WILLEM (The Witches of Wimberley Book 1) (2 page)

I stopped to listen. What can I say? I’m curious about attractions and these people are rapt.

“The original Charmed Horse Inn was just a few yards away. It was built in 1840 and torn down a hundred years ago. In the sixties, there was a tourist trap in this location. They sold, you know, local art, pralines, jackadillos, the usual Hill Country souvenirs. Lightning struck it one Halloween night and burned it to the ground.

“What was built in its place was a café. It had a good run, popular with the locals, lasted about forty years. But right after the turn of the century,
this
century, workers just showed up one day, bulldozed the café and built the Wimberley Tavern. Five years later this hotel was built in the style of the Driskill in San Antonio. Smaller and not as luxurious, of course. So it looks old, like it was renovated, but it’s not. It’s new.

“Now as to the ghost. People say that at night, right outside, near the crossroads, if everything’s quiet, sometimes you can hear galloping hoof beats. A few people say they’ve seen somebody dressed like a highwayman ride past and disappear. Others said they’ve seen a ghost in or around the tavern or here in the hotel dressed like a Texas Ranger.

“He wears a wide-brimmed hat, a loose-fittin’ shirt, and a gun belt with holster and pistol. The old folks say it’s Deck Wimberley, still looking out for his girls. Deck and his wife built the Charmed Horse Inn. She stayed, ran the inn and raised their girls, three of ‘em, but he went rangerin’.

“Some say he’s sorry he left his wife and can’t move on until he thinks he’s made up for it, but I don’t know about that.”

“Have you seen him?” a kid in a tee shirt and baseball cap asked.

The clerk shook her head. “I haven’t seen him, but I’ve seen people right after they saw him. Those folks looked a fright. Made a believer out of me.”

Jesus. No wonder it’s hard to get a room at this place. With a hook like that, this place is probably full year round.

I walked around the little group and headed out the front door.

Name is Willem, by the way. I know. Depending on who you talk to it’s either pretentious or nostalgic. I guess, in my case, it was the second. My mom’s great-great-grandfather on her mother’s side was named Willem.

Circumventing the whole pretention/nostalgia speculation by calling myself Will is the easiest way to go. People assume it’s short for William and that’s okay with me. Not sure I understand why William is less pretentious than Willem, but whatever.

I grew up in Alabama, but headed for L.A. after two years at Alabama State. I took mostly core courses, but had a few classes in my chosen major, which was Metaphysics, Mythology, and Paranormal Psychology. I
loved
those classes. Gobbled up the info like a living vacuum and asked for more. The problem wasn’t that I didn’t want to study MMPP. The problem was that I didn’t want to have to wade through Western Civ, English Composition, Algebra, Geology, a foreign language, and a host of other equally yawn-inspiring courses just to get to the good stuff.

The comments of all the people who’d told me that I was good-looking enough to be a movie star came back to me. I believed them. I mean, I have eyes and a mirror. Just sayin’. It sounded like a cool enough gig to me and I’d heard that there’s a lot of time wasted on set when actors just sit around for hours. I have dark hair and eyes such a deep blue that people usually think they’re black.

It’s fun to watch the surprise when they see me in sunlight or bright lights and hear them go, “Hey. Your eyes are blue!” They always say it like they think I didn’t know or that I’ve been deliberately hiding my eye color.

Anyway, it sounded like it could be the best of two worlds, earning mega-money while being able to study what I wanted to study independently, the old-fashioned way. Reading.

The first couple of cattle call auditions, I found out that my southern accent was going to be a problem.

I needed money for diction lessons, not to mention food, housing, clothing, etc. One of the guys waiting in line to audition told me that food and beverage service is the only way to go for wanna-be’s because you can usually get a little schedule flexibility.

Tried waiting tables. That lasted all of two nights. So I located a bartending school. When I told the woman in the office I wasn’t rolling in cake, but could pay a little at a time, she tilted her head to the side, smiled, and said, “That might not be a problem.”

That’s when I found out that “people” were right. My looks could open lesser doors on the way to stardom, if I was willing to get my body involved, enthusiastically.

You might say I went to bartending school on a fuck scholarship, which means I got a free ride, figuratively and literally, for getting off with a woman instead of my hand. I’m telling you. Life is strange.

Well, between my looks and my ability to do a few tricks, I did okay bartending, especially if I made liberal use of winks and
the
smile that made the one dimple pop out on the left side of my face. I had a no-drink rule for myself when I was working. If I was on the clock, I was all business. Afterward, I sometimes took advantage of the free drinks perk, the one the owner didn’t need to know about. I guess technically that would be more a liberty than a perk, but whatever. I sat at the bar and had a drink or two when the cleanup crew was, well, cleaning up.

My days were regimented. Get up at noon. Call my agent. Yeah. I have an agent. Got her the same way I got through bartending school. I see if she has anything for me. If she doesn’t, I show up at the new “spot” on Sunset Boulevard where people who have actual tip money come to experience “the scene”. Even the dives have valet parking and secure lots for the beems, benzes, Porsches and Audis, along with the occasional Bentley or Lamborghini. They get to play like they’re still relevant. I get tips. Everybody wins.

If she does have something, which - I gotta hand it to her - is more than half the time, I get copies of “Billboard” and “Variety” and go get in line with hundreds of other guys who migrated to L.A. because they were told they were pretty enough to be in movies and it sounded more exciting than whatever else they saw in their future.

