s place late, because the guys played back-to-back games of Ping Pong, and headed back to Laurel’s house to press our clothes and go over the scene. We had to go over “the-what-ifs,” as in what if the stepfather got violent (we couldn’t arrest him), what if the mom didn’t sign the guardian release form.

“What if Cassidy changes her mind and doesn’t want to go? I asked.

“How it unfolds is how it unfolds, no regrets,” Tristan said.

Go figure. The Brits came up with the slogan, ‘Keep Calm And Carry On’.

“Okay,” I said, as I headed into Laurel’s room, feeling nervous, but needing to sleep.

“Night,” Tristan hollered.

It must have been two in the morning when I heard the sound of a wolf howling. A wolf in Cambridge, Massachusetts? I thought no way—but it sounded real. Okay, was I on the set of
True
Blood
or
The Vampire Diaries?
Or was this a horror film, and I was playing a woman about to be eaten by a lone wolf? Then I heard Shadow barking nonstop from downstairs, so I got up and grabbed Laurel’s fuchsia Victoria Secret robe and walked into the hallway. That’s when I saw Tristan heading down the stairs.

“I’m coming with you,” I whispered, “I heard when in danger, go in pairs,” I added.

I hoped that was true. Tristan grabbed a broom from the kitchen and we headed to the porch door. By then I was hiding behind Tristan, when all of sudden he started chuckling.

“Look at our wolf,” he pointed.

There was Gabriel under the wedding canopy, crouched, drinking from a bottle of Jack Daniels, and howling like a wolf. Tristan went out to fetch him so that the neighbors didn’t call the cops. That’s all we needed. His hair was wet, his mouth and clothes smelled of JD, he was wearing what he’d worn days prior, and he was laughing and crying at the same time.

“The trouble with this life is that you die at the end, you die,” Gabriel said, as Tristan sat his skinny butt in one of the kitchen chairs and poured a cold cup of coffee. I knew then that his mother had died. Shadow licked his hands as if trying to calm him down, but Gabriel was too drunk to notice.

“Drink the coffee, then it’s time to sleep it off,” I heard Tristan say as I headed back to bed; finally too tired to be scared about the rescue mission.

I couldn’t sleep, so I read all of Cassidy’s pen pal letters again; it was like reading a script before call time (AKA when you arrive on set). Lights, camera, ACTION. Only this was real action. At six in the morning, I found Gabriel holding Tristan’s cop outfit.

“What are you guys up to?” he asked, now sober and super-wide awake.

“Nothing,” I said.

Tristan tried to tell him that we weren’t robbing a bank, he knew that, but he was full of questions, and I just blew up.

“BUTT OUT! You’re going to ruin everything,” I screamed, like I was five-years-old. Before he could react, I left the room and headed into the bathroom to put on my social worker costume again with belly, breast padding and my brunette wig. I didn’t mean to be rude—he had just lost his mother and I hadn’t even gotten to talk with him about it, but I was afraid we wouldn’t get Cassidy out of the house and on a plane to Florida.

I took a few deep breaths and then, like a trained actress, in front of the ornate bathroom mirror, I got into character. When I emerged from the bathroom, Gabriel was waiting.