I’m not dumb. I know it takes more than beauty. So I go to acting classes on Mondays and Wednesday. And let me tell you, they’re not cheap. Every extra penny goes to coaches and diction lessons. The latter has caused my family to look at me like I have a rare and contagious disease.

“You sound like a Yankee, Will.”

Believe me when I say that, in Alabama, that is
not
a compliment. Southerners take their southern accents seriously.

So, with the lessons, I can barely afford the half rent on the dump I share with a geek who’s a Jabba the Hut look alike and never leaves the place. Hector gets enough freelance IT work to finance food and rent and the video game development he’s sure will pay off big one day.

Can you imagine being named Hector and actually deciding to go by that? By kindergarten I would have shortened it to Heck or something not guaranteed to turn girls away.

Speaking of girls, it probably goes without saying that I never bring anybody home. Having a roommate like Hector is almost as much of a romance douser as being Hector.

Now you’re caught up on my life. That’s the last ten years in a nutshell. I got off the plane in L.A. when I was twenty and I’m celebrating thirty in another couple of months. Long story short, that means it’s time to face facts. Make that fact in the singular because the only one that matters is this. If I was going to make it, it would have happened by now.

So reviewing my options. If I keep spinning wheels, maybe I’ll wake up one day and find that another ten years is gone. Now I’m seeing forty looking back at me in the mirror, still living with Jabba, who leaves Taco Bell and M&M wrappers everywhere. Or I could take control, make the “done” call, and head in another direction.

Told my sob story to the guy in line behind me and ended it with, “This is the last time I’m ever doing this. If this audition doesn’t result in a paying job, I’m gone.”

“You’re quitting? Really?” he asked.

“Made up my mind. I’m a man, not a hamster.”

“I hear that. So what are you gonna do?”

I smiled. “That’s the question. Right?”

“Well, you’re cute for sure. And straight, right?” I drew back as far as I could without getting out of line. “No, man, I’m not trying to get in your pants. I’m just saying,” he leaned in closer and lowered his voice to a whisper, “that, if you’re straight, you’re cute and buff enough to try for the witches.”

I gave him my best what-the-fuck look, thinking I was in line in front of somebody who’d snapped from one too many mass auditions, but I decided to go with it. Who knows why?

“What witches?”

“You know.”

I shook my head. “No. I don’t know.”

After a few beats he laughed, right in my face. “How could you have
never
heard about the,” he looked around, “you know?”

“Maybe I keep to myself. Look. I don’t want to be rude, but you’re edging toward annoying. If you’ve got something to say, spit it out.”

He slipped his backpack down his arm and let it drop to the ground. He rifled through it and came up with a card. “Here it is. It’s not doing me any good because, you know, I like boys. So you might as well have it. Maybe it’ll do you some good. If you’re really quitting.”

“I’m really quitting,” I said, as I looked down at the card in his hand. I don’t know what made me reach out and take it. Maybe curiosity. Maybe the fact that my life had been almost as predictable as a hamster wheel for nearly ten years.

Wake up.

Call agent.

If there’s a morning audition, shower and find a way there. If there’s an afternoon audition, go back to bed until noon, then shower and find a way there.

Eat at the deli counter.

Report for bar duty at eight.

Work until two.

Have a drink on the house.

Here you can insert random girl hookup. I say random because I’m not interested in anyone in particular, but there’s no such thing as a night when some lush babe isn’t interested in extracurriculars with moi. I’m not in the mood every night because I’m not fourteen. At least that’s what I tell myself, maybe I’m bored with the chicks, too.

Go to the pad shared with dweeb.

Sleep.

Wake up.

Well, you get it.

I figured I could use an adventure. Alright, well, calling a phone number on a card might not sound like much of an adventure, but he did say witches were involved. So that sounded like fertile ground for possibilities. Right?

You probably know what happened next.

That’s right. Not only did I not get a job out of the audition, I never had a chance to speak one word. They just took one look at me and said, “Wrong.” Then waved me off like they were the mad King George.

Did I say I’d be done? Well, I’m a man of my word.

Usually.

So done. Done. Done.

Got an Uber home and he probably gave me a bad review because I really did not feel chatty. Usually I sit in the front seat and try to make the day a little less long for people trying to eke out a subsistence living. Especially since I know that for a lot of them, it’s a second job and the mileage is steadily ticking toward the reaper. That means the inevitable day when that vehicle is going to need tires and / or repairs that outdistance driver proceeds.

Come to think of it, I’m done with this city, too. I mean, who knows? Maybe the worst thing that could have happened to me was making it. I don’t want to be the guy who buys five-thousand-dollar pants and quibbles over whether I’m going to make eighty million or eighty one million for a month’s work. Jesus.

So Uber man, who really was a nice enough sort, pulled over to the curb of my shitty built-in-the-fifties-and-not-well-maintained apartment building. I saw him lean out and look. While he was doing his dashboard computer thing, I tried to see it through his eyes.

Sure. I could say something like, “It’s not a nice address, but it’s a funky address, goddamn it,” but who would I be kidding. It’s shit. That’s what I’ve made of the last ten years, the potentially most productive, conclusively most marketable years of my entire life. Shit.